The Best Sweepstakes Online Casinos in Illinois for July: A Guide to Legal Online Play in Illinois

This guide will tell you all about the Illinois sweepstakes casinos. This means that you’ll get to see how you can play thousands of casino-style games for free and redeem Sweepstakes Coins for real prizes.

You’ll get a crash-course in Illinois sweepstakes law so that you can see how these sites work. Plus we’ll highlight 10 sweeps casinos that you can play at in the Prairie State right now. Whether you’re based in Chicago, Springfield, Rockford, or anywhere else in IL, you’ll know what sweepstakes gaming is all about.

🚀 Are sweepstakes casinos legal in Illinois?

Yes, the Illinois sweepstakes law allows you to legally play at all of the sweeps casinos featured on this page. This is despite the fact that regular real-money online casinos aren’t legally available in the Prairie State.

You won’t find too many sweepstakes laws in Illinois that are different to what you’ll get anywhere else in the US. While New York sweepstakes casinos will have a cap on the value of the prizes that you can redeem with your Sweepstakes Coins, you can redeem as much as you want in IL if you meet the applicable redemption requirements. Just note that you will usually have to be at least 18 years old to play at Illinois sweepstakes casinos.

🎰 What is a sweepstakes casino?

Before we dig into the Illinois sweepstakes law, it’s probably smart to define what it means to play at a sweepstakes casino. Simply put, it’s a gaming site where you don’t actually need to spend real money on casino-style games, but instead play with virtual credit.

The fact that these sites don’t involve real-money gambling means that sweeps casinos aren’t subject to the same kinds of regulation that governs standard online casinos. So not only does it make Texas sweepstakes casinos legal, but it also means that you can play at these sweeps gaming platforms from anywhere in the Prairie State.

🤖 How do sweepstakes casinos comply with Illinois rules?

While Illinois sweepstakes casinos will come in a variety of shapes and sizes, they will all have to work in a roughly similar way. This means that, in order to satisfy the current Illinois sweepstakes law, they will need to incorporate the following features:

💵  How virtual currencies work at sweepstakes casinos

It’s worth taking a little time understanding how virtual currencies work at sweepstakes casinos because it is very different to playing with your own money.

Most sweepstakes casinos will have two virtual currencies that are called Gold Coins and Sweepstakes Coins, although there can be variety in the terminology. Here are how these virtual currencies function:

Sweepstakes Coins

This is the virtual currency that can be used to play the casino games in a sweepstakes mode. If you play through your Sweepstakes Coins the minimum number of times and win back the minimum amount, you can then redeem a prize.

Such prizes tend to include things like cash, gift cards and merchandise. Just note that Sweepstakes Coins have to be given away for free in order to comply with Illinois sweepstakes law.

Gold Coins

You can only use Gold Coins to play the casino games for fun. This means that any Gold Coins won cannot be transferred, withdrawn, exchanged or redeemed for anything else.

Gold Coins can either be given away for free, or you can purchase them as a bundle. Doing so could see you being given some free Sweepstakes Coins as an extra bonus.

Just note that you can usually use some of the following payment methods to purchase Gold Coins packages and redeem your Sweepstakes Coins for cash prizes:

• Credit and debit cards: Mastercard, Visa, Discover, American Express
• Ewallets: Venmo, Paypal
• ACH bank transfer
• Cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE

🎁 Promo offers at Illinois’ sweepstakes casinos

Above we noted that Sweepstakes Coins have to be given away for free. This means that you can sign up to any sweeps casino and get this kind of virtual currency via at least some of the following deals:

♣️ Games featured at sweepstakes casinos in Illinois

While each sweepstakes casino in Illinois will have different games on offer, you should find at least some of the following gaming genres featured at their sites:

Slot games

The vast majority of sweepstakes casinos will have hundreds of slot games. These can include simple three-reel slots to Megaways slots, hold and win slots and of course, those hugely popular jackpot slot games.

Roulette

It’s common to find sweepstakes casinos with roulette games that take in all of the main variants like American roulette, European roulette and so on. Plus some sites may even let you play roulette against a live dealer.

Card games

Lots of sweepstakes casinos have started introducing card games like blackjack, baccarat and poker that can either be played in a single-player mode or against a live dealer. Plus some sites might have everything from rummy and solitaire to teen patti and andar bahar.

Game show games

You might find some sweeps casinos that have live casino sections packed full of weird and wonderful game show games. These might be based on anything from boardgames to TV shows and they can give you a whole new way to play.

Instant win games

These are a new generation of casino game where the gameplay is usually pretty simple but you can land some fairly dramatic multipliers. Check out titles like Crash, HiLo and Mines for good examples of this.

