8 Best California Online Casinos March 2023

Want to gamble at California online casinos using real money? Sorry. That’s illegal.

But, yes, you can still play basically any type of online casino-style game you’d find at a retail casino. And, yes, you can even redeem winnings for cash prizes at those casinos.

This is all possible thanks to social casinos and sweepstakes casinos.

These sites are fully legal in almost all US states (including CA) and also provide a legal California sports betting choice. They avoid the pitfalls of anti-gambling legislation for two reasons: 1) Players can play for free and, 2) Players don’t gamble with any real-world currency.

Instead, players gamble with fake digital tokens. There are always two types. One type (often called Gold Coins) is purely for entertainment. The other type (often called Sweeps Coins) can be redeemed for cash prizes.

So, if you don’t live close to one of the 66 California Indian casinos or don’t want to drive to one, you can play table games and slot machines at a social online casino from the comfort of your own home.

Below, we’ll tell you everything you need to know about social online casinos in California. We’ll also break down the best online bonuses, much like the types you’ll eventually see with California sportsbook bonuses.

Best Online Casinos California

We’re going to stress this again: There are technically no online casinos in California, because the term “online casino” has become tied to real-money casinos in our collective vocabulary. And real-money online casinos are not allowed in California.

However, California does allow social casinos, essentially free casinos. On these sites, you can play casino-style games like slots, video slots, blackjack, and poker, and, using the promotional sweepstakes model, redeem your social casino winnings for cash prizes.

It’s just like you’re playing for real at a casino, but you’re not losing any of your real money.

These are the best social and sweepstakes casinos in California as of March 2023.

• Chumba Casino — Best for Mobile Casino Gameplay
• LuckyLand Slots — Best for Slots Games
• WOW Vegas — Strong Player Experience
• Pulsz — Best for Selection of Games
• Global Poker — Best for Online Poker
• Funzpoints — Best for Ongoing Promotions
• Fliff Sportsbook — Best for Legal Sports Betting Right Now
• b spot — Best for Innovative Game Structure

And these are all the current welcome bonus offers:

Best California Online Casinos and Bonuses for March 2023

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is important that we underscore a key distinction here.

Real-money online casinos are not legal in California. However, social and sweepstakes casinos are legal. At those sites, you can play casino-style games with digital tokens and redeem your winnings for cash prizes.

And just like most other gaming sites, social and sweepstakes casinos have fantastic offers available for new users. We briefly touched on them earlier. But let’s dig a little deeper here. If you want to start playing at any of these social casinos, simply click “Claim Now” on the best online site of your choice.

(You may also need to type in a promo code when you sign up. We’ve got all those listed, too.)

Are Online Casinos Legal in California?

Real-money online casinos, where you gamble with real money in order to win real money, are not legal.

The legal online casinos in California are social and sweepstakes casinos — which all count as legal 18+ casinos in California. They are fully legal because they allow users to play for free with no real money.

Best Real-Money Online Casino California Sites

There aren’t any legal real-money California online casinos.

However, you’ll get essentially the same online casinos experience with the social and sweepstakes casinos that are legal in California. Honestly, there’s really just one main difference.

You gamble with real money to win real money on real-money casino sites. You gamble with digital coins on social and sweepstakes casino sites, and some of those digital coins can be redeemed for cash prizes, once you’ve accumulated enough. Because of this, beyond jackpots, players may not see the same level of day-to-day cashouts as they might at a real-money casino.

But that can also be a good thing, especially for casual bettors looking to have a bit of fun while still feeling like they’re playing for real.

In terms of games offered, real-money casino sites and social/sweepstakes casino sites are quite similar. Both offer slots, video slots, and a handful of table games, such as blackjack and casino hold’em. Funzpoints and LuckyLand also have Keno and Global Poker has, you guessed it, multi-player poker. However, social and sweepstakes casinos do not offer live dealer games, so that is a key difference.

