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Tennessee conference committee reinstates sweepstakes ban into bill prior to passage

Legal Writer

Publish Date: Apr 28, 2026

Fact checked by: Matt Moreno

Key Points

SB2136 has cleared both chambers of the Tennessee legislature and is headed to Gov. Bill Lee for his signature.
An earlier House-approved version of the legislation removed all references to sweepstakes casinos from SB2136.
Tennessee could become the 10th US state with explicit provisions banning sweepstakes casinos.

Members of the Tennessee House of Representatives and state Senate gathered on Thursday to iron out a uniform version of SB2136, of which the chambers had approved disparate versions. Their efforts resulted in the two bodies approving the conference committee report later that day, preparing to send the legislation to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee for potential final enactment.

Despite earlier actions in the House to amend the bill, SB2136, as engrossed for transmission to Lee, includes tenets that would ban the operation of sweepstakes casinos in Tennessee. The language of the bill would make the state inhospitable to such gaming, should SB2136 become law.

tennessee state capitol building

SB2136 conference committee revives sweepstakes casino ban

On April 21, the House approved SB2136 after inserting an amendment that removed substantial portions of the bill that the Senate passed in March. The Senate rejected the changes, though, setting up the four-member conference committee.

The conference committee worked quickly, submitting a report to both chambers on Thursday. Later in the day, the Senate approved the new version of SB2136 25-5 and the House did the same, 69-17, with one abstention.

Those provisions that the earlier House-approved version removed included language classifying sweepstakes casinos as gambling and banning the games. However, the conference committee revived much of that text, and that is the version that stands ready for transmission to Lee.

Implications of SB2136 for sweepstakes casinos

SB2136 is set to take effect immediately upon enactment. When he officially takes receipt of the bill, Lee has 10 days to act upon it.

Should Lee choose to do nothing, the bill would become law after the expiration of that 10-day period. SB2136 has several provisions related to sweepstakes casinos.

Most importantly, the legislation defines sweepstakes casino sites as gambling and classifies them as illegal in Tennessee. The bill also bans promoting or providing other services to sweepstakes casino sites.

SB2136 classifies violations of those bans as simultaneous violations of Tennessee’s consumer protection statute as well. Furthermore, the bill expands the powers of Tennessee’s attorney general to investigate and prosecute allegations associated with illegal gambling.

The consumer protection and attorney general authority expansion provisions could be what convinces those sweepstakes casinos still working with players in the state to scale back their operations. Many of them have already done so, though.

US map set to shrink for sweepstakes casinos again

Should Tennessee enact SB2136, one fifth of U.S. states would have some form of explicit restriction on sweepstakes casinos. Tennessee would technically be the fourth state to put such a ban in place so far in 2026, although California’s legislature approved its bill in late 2025.

Several sweepstakes casino operators pulled back on their operations or exited Tennessee altogether in the early months of 2025 after Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti sent cease-and-desist demands. SB2136 would build on those actions by giving Skrmetti the option to pursue criminal charges for non-compliance.

Barring a successful veto by Lee, the conference committee’s efforts to ban sweepstakes casinos in Tennessee are days away from proving successful. Sweepstakes casino operators’ labor to incorporate their games into regulated gaming systems has simultaneously produced another failure.

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