Sweeps cash casinos are available in almost every state in the US, offering terrific online casino gaming for the vast majority of the country. They are entirely legal and abide by the sweepstakes laws in each state where they operate.

Every sweeps cash casino is entirely free to play. Best of all, it is possible to redeem cash prizes with these sites and put actual money in your pocket. So if you’re interested, keep reading for the skinny on how all of these things are possible. Here is your one-stop guide to sweeps cash casinos in the United States.

If you are not in NJ, PA or WV, you still have the option of playing at sweepstakes or social casino sites. These sites offer similar games, allowing you to win cash prizes. Below is our list of recommended sites.

• WOW Vegas – Most paths to Sweeps Coins
• McLuck Casino – Best for loyalty rewards program
• High 5 Casino – Best for live dealer games
• Pulsz Casino – Standout table game selection

It’s all well and good to say that these sites are the best. Anyone can do that.

However, we’re not in the business of making bold claims without support. Here are some deeper looks at the three sweeps cash casinos that we have identified as standing above the rest.

WOW Vegas is the best sweeps site for committed slot players. It features boldly rendered games in a sleek, futuristic setting.

However, the real star of the show at WOW Vegas is its many pathways to get Sweeps Coins. There are so many different ways to get your hands on the redeemable currency at WOW Vegas. Frankly, we’ve never seen a site with eight different ways to get SC before.

WOW Vegas’ welcome bonus isn’t bad, either. New accounts receive 4.5 FREE Sweeps Coins right off the bat, and you can get 1.5 million WOW Coins and a whopping 30 FREE Sweeps Coins if you make a first-time purchase of $9.99.

The only ding on WOW Vegas is that it is only a free online slots site right now. Table game players are going to have to look elsewhere.

• What we liked about WOW Vegas: Pathways to Sweeps Coins, welcome bonus
• What we didn’t like about WOW Vegas: No table games

McLuck Casino is another great sweeps option for players, with a large selection of slots including titles from top developers like NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, Playson and others. What really makes McLuck Casino stand out, though, are its live dealer games, an option often found at real money casinos but not that frequently at sweeps sites. 

McLuck Casino runs frequent promos and social media giveaways, there are always McJackpots to win, and there is even a McLuck Casino VIP program.

The McLuck Casino welcome offer is a good one. Sign up using our bonus code PLAYBONUS and get 7,500 Gold Coins and 2.5 Sweepstakes Coins free. You can then get another 50,000 Gold Coins for $9.99, and McLuck will give you 25 more Sweepstakes Coins when you do.

While there aren’t any online table games at McLuck Casino, you can play live dealer versions of baccarat, blackjack and roulette. 

• What we liked about McLuck Casino: Live dealer games, welcome bonus
• What we didn’t like about McLuck Casino: No table games (other than the live dealer versions)

High 5 Casino is another relatively new social casino that has an especially large slot library of more than 1,000 titles. Many of the games are created “in-house” and exclusive to the site, but you’ll also find some familiar slots from Pragmatic Play and other developers. High 5 also has a nice selection of live dealer games with several blackjack tables, four kinds of roulette, baccarat and a casino poker game. 

Like other sweeps sites, High 5 has a significant social media presence where followers can take advantage of frequent competitions and giveaways. There is also a “Boosts on Demand” option on the site that lets you claim free spins, multiplier payouts, and feature boosts using your diamond balance.

When you sign up at High 5 Casino using our links, you’ll get a bonus right away of 250 Game Coins, 5 Sweeps Coins, and 600 Diamonds. Look for the pop-up as soon as you log on as well to claim still more Gold Coins and Diamonds.

There is no loyalty program as such at High 5 Casino, but there is Club High Five in the classic version of High 5. 

• What we liked about High 5 Casino: Great selection of table games and live dealer games
• What we didn’t like about High 5 Casino: No loyalty program

Pulsz Casino presents two problems right away. We aren’t certain how to pronounce the site’s name, and our auto-correct now hates us. However, we’re going to soldier through because Pulsz Casino is one of the very best sweeps cash casinos on the planet.

Pulsz catches the eye for several reasons. Its presentation is slick, its games are many, and it seems fairly generous about passing out its Sweeps Coins. However, what we like the most are its unique table games, which feature titles that you cannot find anywhere else, even among the vast majority of true online casinos.

Pulsz welcomes new players to the fold by handing them 2.3 FREE SC when they complete the registration process. Additionally, you can get 362,000 Gold Coins for just $19.99. With the purchase, Pulsz will also send 30 more FREE SC your way.

