Editorial independence
The Sweepstakes Legality Tracker is published by Sweepstakes Wiz, which also operates commercial casino reviews. The tracker is editorially independent of that review business: it carries no affiliate links, accepts no operator funding for placement, and its legal-status labels are never influenced by commercial relationships. Where our commercial pages suppress affiliate promotion for legal reasons, this tracker still reports the neutral legal status of each jurisdiction.
Sourcing hierarchy
We weight sources in this order, and never change a status label on a single low-tier source alone:
- Tier 1 — Official government. State legislatures, attorney-general offices, gaming commissions, and court records (via LegiScan bill tracking and primary filings).
- Tier 2 — Tier-1 journalism. AP, Reuters, and comparable outlets with published editorial standards.
- Tier 3 — Industry trade press with editorial standards.
- Tier 4 — Other sources used only as corroboration, never as the sole basis for a change.
Update cadence
The dataset refreshes daily via an automated pipeline that pulls LegiScan bill activity and vetted news feeds. Each state row records both alast auto-updated and a last reviewed timestamp. Our coverage target is to review at least 70% of jurisdictions within any 7-day window.
Verification protocol
Two tracks keep automation honest:
- News events are auto-classified and published with a confidence score; low-confidence items are flagged for review before they surface.
- Status changes (a state moving between legal, gray, restricted, pending-ban, or banned) are always human-gated. A change requires a Tier-1 or Tier-2 source and editorial sign-off before the label updates.
Confidence levels
Each state carries a confidence rating (high / medium / low) reflecting how settled its legal posture is. Actively contested or fast-moving states are marked lower confidence even when a current label is assigned.
Corrections
We correct errors promptly and transparently. If you believe a status, source, or bill is wrong, contactour editorial team. Substantive corrections are reflected in the affected state's timestamps.
License & citation
The dataset is published underCC-BY 4.0. You may reuse it with attribution to Sweepstakes Wiz. Machine-readable endpoints are documented on the API page.