A well-known site in the sweepstakes gaming industry has added two states to its list of excluded territories.
Funzpoints, which launched in 2018 and has become one of the most established sweeps casino brands alongside the likes of Chumba Casino and Pulsz, is now officially off limits in Connecticut and Maryland, per a Aug. 27 update to its terms of service.
Its full list of excluded states is now:
- Connecticut
- Idaho
- Louisiana
- Michigan
- Maryland
- Montana
- New Jersey
- New York
- Nevada
Both social and sweeps games are blocked
It’s important to note these are excluded states for both the social games and the sweepstakes promotions at Funzpoints. That means players in these states cannot play sweepstakes games with Premium Funzpoints, which can be redeemed for cash, and cannot play social games with Standard Funzpoints, which cannot be redeemed for anything.
This is a different strategy than the one employed by VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker) and a handful of other operators. When most sweeps casinos block access in a United States jurisdiction, they shut down their entire platform, like Funzpoints, owned by Canada-based Woopla Inc.
But VGW and others only pull their sweeps options from the jurisdiction but allow players to continue playing the social casino games — and, thus, continue purchasing digital currency packages.
These games can still generate a considerable amount of revenue. Just ask Light & Wonder, a leading iGaming content developer that generated $200 million in quarter two revenue from its social casinos, such as Jackpot Party Casino and 88 Fortunes, that follow the same model as the social options at Funzpoints, Chumba Casino, Pulsz, etc.
Why Connecticut and Maryland?
The Connecticut Legislature passed a bill, Senate Bill 1235, banning both sweeps casinos and lottery couriers in June, and Gov. Ned Lamont signed it days later.
SB1235 took effect on July 1, 2025.
Funzpoints may have unofficially pulled its sweeps platform from Connecticut before Aug. 27, but that’s the day the state was officially included in the terms of service’s excluded states.
In Maryland, Woopla Inc. received a cease-and-desist letter from the state’s gambling regulator on June 3. The letter claimed Woopla Inc. (operating as Funzpoints in Maryland) was “offering and conducting online gaming activities in Maryland without legal authority to do so.”
“Your failure to comply with this letter,” it continues, “may jeopardize the ability of Funzpoints to ever be issued” any type of gambling or gaming license if it seeks one in Maryland in the future.
One of the most prominent states when it comes to cease-and-desists, Maryland has also sent such letters to Fliff, Fortune Coins, Golden Heart Games, High 5 Casino, Clubs Poker and Clubs Casino, McLuck, WOW Vegas, Legendz, Rebet, Sportzino, Stake.us, Pulsz, and VGW (Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots, Global Poker), among others.
As a result, Maryland is one of the most common additions to sweeps operators’ exclusion lists outside the states that have actually signed sweeps bans into law — Connecticut, Montana, and New Jersey. (Gov. Kathy Hochul is expected to sign New York’s by the end of the year.)
Louisiana is in the same boat. Although Gov. Jeff Landry vetoed the sweeps ban bill the Louisiana Legislature passed in June, the state briskly issued cease-and-desist letters to a whopping 42 offshore betting and sweeps gaming sites, establishing the state as an off-limits zone for the operators who received those letters (and some who didn’t as well).