Some real-money online casinos offer no-deposit bonuses. Social casinos, which are essentially free casinos, offer a similar bonus on the form of n0-purchase promos — where you immediately get FREE SC just for signing up.

Why We Like These California Social and Sweepstakes Casinos

Chumba Casino

Chumba Casino currently offers 142 slot games and four table games — three games of blackjack and Jacks or Better video poker. It just released its newest game, Fire Blaze: Tundra Wolf, this week.

Most of the slot games have spins or plays that start at 500 GC or 0.01 SC per line. So, a slot with 20 winnable lines would be 10,000 GC per spin or 0.20 SC per spin, for instance. However, you can find high-stakes slots that go up to 1 million Gold Coins or 100 Sweeps Coins per hand or spin. The highest slot games demand 50 SC or 5 million GC.

Players can find progressive jackpot slots at Chumba Casino, including Western Gold, Stallion Grand, Stampede Fury, and Fu Qian Qian — its newest progressive jackpot slot game. These are potentially worth cash prize redemptions of up to $1 million if you win with SC instead of GC.

Pulsz

Pulsz is one of the best social casino gaming sites in the country. It not only has one of the best initial offers that give away Sweepstakes Coins to new players. It also has more than 400 games, including more than 390 slots (including a Keno game), Texas hold’em, and its newest addition, multihand blackjack.

Pulsz adds new games all the time so it’s impossible to get bored playing with this social casino. Colossal Cash Zone Triple 7s, Budai Reels, 5 Lions Megaways, and Voodoo Magic are some notable slots options. It also has a strong selection of jackpot slots, which give you the opportunity to win huge. With Egyptian Dreams Deluxe, for example, the top prize is 375,000 SC.

WOW Vegas

Wow Vegas’ offering of games is among the most comprehensive among all social casinos that offer their services in the US. Currently, there are over 300 different titles, much less than in real casinos but more than on most social gaming platforms.

Slots are the most popular type of game, and some of the most played titles are Book of Tut Respin, Hot to Burn Extreme, Juicy Fruity, Big Bass Splash, Sugar Rush, and more. There are 220+ classic slots, and 15 games have the famous Megaways mechanic.

The three titles we particularly enjoyed are:

• Cleocatra: A game by Pragmatic Play featuring felines playing the role of Cleopatra. The five-by-three online slot set in ancient Egypt offers wild multipliers on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5. 
• Cosmic Cash: Originally made by Wild Streak Gaming and powered by Pragmatic Play, the title takes you on a journey with aliens, offering free spins, respins, and multipliers.
• Magic Money Maze: Inspired by American dollars, this five-reel slot will let you land US banknote personalities as symbols on the reels. The money symbol always assumes a random value from a predefined set.     

We particularly enjoyed the “Recently Played” section, which offers an excellent overview of all titles you’ve played in the last couple of sessions.

LuckyLand Slots

LuckyLand Slots is the sister site to Chumba Casino, and both websites are run by the same parent company. Despite this similarity in organization and oversight, LuckyLand — built for slot machine lovers — provides 81 unique slot games, many of which you cannot find anywhere else on California online social/sweepstakes casinos.

So it’s worthwhile to sign up for both websites since you’ll get different gaming experiences at each location.

LuckyLand’s newest slots game is a progressive jackpot game called Enchanted Elixirs, and we scored a win of more than 300,000 GC on our seventh spin. It just released Enchanted Elixirs this week.

LuckyLand also has 11 scratch-off games, one lottery-style game, one blackjack game, one pachinko game, and one instant-win that’s similar to roulette. It’s the only California social casino with a pachinko game or a game that resembles roulette. So you will find a greater variety than it may seem.

However, again, slots are the main draw. And LuckyLand gives customers sneak peaks, usually around six hours, of whatever new game they’re about to unveil a few days before it’s released. That’s a cool perk.

Most of the slots use established casino themes, so the majority of the games feel familiar even if they are technically totally new. This is a positive, overall, because new players will get the hang of how games play and feel fairly quickly. 

