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Online casinos aren’t legal in Arizona (yet), but a new online lottery lounge from the Arizona Lottery gives bettors a taste of what it would be like to live in an iGaming state.
The Lottery recently announced the launch of Lucky Lounge, an online gambling platform that allows players to participate in sweepstakes, drawings and games.
How Arizona Lottery’s Lucky Lounge works
While online casinos are banned in Arizona, sweepstakes casinos like Lucky Lounge are not. The difference? Lucky Lounge players use virtual currency to participate in games, whereas online casinos require real money to play.
How to get started
Arizona gamblers can play Lucky Lounge games by completing a quick sign-up process that does not require an initial deposit. All Lucky Lounge signups take place through the Arizona Lottery Players Club app.
How to play Lucky Lounge games
Once signed up, players receive a no deposit sweepstakes bonus of 50 tokens. They can use those tokens to enter sweepstakes, drawings, and games. Here’s how the entry fees break down:
- Sweepstakes and drawings: 250-500 tokens
- Games: 10-60 tokens
Sweepstakes and drawings offer prizes up to $10,000.
How to get more tokens
If players run out of tokens, they can earn more tokens one of two ways. First, they get 50 tokens each day they long in. Second, they can earn tokens by depositing money to their Lucky Lounge account:
- $5 deposit: 5,000 tokens
- $10 beposit: 11,000 tokens
- $20 deposit: 25,000 tokens
- $50 deposit: 75,000 tokens
Will online casino become a reality in Arizona?
Over the past five years, the US gaming market has exploded thanks to the growth of sports betting. During that time, more than 30 states (including Arizona) have legalized sports betting either for in-person wagering, mobile betting, or both.
However, online casinos have not experienced the same boom. Only six states offer online casinos while Rhode Island just legalized it and hopes to launch in 2024:
- Delaware online casinos
- Michigan online casinos
- Nevada online casinos
- New Jersey online casinos
- Pennsylvania online casinos
- West Virginia online casinos
Arizona’s lack of online casinos is not an anomaly, as most states don’t offer online casinos.
The state has no legislation in the works to legalize iGaming, either. This may leave Arizona gamblers to wonder: Is Lucky Lounge a precursor to a move toward online casinos? The answer to that question is a tough one.
The state lottery launching its new gaming lounge keeps all sweepstakes, drawings and games in-house. It faces no competition from other online gaming sources. In that sense, Lucky Lounge could just be the latest way for the lottery to generate revenue without competition.
At the same time, proponents of online casinos, which bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue each year for states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, could use Lucky Lounge as an example of how Arizonans want more online gaming.
And if legislators chose to create legislation for online casino, consultants from other states where iGaming launched would likely be more than happy to help stakeholders map out a way to move Arizona online casino from a concept to a reality.
