Social Casino RICO Lawsuit Targets Web Behemoths

A new lawsuit filed by a New Jersey resident, Julian Bargo, alleges he lost over $1,000 across several sweepstakes casinos.

The suit names four prominent social casinos as defendants, including High 5 Casino, McLuck, Wow Vegas, and CrownCoins Casino.

The RICO lawsuit also claims that Google and Apple both "knowingly assisted, promoted and profited from illegal gambling by allowing sweepstakes casino games on their platforms".

The lawsuit further claims that both companies benefit financially through the commissions they collect from apps hosted on their platforms, including social casino apps, and through the integration of their payment systems into these sweepstakes sites.

“The Gaming Defendants have succeeded in misleading regulators about the true nature of their operations for far too long,” the complaint read. Sweepstakes and social casinos are unregulated and do not require licensing, so it unclear what the plaintiff means in terms of how the groups are misleading regulators.

Just this month, it was announced by Google that they will become even more accommodating towards these social casinos.

"In December 2024, the Google Ads Personalized Ads policy will be updated to allow personalization for social casino game App campaigns. We will begin to allow these ads on December 4, 2024. All advertisers will gain the ability to personalize online social casino game App ads by the end of March 2025."

Gambling911.com will also begin dedicating more coverage to these casinos as well, also beginning in December.

Not all U.S. state regulators are happy with these so-called sweepstakes casinos.

More recently, Michigan regulators have cracked down on Chumba Casino and others.

By  Gilbert Horowitz Gilbert is the esteemed reporter for Gambling911 covering all gamuts of the industry.  He has been with the site for the better part of a decade.  Gilbert works out of the Miami Beach bureau.