Some of the slots titles include:

• King of the Jungle
• Mayan Gold
• Pirates Bounty
• Buffalo Rush
• Dragon’s Den
• Fashion Frenzy
• Enchanted Fairy
• Wild Wild West 2120 Deluxe
• Hook Line & Winner
• Liquid Hot Magma

Even better, the majority of LuckyLand’s slot games feature great 3D graphics and flashy animations. The resulting gameplay is enjoyable and interesting, even to online slot gaming veterans.

LuckyLand does provide some progressive jackpots as well for potentially huge redeemable sweeps prizes.

Global Poker

If you want to play online poker in California with the chance to redeem winnings for cash prizes, you’re in luck.

Global Poker is the largest social poker site in the US, one you can play online in California. In terms of traffic, it has some of the best in the industry, drawing players from across the country and running games around the clock.

Here are some of the site’s most popular offerings for California poker fans:

• No-limit hold’em
• Pot-limit Omaha
• Ring games
• Poker tournaments
• Jackpot Sit’N’Gos

While Global Poker is not available as an app, you can play on a desktop browser and on your mobile phone browser too.

Global Poker also has expanded to become a full social casino, offering 38 slot games and four table games: blackjack, premium blackjack, Caribbean poker, and casino hold’em.

Funzpoints Casino

Funzpoints is a great promotional sweepstakes casino as well, with a fun, bright layout and 70 slot games to choose from — including two Keno games, which is unique among California sweepstakes casinos.

It just released its 70th game, Mighty Mustang, which is a 10-reel scatter slot game with fun Old West animation.

The best part about Funzpoints is that players have the chance to win cash prizes as well as tickets towards a daily jackpot drawing by playing any of the games.

There are two types of play with Funzpoints: Standard and Premium. Standard can be compared to playing with Gold Coins, and Premium is like playing with Sweepstakes Coins. With Funzpoints, Standard mode is good for free play, and casual players can use this mode on 18 slot games. You must play premium to unlock the other 52.

In Standard mode, the minimum to play is 8 points, while a raffle ticket for the Daily Jackpot costs 500 points.

You can win tokens to redeem for cash prizes in a couple of ways. The first is to play and win the games using Premium Funzpoints. Winning credits can be redeemed for a cash prize. To redeem there is a minimum of 2,000 credits for a $20 cash prize.

The second way to win is by winning the Daily Jackpot drawing. You can earn entries for the daily prize drawing by playing games with either Standard Funzpoints or Premium Funzpoints.

Fliff Sportsbook

Fliff Social Sportsbook, as the name suggests, is a combination of a social casino and a traditional sportsbook. You use fake currency to make sports picks. One type of currency is just for fun, and one can be redeemed for cash prizes.

Fliff does not offer every kind of way to make a sports prediction, but it does offer a lot of popular options. You will find:

• Moneylines
• Points spreads
• Totals
• Props
• Versions of futures

You can enter large tournaments, play against the house odds, or play against friends. You won’t find every sport at Fliff, but you will find the most popular choices.

The way Fliff works is it offers odds on the top sporting events from major leagues happening that day, week, or sometimes the following week. So, for instance, Sunday will be a popular day, as players will flock to the app to make picks for NFL games.

Note: Players located in the US, excluding the state of Washington, are eligible to use Fliff. Players in the states of Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, and South Carolina may use the platform but will be restricted from participating in Sweepstakes promotions. In other words, players in those states cannot redeem any winnings for cash prizes.

B Spot

There really is nothing else like b spot available in California.

Traditional online casinos use a random number generator to determine if a player wins and how much they win. With b spot, an algorithm puts together a randomly assembled group of horse racing bets for you. Then, the function of the casino games is simply to reveal the player’s horse bet winnings in a fun and creative way.

Across the US, there are several horse racetrack and casino hybrids, also called racinos.

But b spot is the only online racino. So it gets extra points in our book for originality.

That also means you can deposit real money into b spot, instead of purchasing fake digital currency packages that come with free redeemable currency like other sweepstakes casinos in California.