The one area that needs improvement is Pulsz’s loyalty program. The VIP Loyalty Program suffers from middle-of-the-road syndrome; the site either needs to go all-out with the program or disband it. Its current setup just isn’t worth the time.

• What we liked about Pulsz Casino: Table game diversity
• What we didn’t like about Pulsz Casino: Loyalty program could be improved

At this point, your head might be spinning a bit. The notion of legal casino gaming available online in your state seems too good to be true. So, what exactly is a sweeps cash casino?

A sweeps cash casino—often called a social casino—offers slots and table gaming just like any other online casino. However, because of its unique business model, a sweeps cash casino can operate legally in states that otherwise take a dim view of online casinos.

At this point, you can play on sweeps cash casinos reliably in 48 states in the country. The only holdouts are Washington and Idaho, both of which have stricter laws for online gambling than other states.

Sweeps cash casinos are otherwise able to offer service because they remain in compliance with the 48 states’ individual sweepstakes laws. In almost every case, sweepstakes law demands that contests wishing to operate under its codicils must conform to several conditions.

Though their language and application vary from state to state, all legal sweepstakes, from McDonald’s to Publishers Clearing House, must generally abide by the following rules:

• The contests must be free to enter.
• The sweepstakes must award its advertised prize.
• The prize must be distributed on or before a specific date and time.
• Contestants may not influence the outcome of the contest based on their purchases of products from the sweepstakes.

Now, the first thing to realize about these laws is that, amazingly, the PCH Prize Patrol really is a thing and really does award millions of dollars to people. It has to do so in order to be in good standing with the law.

However, as it pertains to online casinos, there is a particular challenge that the sites have to overcome. To be considered sweepstakes and not lotteries under the law, these sites use a dual currency system.

Option one must offer the ability to play the games on the site but cannot be redeemed for cash prizes at any time. It can, however, be bought directly for entertainment.

Option two can be redeemed for cash prizes. However, you cannot purchase this at any time.

The two options operate in parallel with each other and rarely, if ever, have any crossover. Both are viable for playing on the site, and you can usually play the same games with both.

Yes. Because it is technically free to acquire the redeemable coins and redeem it for cash prizes, sweeps cash casinos comply with sweepstakes laws.

However, the practice of awarding redeemable currency “for free” when you purchase the play money would not be sufficient to satisfy the law. After all, you’d still be required to buy something to get the coins, and that doesn’t work.

So, sweeps cash casinos offer several different methods for getting your hands on the cash prize-eligible coins. First, you usually receive a modicum of it when you sign up for an account. Second, the site usually gives you a small bit when you log into your account each day. Third, the site’s social media pages often hold contests and award redeemable currency as their prizes.

The most direct method, however, is that you can make a direct request to the sites to give you some of the prize-eligible money, and they are obliged to give it to you. However, this method does take some time, as it requires you to send a specially-sized, specially-written, and specially-addressed request via snail mail.

Sending a request can also be a frustrating and nerve-wracking experience, as the social and sweeps cash sites have an obvious motivation to make the process onerous. You’ll have to follow all of each site’s requirements for the request, including the use of exact wording and handwriting everything. If you have even a single typo, the site will likely disqualify the request as ineligible or invalid.

In essence, if you decide to make a purchase, you’re actually paying for the luxury of time, not the coins themselves. There are other ways to get the coins you want, but none are as definitive or straightforward as receiving them for free when you buy play money.

With so many options for sweeps cash casinos, it can be hard to decide which one to use. After all, it seems as though new social or sweepstakes casinos enter the market every few months, and it can be overwhelming to separate the wheat from the chaff—aside from our picks above, that is. So, here are the elements to consider whenever you’re looking at a new sweeps cash casino.

The first element to consider is how easy the casino is to navigate and use. A good sweeps cash casino should be fast, intuitively designed, and simple for any player to use. Take note of how quickly you can get to elements like the games, your account, and the site’s cashier. If a site is clunky, it’s more likely that other elements of the site are clunky, too. That’s a problem.

The next thing to observe is the volume and diversity of games. First of all, a good sweeps cash casino is going to have a long list of slots—ideally, more than a hundred. Second, the very top sweeps cash casinos have some table game options, too. Ideally, there is more than one; just having a blackjack game is a bit anemic.

