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Two sides who famously have not seen eye-to-eye in recent years have found commonality over their concerns regarding the proliferation of sweepstakes gaming in the U.S. 

Jeremy Kudon, president of the Sports Betting Alliance that represents FanDuel, DraftKings, BetMGM, and Fanatics, appeared on the Indian Gaming Association’s “The New Normal” podcast, less than two years after the alliance and California tribes were responsible for the most expensive ballot measure campaign in U.S. history, which resulted in the overwhelming defeat of two sports-betting measures.

However, the two sides now have mutual concerns over the rising popularity of sweepstakes gaming in the U.S.

“My new best friend,” Victor Rocha, conference chairman of the Indian Gaming Association jokingly introduced Kudon as, acknowledging the checkered past between the tribes and the alliance.

“Our intentions were pure, but we learned a lot from that, and we learned to allow the tribes to lead going forward,” Kudon said.  “You always look at these things as the worst thing that could ever happened, and I think ultimately we’re going to see the failure to be one of the best things that happened, because we’ve learned how important it is to follow your lead and the tribes lead and work together and do what we can.”

Rocha and his co-host Jason Giles, executive director of the National Indian Gaming Association, are in the midst of a five-week series focusing on sweepstakes coming out of the Global Gaming Expo earlier this month in Las Vegas where sweepstakes was the dominant topic of conversation.

"We have an industry that is going to Wall Street and saying, listen, you give me $100m. I'll give you a billion down the road, this is where we're going to make our money in California,” Rocha said. “I missed the magnitude of this thing, but my eyes are wide open now, the California tribes eyes are open now, and I think everyone in California is very aware that this is ongoing."

“It’s much more prevalent than I think any of us fully appreciated,” Kudon said, adding that much of the rise happened while stakeholders were concerned with other verticals, most notably pick’em daily fantasy sports. “It’s amazing how long this went kind of under the radar, all of the focus on the PrizePicks and the Underdogs and maybe we were missing the bigger issue.”

Kudon demonstrated play on several different prominent sweepstakes sites, including the social casino High 5 Casino and sweepstakes sportsbook Fliff, which Kudon said was “widespread at college campuses across the country.”

“My kids go to school in Missouri, most of their friends have Fliff accounts,” he said.

Kudon said, in his opinion, the existence of sweepstakes operators is unfair not just for operating in states that regulated entitles are prohibited from, but also for operating a similar product in regulated states without having to comply with the same regulations.

“Why would we let Fliff avoid paying a $25m license fee that my clients had to pay, the 51 percent tax that my clients pay on every dollar that they make in New York, and the very long list of regulations that my clients have to comply with,” he asked. “Those guys don’t do any of those things.”

Kudon called for regulated stakeholders to unite to “root out the unregulated gaming,” drawing parallels to the hit HBO show Game of Thrones in how the issue has been addressed to date.

“I think G2E was sort of the white walker moment in that show, you have all these warring groups and they’re just so focused on each other, and meanwhile, the real problem is over the wall,” he said. “Between the VGT operators, you’ve got the brick and mortar casinos, you’ve got the tribes, you’ve got us, and we’ve all been sort of battling in these states and going after each other, and meanwhile the real problem is right over there, the unregulated problem.” 

Kudon said that although state attorneys general have many different priorities, he believes that sweepstakes entities are beginning to become popular enough to garner some attention.

“I think it was hiding in plain sight, we definitely heard about Fliff but when you’re an AG’s office in any state, you have a lot of priorities and a lot of things that are happening … that I just don’t think this has risen to their attention yet,” he said. “I’m sure once it does, there may be action, but that takes time.”

He pointed to influencers such as Ryan Seacrest, who promotes VGW’s Chumba Casino brand, and Drake’s support of Stake’s crypto casinos as examples of the products becoming mainstream enough to draw attention.

“That’s the level of noise you need to get AG’s to act,” he said.