Another notable sweepstakes casino is permanently shutting down.
Via an email to its players and a banner on its home screen, Kickr has announced it will cease operations on March 31.
“Kickr will be ceasing operations,” the banner reads. “Be sure to play and redeem your bucks prior to March 31st.”
And here is a snippet from the email:
“We’re reaching out to share an important update: Kickr will be closing down at the end of March 2026. We’ve made the difficult decision to close down Kickr due to shifting market conditions and our parent company’s strategic decision to focus on new verticals and brands.”
Kickr was launched by VGW founder Laurence Escalante
Laurence Escalante, the founder of Virtual Gaming Worlds (which owns Chumba Casino, Global Poker, LuckyLand Slots, LuckyLand Casino, and United Slots), also founded Kickr. He established the platform in 2023 through his private family office, Lance East Office, structuring it as a standalone operation separate from VGW.
His dual role caused some tension among VGW investors, who questioned the optics of him overseeing two sweepstakes casino companies simultaneously. But those issues effectively disappeared in August 2025, when Escalante completed a buyout of VGW’s shareholders.
More recently, however, Escalante has been hit with multiple drug-related charges and faces additional allegations including family violence, aggravated assault, and burglary. He has since stepped away from his duties, taking a leave of absence as CEO of VGW.
Part of a larger trend of operator shutdowns
Kickr’s shutdown, of course, is not by any means necessarily connected to Escalante’s legal troubles. The sweepstakes gaming market in the United States is continually shrinking, as lawmakers pass new laws banning sweeps casinos and regulators and Attorney General’s offices around the country issue cease-and-desist orders.
Many sweeps casinos have similarly shut down over the last six months, including LuckyStars Casino, OnPoint Casino, Turbo Stakes Casino, Vivaro.us, Bitsler.io, Starlight Casino, Vegas Coins, and Betty Sweeps. For smaller operators that haven’t been able to carve out legitimate share of the addressable market, losing jurisdictions like California, New York, and New Jersey were critical blows that cut into the viability of continuing to operate.
Although connected to a huge name like Escalante, Kickr never established itself as a major operator in the sweeps space — and the “shifting market conditions” (likely referring to the shrinking total addressable market) it highlighted in the email to players may have been too much to overcome long term.
What is Kickr’s parent company?
Kickr is technically owned and operated by Kickr Games Pty Ltd.
But the “parent company” it referred to in the email is not VGW. Rather, it’s a company called Pixel Pioneers, a boutique gaming firm based in Australia.
And that company’s “strategic decision to focus on new verticals and brands” is in reference to Pixel investing in exploring new verticals.