Though it probably goes without saying, you need to feel safe when you play at a sweeps cash casino. You are likely going to provide both your data and your financial information to the site at some point, and you want it to be a good steward of those details. Investigate what steps the site undertakes to ensure player safety and network security. There should be plenty of encryption and other measures dedicated to fending off cyberattacks. If you cannot find any, either on the site or through conversations with customer support, look elsewhere to play.

One of the biggest differences between physical casinos and online casinos—the presence of no deposit online casino bonuses and promos online—is also present with sweeps cash casinos. You should be able to get a few bits of both currencies for free when you register for an account. In addition, your chosen site should not be stingy about periodically rewarding players with extra ways to secure prizes. It’s not the sign of a poorly run site if it doesn’t, but there’s just no reason to put up with a tight-fisted site in the face of so many generous alternatives.

The last thing to check is the depth and suitability of the site’s deposit and withdrawal options. It is absolutely critical that you have at least one method on both sides of the cashier that works for your financial situation. If not, what’s even the point of playing?

Now that you know how to choose your sweeps cash casino, let’s talk about playing. Though the sites are all different and competing with one another, the reality is that the sign-up procedure is fairly universal. Here’s what to do.

Use our link to access your site of choice, if possible. Many of our partners offer exclusive bonuses to players who join through our link, and you can advance your account balance simply by going to the site properly.

Sign up for an account. There should be a prominent button to go to the registration area. If you don’t see it, try the login page. Be prepared to furnish your name, phone number, and email address; those elements are universal. However, the sites don’t agree on whether you’ll need to provide your home address, date of birth, or Social Security number. So, have that information close by, but don’t be surprised if the site doesn’t ask (or doesn’t ask until you try to redeem coins for cash prizes).

Decide whether you’re going to play for redeemable cash. There is nothing wrong with keeping your engagement with a site purely for entertainment. However, if you do want to go for some cash prizes, you’ll need to start researching the different ways your particular site doles out the redeemable coins.

Purchase some play money—or don’t. As mentioned above, there’s never a time that you’ll have to spend your money to get the redeemable coins, but you can cut a lot of your wait time down if you buy some play money and get some redeemable SC for free along with your purchase. If you’re not planning on redeeming the coins at any point, then it’s largely a moot point.

Play! Most of the games behave exactly as they seem and as you’d expect. The colors and graphics of most sweeps cash casino games are bright, vibrant, and visually appealing. Everyone has different reasons for the games they choose, but none of those reasons are wrong. Play the games that call out to you.

One last thing about getting started that we want to mention is that, regardless of your ultimate intentions, start on the play money side. Even if you have plans to build a giant bankroll of redeemable currency that you can exchange for cash prizes, it’s foolish to start playing for SC before you’ve gotten the hang of your chosen game(s). Since you have a perfectly valid way to test drive a game before you go for the big prizes, you should take advantage of it whenever you decide to try something new.

Every sweeps cash or social casino of any merit uses a dual coin system to stay in compliance with sweepstakes law. This business model was largely pioneered by Chumba Casino. Thus, the names of the currencies and how they operate often pay homage to and/or use Chumba’s terminology.

Because of Chumba’s influence, we typically use Chumba’s coin names as broad umbrella terms for sweeps cash casino coins. Specifically, Chumba (and sister site Luckyland Slots) uses the terms “Gold Coins” and “Sweeps Coins.” So, if you see references to either term, understand that we mean the coins in a general sense and as a shorthand.

To clarify, “Gold Coins” are purchasable coins with no cash value or possibility for redemption. You can always buy Gold Coins or your site’s equivalent at any time and play with them however you wish.

“Sweeps Coins,” on the other hand, are non-purchasable coins that bear the possibility of redemption for cash prizes or gift cards. Because these coins are the “real deal,” so to speak, they must not ever be available in a direct sale scenario. You can only get Sweeps Coins for free; it’s the law.

With all that said, some sites put their own spin on their coin names. So, for our sites identified as the cream of the crop, here is a list of the coin options they use:

• WOW Vegas – WOW Coins and Sweepstakes Coins
• McLuck Casino – Gold Coins and Sweepstakes Coins
• High 5 Casino – Game Coins and Sweeps Coins
• Pulsz – Gold Coins and Sweepstakes Coins

As we mentioned in our list of criteria for selecting a sweeps cash casino, game diversity is important. Every site has slots, but the mix of table games at each site varies wildly. You may have to have a rotation of sites if there are certain games you simply must play. So, at least as far as the overall best sites available, here are the games you’ll find:

• Blackjack (Pulsz)
• Classic Dice (Pulsz)
• Texas Hold’em Poker 3D (Pulsz)
• Hi-Lo (Pulsz)
• Live Dealer Games (McLuck & High 5)
• Slots (All four sites)

Many of these games are self-explanatory in terms of what to expect. Slots are slots. Blackjack is blackjack. Video poker is, well, video poker.

