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When a number of US-facing sweepstakes casino operators formed the Social and Promotional Games Association (SPGA) last year, Virtual Gaming Worlds (VGW) wasn’t among them. As the owner of the biggest and best-known sweeps casino brands like Chumba Casino and Luckyland Slots, its absence from the roster didn’t go unnoticed.
Now, VGW and a handful of other operators have formed an alternative group they call the Social Gaming Leadership Alliance (SGLA).
VGW founder and CEO Laurence Escalante said:
VGW has consistently led the way in innovation and player-first practices. Now, we’re excited to establish the SGLA with like-minded partners to take this further, promoting the highest standards of player protection and industry integrity while advocating for sensible regulatory frameworks that reflect the role of online social games as a safe and growing component of the interactive entertainment industry.
The SPGA emerged hastily at a time when sweepstakes casinos were facing backlash on multiple fronts, and several legislative efforts aimed at banning them. Most of those efforts have since fizzled out.
With many states’ legislative sessions now finished or just wrapping up, the SGLA’s launch comes at a time when the overall temperature of the situation is lower. Whereas the SPGA came out strongly against the anti-sweeps proposals, the goal of the SGLA may be more geared toward helping the industry’s image during this downtime, to avoid a repeat next year.
It also has as its Executive Director someone who knows how to navigate political circles: former federal Congressman Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina.
A more exclusive club?
VGW never provided any reason for not joining the SPGA, but the positioning of the SGLA may provide some clues.
The SGLA website and VGW’s press release about its launch both emphasize specific voluntarily-adopted compliance measures:
- Robust age-verification practices (VGW raised its minimum age to 21 this year)
- Free-to-play
- Financial crime prevention and data protection measures
- Other responsible gambling tools
Because social casinos aren’t formally regulated, each company differs somewhat in its approach. VGW and the other founding members of the SGLA may not have wanted to associate themselves with some of the SPGA’s membership, if the latter had a more permissive approach.
The SGLA also makes clear on its website that it does not consider sports-related social gaming products legal. Although operators like Fliff use a similar model to the sweepstakes casinos, there are federal laws that relate to sports betting that make their legal status more complicated.
For instance, federal courts have established that the Wire Act’s prohibitions on interstate transmission of betting data don’t apply to anything except sports betting.
