Wyoming lawmakers are continuing to weigh how the state should handle sweepstakes casinos, but a decision will have to wait. The Select Committee on Gaming reviewed competing approaches during its Oct. 5-6 meetings in Rock Springs without holding a vote on either proposal.
The hearing presented lawmakers with two significantly different options. One draft would expand Wyoming’s professional gambling restrictions to cover online casino-style games and sweepstakes platforms, effectively prohibiting the sector. The other would authorize online sweepstakes while establishing a regulatory framework for companies serving customers in Wyoming.
The prohibition proposal, identified as draft 27LSO-0098, would add operating online casinos or sweepstakes games to Wyoming’s definition of professional gambling. It would also reach businesses that knowingly provide certain services supporting those operations, including payment processing, geolocation, hosting, gaming content and advertising. Individual players would be exempt from the expanded definition.
Wyoming’s other option takes the opposite approach. Rather than prohibit the sweepstakes model, lawmakers could create specific requirements governing how operators conduct business in the state. The regulatory proposal includes measures involving age requirements, geolocation, self-exclusion and spending controls. That would provide a defined framework for the sector instead of incorporating sweepstakes gaming into the state’s gambling prohibition.
Wyoming Gaming Commission Executive Director Nick Larramendy participated in the committee’s consideration of the proposals. The meeting also provided opportunities for public comment as lawmakers examined how sweepstakes platforms operate and what role, if any, the state gaming regulator should have in overseeing them.
Larramendy discussed concerns surrounding consumer safeguards, including age verification. He also told lawmakers that enforcement is affected by the Gaming Commission’s available spending authority. Those issues add another layer to the policy debate because lawmakers are considering not only whether sweepstakes gaming should be permitted, but also what resources would be required for oversight or enforcement.
The lack of a vote leaves Wyoming’s position on sweepstakes casinos unchanged following the October hearing. It also continues a debate that was already underway earlier in 2026. A previous effort to move forward with a prohibition proposal stalled during committee discussions in August, meaning lawmakers still have not settled on a preferred legislative direction.
Wyoming is considering the issue while other states take their own approaches to sweepstakes gaming. Some jurisdictions have pursued restrictions or enforcement actions, while the legal and regulatory treatment of these platforms continues to vary by state. That broader activity gives Wyoming lawmakers several policy models to examine, but it does not determine which approach the state will ultimately select.
For now, neither the prohibition proposal nor the regulatory alternative has advanced as the committee’s chosen approach. The October meetings functioned as another stage in Wyoming’s interim review rather than producing an immediate change in state law.
The issue could resurface when lawmakers begin work during the 2027 legislative session. If either concept eventually moves forward, it would still have to pass through the normal legislative process before changing Wyoming law. Until then, the central question remains unresolved: whether Wyoming will prohibit sweepstakes casinos, regulate them under a new framework or continue examining other options.
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