However, some of the other games are a bit more curious. Here’s a brief explanation of some of the esoteric options on the list.

Despite its name, Pulsz’s Classic Dice is probably not what you think. After all, for most casino veterans of any stripe, dice are most associated with craps.

This game is not craps. Instead, it’s a game of betting on the outcome of a 100-sided dice roll, which is little more than a random number generator. You set a slider at a number between 1 and 95, then wager whether the rolled number will be over or under the slider’s number.

As you may have noticed, the dice can roll anywhere between 0 and 99, while you can only choose between 1 and 95 on the slider. Thus, like all other casino games, there is an inherent house advantage.

Texas Hold’em Poker 3D has a fancy name and an intriguing visual look, but it is much closer to an existing table game than some of its brethren. In many ways, the game plays much like Ultimate Texas Hold’em, only through the lens of a Wild West theme and visuals designed to give the impression of depth. Bob Ross would be proud of the latter part.

In this game, you are attempting to assemble a five-card hand of poker from two cards in your hand and five community cards laid across the table. Your goal is to assemble a hand that is of higher value than the dealer’s hand, assembled from those same five community cards and two dealer cards.

To start, you place a first bet as an ante and receive two cards. You have the option of calling or folding, but calling will require you to put out an additional bet worth double your original ante. Folding simply causes the ante bet to be lost.

Calling also triggers the game to put out the flop (the first three community cards). You now have the option of either checking or betting. If you bet, you will bet an amount equal to your ante. If you check, then nothing happens. Either way, the dealer will place the turn (the fourth community card).

From there, you’ll have the same choice you had on the flop. You can either bet or check. One thing to note, though, is that there is nothing wrong with checking the flop and betting the turn if your hand improves. You just won’t be paid on the flop bet if your hand wins.

No matter the choice, the dealer will deal the river (the fifth community card), and both your and the dealer’s hands will be revealed. The winner is determined using standard hold’em rules, and if you have a winning hands, all of your active bets on the board will receive a 1:1 payout.

Pulsz’s Classic Hi-Lo is, more or less, exactly the game it seems to be. From a standard deck of cards, you are guessing whether the next card drawn will be higher or lower than the previous one. If you were ever a fan of the classic game show Card Sharks, you already have a deep understanding of the way the game works.

So, Classic Hi-Lo is a very simple game at its core. Pick the correct position of the next card, and you win. Cards on the other side result in a loss. Ties count as a winning condition.

When you are choosing between the two options for the next card, you receive two additional pieces of information. The first bit of data is the percentage chance that the next card will be either higher or lower. Obviously, as you approach the extremes in the deck—aces are the lowest cards, and kings are the highest—the percentages skew dramatically in one direction or the other.

The other piece of information provided is the multiple of your bet amount that you can win with each option. These multiples tip in the opposite direction, with increasing multiples as outcomes become less likely.

The catch in the game and the source of its house advantage lies with these two pieces of data. If you do some simple calculations based on the percentages given, you’ll discover that the multiple offered is much lower than the odds suggest.

For instance, let’s say that your card is a 10 of spades. The odds suggest that you will draw a card higher or the same as the 10 are 30.77%, and the odds of drawing a card lower or the same as the 10 are 76.92%.

However, the advertised payouts for these percentages are 3.15x and 1.26x, respectively. Well, that’s a problem because if we divide 100% by the two percentages, our outcomes are 3.25 and 1.3, respectively.

These outcomes represent what the multiples should be according to the odds. So, in this case, you’re surrendering 0.1x and 9.04x of value when you get paid. According to the game rules, the overall house advantage is about 3%, but it varies based on the cards drawn.

Finally, you may have noticed that the two percentages add up to more than 100%. The additional percentage is due to the fact that drawing the same value card is also a winning condition. You have a slightly better chance of picking a winner than if ties were pushes or losses.

As noted, both McLuck Casino and High 5 Casino offer live dealer games, which is a relatively new development at sweeps cash sites.

Live dealer games combine the convenience of online play with the social aspect of visiting a retail casino and playing the games in person. A dealer in a studio manages the games, dealing cards or spinning the roulette wheel as you place your bets at home or on the go using a mobile device. Often there are opportunities to interact with the dealer and even sometimes with fellow players. 

