Florida Forfeiture Claim: Can the State Take Player Money?

Count I of both Florida sweepstakes complaints asks the court to forfeit every dollar wagered on those sites by people in Florida, and no player is a defendant in either case - but the statutes behind that count are written wider than the complaints are, because section 849.29 lists "the winner" of a gambling transaction among those liable.

The headline on August 19 was that Florida sued the operators of Stake.us, Chumba Casino, LuckyLand Slots and Global Poker, which we covered in our report on the two filings. The mechanism the state chose is worth reading, because it is not the deceptive-marketing claim most coverage led with. It is a pair of gambling statutes whose history notes run back to 1895 and 1951, and which have nothing to do with dual-currency coins and everything to do with money that changed hands. We pulled the statute text from the Florida Legislature's own site rather than relying on how the complaints characterise it, and the wording matters.

Three sections of chapter 849 do the work, and they are not interchangeable:

What does the forfeiture count actually ask for?

Count I of each complaint, brought under sections 849.12 and 849.29 of the Florida Statutes, seeks "forfeiture and recovery of all sums of money and every other thing of value at stake, used, or won in connection with the illegal gambling conducted on the Sweepstakes Casino websites by individuals gambling in the State of Florida within the applicable limitations period."

Read that phrase again: at stake, used, or won. It is not limited to what the operators kept. Section 849.12 is a single very long sentence covering lotteries, prizes and gambling devices together. Here is the clause of it that the complaints rely on, taken from the Legislature's own text:

... and all money or other thing of value at stake, or used or displayed in or in connection with any illegal gambling or any illegal gambling device contrary to the laws of this state, shall be forfeited, and may be recovered by civil proceedings, filed, or by action for money had and received, to be brought by the Department of Legal Affairs or any state attorney, or other prosecuting officer, in the circuit courts in the name and on behalf of the state ...

The section is headed "Money and prizes to be forfeited." Its history note runs back to an 1895 chapter law and records amendments in 1953, 1969 and 1997. It ends by saying the collected sums are "to be applied when collected as all other penal forfeitures are disposed of," which is to say they go to the state.

Who can Florida make pay it?

Section 849.29 is the list of people who can be sued for it, and the complaints quote it in full because the first name on that list does a lot of work:

The winner of the money or property lost in the gambling transaction; every person who, having direct or indirect charge, control or management ... of the place where the gambling transaction occurs, procures, suffers or permits such place to be used for gambling purposes; whoever promotes, sets up or conducts the gambling transaction in which the loss occurs or has an interest in it as backer, vendor, owner or otherwise

Everyone on that list is "jointly and severally liable," meaning the state can collect the whole amount from any one of them.

The attorney general applies "the winner" to the operators, not to players. The VGW complaint says the defendants "are 'winners,' and persons jointly and severally liable, under Section 849.29" because they "either (1) retain the entirety of players' losses (for games such as slot machines, blackjack, and roulette) or (2) take a 'rake' of the pot in every gambling transaction (for games such as poker)." The same reasoning is what puts the payment companies on the defendant list under the "backer, vendor, owner or otherwise" limb.

Is a Florida player at risk?

Not from these two filings. No individual player is named as a defendant, no relief is sought against players, and the full defendant list is companies and two Stake executives.

The honest caveat is that Florida's gambling chapter is not written to spare the player, and it never has been. Section 849.08 is one sentence, and this is the whole of it:

Whoever plays or engages in any game at cards, keno, roulette, faro or other game of chance, at any place, by any device whatever, for money or other thing of value, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

The complaints cite that section against the operators. On its face it describes the person playing. We have not found any Florida prosecution of a sweepstakes player, the attorney general has not suggested one, and we are not lawyers - but anyone who reads the state's own theory of the case should know the statute says what it says. Louisiana wrote a comparable exposure into its 2026 ban, which we covered in what the Louisiana law does to players.

Where would the money go if Florida wins?

The two asks in the complaints are different things, and it is easy to run them together.

So a Floridian who lost money is not automatically in line for a cheque. Restitution is a separate request from forfeiture, it is discretionary, and none of it exists until a court rules. Anyone told otherwise by a claims-farming site is guessing.

Private plaintiffs have asked for the same kind of money on a separate route. Two Minnesota class actions seek the return of every dollar Minnesotans wagered with VGW, and 13 more class actions were filed against sweeps operators in Kentucky in July. Those cases run independently of the attorney general's, and a win in one does not pay out in the other.

Does this change anything for my account today?

Nothing legal, and one thing practical. A redeemable balance at a named brand is now money sitting inside an active enforcement action in your own state. The sensible response is the same one we give ahead of any ban deadline: redeem rather than hold. Our redemption walkthrough covers the process, account verification and KYC is the step that stalls most cash-outs, and redemption limits and taxes covers what comes out the other end.

If you want the background on why the model is legally contested at all, our explainer on whether sweepstakes casinos are legal sets out the sweepstakes-law argument the operators rely on, our state legality matrix shows which states have gone further than Florida has, and our Florida page tracks the state's status. That page still describes Florida as open with no ban, which remains accurate: a lawsuit is not a statute. We have updated it to carry these filings.

Sources & documents

• Florida Statutes section 849.12, money and prizes to be forfeited
• Florida Statutes section 849.29, persons against whom suits may be brought
• Florida Statutes section 849.08, gambling
• Complaint against the VGW defendants, as filed
• Complaint against the Stake defendants, as filed
• Florida Attorney General, news release on the two filings

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