🤩 Getting started with sweepstakes casinos in Illinois

It doesn’t matter whether you are using California sweepstakes casinos or sweeps casinos in Illinois, as most of these sites operate in the same way. Here is a quick rundown of what you need to do to get started with sweepstakes casinos in Illinois:

1. Visit any sweeps casinos from your web browser
2. Register your account by filling in the registration form
3. Create your username and password
4. Enter in any promo codes to get your welcome offer
5. Submit your application
6. Verify your ID by submitting a selfie and some photo ID
7. Browse the casino games
8. Click on a game to play from your web browser
9. Enter the amount of virtual credits you want to play with
10. Start playing

👍🏻  Simple tips for playing at sweepstakes casinos in Illinois

It’s only fair that we give you a few simple tips that you can use when playing at a sweepstakes casino for the first time. Perfect for avoiding too many rookie mistakes:

🎲 Pros and cons of using sweepstakes casinos

The way in which sweepstakes casinos work may be a little alien to some gamers, so here is a quick recap of the main pros and cons of using these gaming sites:

🎯 Legal sweepstakes casinos in Illinois- At a glance

The Illinois sweepstakes law is flexible enough to allow all of the biggest and best sweeps gaming brands to operate in the Prairie State. Check out this table to see which sites you could be playing at:

💎 Five sweepstakes brands for Illinois

Here are five sweeps brands that should give you a good idea of what is currently available in Illinois:

1. Stake.us

This is arguably the most biggest sweeps casino on the market right now. After all, not every sweeps casino has partnered up with Drake. Signing up to Stake.us from the banners on this page will get you an exclusive welcome bonus that gives you 260,000 Gold Coins to play for fun, 55 Sweeps Cash to potentially redeem for real world prizes, and 5% rakeback to give you a further helping hand.

There are nearly 800 casino-style games here, including slots from Pragmatic Play, scratchcards from Hacksaw Gaming, some live dealer games and, of course, those Stake Originals like Dice, Mines and Limbo. On top of this, Stake.us has lots of deals for existing customers ranging from daily races to a VIP club.

2. Wow Vegas

All slot gaming fans should have a good time at Wow Vegas. After all, this is a sweepstakes casino with over 1,200 slot games that you can play for free. These come from some prestigious gaming studios such as Pragmatic Play, 3 Oaks and BGaming to ensure that you get high-quality gameplay, graphics and audio.

Wow Vegas is a great site for promos too. The sign up offer will give you 1,750,000 Wow Coins and 35 Sweepstakes Coins. After that, you will find referral bonuses, exclusive games, race rewards, daily coin rewards and an excellent VIP star system. These bonuses are perfect for getting a helping hand towards potentially redeeming those real money prizes.

3. McLuck

This is one of the newest Illinois sweepstakes casinos to come on the market. McLuck offers a decent variety of games that includes nearly 2,000 slot games, as well as a live casino containing the likes of Gravity Blackjack and Auto Roulette.

McLuck will give you 57,500 Gold Coins and 27.5 Sweepstakes Coins for registering your first account, and from here you can keep playing and hope to trigger one of those McJackpots that will give you even more credits to play with.

4. High 5 Casino

Let’s start with the High 5 Casino welcome offer that gives you 250 Game Coins to play for fun, five Sweeps Coins that can potentially be used to redeem cash prizes and gift cards, and 600 Diamonds that can trigger the Boost on Demand feature.

From here, you can use that free credit to play well over 1,900 casino-style games. These contain many slots from developers like Vivo Gaming and Pragmatic Play, although it’s also worth noting that High 5 has its own exclusive slots here.

5. Vegas Gems

You can play over 500 casino-style games at Vegas Gems and the bulk of these are some classic slot games that come from big name developers such as SoftSwiss and Pragmatic Play. However, most gamers probably come here to play the more unusual games like Towers and Wheel that are more capable of triggering some huge multipliers.

Vegas Gems gives you a first purchase bonus upon signing up. So if you purchase one of the Shards packages, you’ll get 50% extra Gems to play with. Just so you know, Shards are used to play for fun, while Gems can be used to potentially redeem real-world prizes.

Social casinos you should look out for

🎉 Conclusion – It’s legal play at Illinois sweepstakes casinos

This guide has shown you that there is little to stop you from signing up to any sweeps casinos from anywhere in the Prairie State. This means that you could soon be playing anything from slots in Springfield to roulette in Rockford. Not only do each of these brands let you play for free, but you could even redeem Sweepstakes Coins for some prizes just for playing your favorite games.

Of course, the success of sweeps casinos means that we can expect many more of these brands to start popping up all over the state in the coming months. So keep an eye on this page to see even more sweepstakes casinos to come to Illinois.

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Illinois gambling overview compared to other States

❓ Illinois sweepstakes casinos FAQ