By this point, you may be wondering if there is any difference between a sweeps cash casino and a real money casino. In truth, as you’re playing, you may forget that your chosen site is playing with a different set of rules than a true online casino. However, there are a few key differences.

The first major difference is how straightforward your financial transactions are with a real money casino vis-a-vis a sweeps cash casino. With a real money casino, you deposit cash and withdraw cash—end of story. There is no need to switch between currencies or jump through any additional hoops to make things move. Minimum deposit online casinos can be a great way of dipping your toe in the water.

The other big difference is that you are much more likely to find loyalty or rewards programs associated with real money casinos than you are to find them on sweeps cash casinos. This difference is especially pronounced with regard to in-person comps and benefits, like restaurant and hotel vouchers, as sweeps cash casinos don’t have any significant ties to land-based casinos.

So, if you live in or are traveling to a state with real money online casinos, there are definitely reasons to play. However, if you are fine with the way things work on sweeps cash casinos, there’s nothing wrong with sticking with them. At the very least, you’ll be able to play on sweeps sites in far more places than you can the real money varieties.

Like all things in life, sweeps cash casinos come with strengths and drawbacks. For the most part, the pros of playing on these sites outweigh the cons. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, we should discuss both sides of the (sweeps) coin for a moment.

• ✅ – Free to play and win. One of the greatest parts of sweeps cash casinos is its most basic rule. It must not cost you a dime to play the games on a sweeps cash casino or to redeem cash prizes.
• ✅ – Almost every state allows them. With the exception of Washington, Idaho, and (sometimes) Nevada, you can play at sweeps cash casinos everywhere in the US. Even states that take a harder line on online gambling sites, or gambling in general, allow them to operate so long as they conform with the sweepstakes laws on the books.
• ✅ – Simple site design. Sweeps cash casinos are still quite reliant on browser-based offerings more than mobile apps. As such, they must be as universal for users as they can be, and that means simple, intuitive site design. You will not be getting lost with most sweeps cash casinos.

• ⛔️ – Difficult to get Sweeps Coins. Although it’s free to play for cash prizes on sweeps cash casinos, they don’t make it particularly easy to do so. Though there are several free ways to play, the easiest and clearest way to get SC is to purchase Gold Coins and receive SC for free along with the purchase.
• ⛔️ – Dual currencies are confusing. The learning curve associated with getting your head around the notion of the two currencies on sweeps cash sites is a bit steep. It can take a minute to understand the differences between the two, and you might find yourself unnecessarily confused about the way it works with these sites.
• ⛔️ – Bonus offers are sparse. Sweeps cash casinos are less likely to offer bonuses or promotional opportunities to players than real money casinos. You may get an odd offer from time to time, but nowhere nearly as consistently as you would receive with a true online casino.

All in all, we still believe that sweeps cash casinos bear more upsides than downsides. We only bring up these cons because it’s important to play with your eyes wide open.

Yes. Hard as it may be to believe, you can redeem one of the currencies for cash prizes. Alternatively, some sweeps cash casinos may give you the option to receive your prize as a gift card to a particular retailer or restaurant.

Yes. By law, it must be possible to get SCs for free. However, the sweeps cash casinos don’t always make it easy.

Yes, but not universally. Slot games play the same, for the most part. Table games may be rote versions of their common appearances, but there may be some unique side bets. Occasionally, a sweeps cash casino may even offer you the chance to play a game you’ve never seen before; Pulsz is pretty good about this aspect.

Sometimes. Sweeps cash casinos have emphasized their browser gaming over mobile apps, but there are a few sites that do offer an app. In general, you are more likely to find sweeps cash apps with the Google Play Store than with the Apple Store, but the availability varies from site to site.

In almost every case, no. Part of the way that sweeps cash casinos stay in the good graces of the law is by divorcing the two currencies entirely from one another. With the exception of the rare tournament, where Gold Coins are the buy-in and SCs are the prize, there is no way to move your GC balance into the SC column.

If you are interested primarily in redeeming SC for cash prizes, you might be wondering why you’d ever use Gold Coins. In truth, you may not use them very much. However, GC are the best option for trying out new games on your chosen site. A game should bear no surprises for you when you use Sweeps Coins to play, and GC are a great way to eliminate the unknown aspects.

Though it seems fanciful, all of these casinos are legal entities. They mostly have offices in the US and comply with all relevant US and state laws. The only exceptions, as mentioned, are Washington and Idaho (particularly Washington). Unless you live in those areas, you can play these sites without any concern about the legal ramifications.