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New York bill clarifies state’s sweepstakes casino definition in proposed advertising ban

Legal Writer

Publish Date: Apr 30, 2026

Fact checked by: Matt Moreno

Key Points

S10092 updates the definition of a sweepstakes casino codified in a 2025 law.
New provisions could affect social gaming platform access for New Yorkers.
The bill bans online advertising targeting minors.

Operating a sweepstakes casino is already illegal in New York but a new bill in the state Senate may expand restrictions on advertising to online platforms that offer casino-style games without the use of a dual-currency system. The legislation would not necessarily ban playing such games, merely create new rules around advertising for the platforms offering the games in terms of age appropriateness.

The proposal calls for New York’s attorney general to create regulations on the subject if it becomes law, meaning the exact standards for what would constitute a violation of the statute are unclear. For social gaming platforms that allow people in New York to participate, the bill means the potential for a new level of scrutiny.

New York S10092 aims to create new rules for online advertising

New York Sen. Samra G. Brouk filed S10092 on Tuesday, following which the bill was assigned to the body’s Internet and Technology Committee. The legislation’s summary states that under its tenets, “certain covered platforms and social media platforms are prohibited from advertising a service permitting gaming-related gambling, predictive market wagering, online sweepstakes gaming, sports-related gambling, and/or traditional online gambling to minors.”

The bill charges the New York attorney general’s office with creating regulations to determine what would constitute advertising these products to minors. Such rules already exist in New York to an extent covering advertisements for gambling at physical gaming facilities and online sports wagering.

S10092 would expand those regulations to include the online gaming opportunities mentioned like sweepstakes casinos. The bill also features an update to New York’s parameters for that classification.

In terms of age appropriateness rules for online ads, New York wouldn’t make much of a distinction between social gaming platforms that use or don’t use a dual-currency sweepstakes model should S10092 become law. The definition of sweepstakes casinos in the bill differs in substantial ways from that which New York enacted in its 2025 sweepstakes casino ban.

The most important part of the proposed language in S10092 is that the new definition would include “direct consideration or indirect consideration, for which the user playing or participating may become eligible for a prize, award, cash, or cash equivalents or a chance to win a prize, award, cash, or cash equivalents.”

The inclusion of “indirect consideration” opens the advertising restrictions to potentially apply to social gaming platforms that don’t use the dual-currency system that sweepstakes casinos routinely utilize. An example would be a “social casino” site that many land-based casino operators maintain as a marketing tool.

Purely “social” gaming platforms differ from typical sweepstakes casinos in that gameplay tokens cannot be purchased and there are no secondary currencies that players can redeem for prizes. The game tokens are free and there are no prizes of any value equivalent to cash.

Sweepstakes casinos usually offer players a way to purchase game coins and feature a second currency that may be exchanged for prizes. Such games are illegal for anyone in New York to play regardless of age.

To be clear, existing New York statutes already ban people under the age of 18 playing casino-style games on social casino sites. S10092 would create restrictions around online advertising for these games regarding age appropriateness.

Should the bill become law, New York would heighten scrutiny for online advertising for more forms of online gaming. In doing so, it would equate social casinos to sweepstakes casinos in a new way.

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