However, you can definitely play b spot for free. The only catch? You can only play six of the 52 available games. The other 46, which include spinners (slots), arcade games, and scratch-offs, are only accessible via the paid version.

Other Options

While these are our choices for best social and sweepstakes sites in California, they aren’t the only choices in the Golden State.  Some other operators do exist, such as Wow Vegas, Funrize Casino, and ZitoBox (which offers the most online table game options of any social casino).

However, these social casinos are currently not as developed, both in reputation and in game selection, as the top options we mention above.

How Do California Social and Sweepstakes Casinos Work?

Social and sweepstakes casinos have their players use two digital coin varieties, most commonly called Sweeps Coins (or Sweepstakes Coins) and Gold Coins. Players do not ever have to purchase anything to play for a free casino experience, including free slots and free table games, although they do have that option — more on that in a second.

Gold Coins (GC) are much more readily available, and they can be used for all of the casino-style games and video slots. Sweeps Coins (SC) are harder to come by, but you can redeem them for cash prizes or gift cards once you accumulate a certain amount.

Most social and sweepstakes casinos give new users a sign-up bonus of FREE coins. Users can also get free coins through daily login bonuses, mail-in offers, winning social media contests, and more. If you choose to make a purchase of GC, you will usually get FREE SC with that purchase as well.

How Do You Win Cash Prizes by Playing at California Social and Sweepstakes Casinos?

If you choose to play with Sweeps Coins, your winnings can be redeemed for cash prizes. It is important to emphasize the word winnings, since you cannot redeem any SC that you get for free. It is also important to note that you have to reach a certain threshold before you can redeem.  That threshold can be as low as 10 SC on some sites and as high as 100 SC on other sites.

Overall, social and sweepstakes casinos offer the same type of for real fun you might have at a real-money online casino for free. So they’re a good alternative — much better than any unregulated site — for states that haven’t legalized real-money online casinos.

How Do You Access Social and Sweepstakes Online Casinos in California?

California customers can access any of the social casinos listed on this page using their computer or mobile device. Most social casino sites don’t have a mobile app, but all the ones on this page have desktop sites optimized for mobile use. That means, even if the site doesn’t have an app, mobile gameplay will be fun and easy just like an app.

Still, Pulsz does have an app for iOS users (App Store) and Android users (Google Play Store). LuckyLand Slots has an Android app available for download from its website. And Chumba Casino has a “lite” version available in the App Store and Google Play Store, but we’d recommend using the desktop version on your mobile device.

How Do Purchases and Redemptions Work at California Social and Sweepstakes Casinos?

The sites make it incredibly easy to purchase Gold Coins. For all sites, you have to provide some information in order to create an account.  Some social/sweepstakes sites will ask for banking information at that point, just to make purchases and redemptions easier down the road.  Other sites will wait until your first purchase or redemption to collect your bank information and verify your identity.

Either way, the company will walk you through everything you need to do with clear directions, either on the site/app or via email or (more likely) both.

Gold Coins are not purchased at a 1:1 ratio.  In other words $10 will not get you only 10 GC. You are much more likely to get 100,000 GC, allowing you to play multiple games over the course of a day before needing to buy more. Again, most of these GC offer purchases also come with FREE SC.

Sweeps Coins (or whatever currency the site you are on uses for promotional sweepstakes play) are redeemable at a 1:1 ratio.  So if you choose to redeem 110 SC, you will receive $110. The prizes are wired to an attached bank account and should show up within 1-3 business days. On most sites, you can also redeem winnings for gift cards.

The cash and cards are for real — you can really use them in real life.

Again, though, you have to have won the SC in order to redeem them.

Is It Safe to Use Social and Sweepstakes Casinos in California?

Yes.

Social/sweepstakes sites are fully legal in California. Washington is the only state that prohibits social/sweepstakes sites, though other states may not allow certain operators or may restrict a site to only offering Standard Play (e.g. playing with Gold Coins). Why? Because players don’t play with tokens that have any real-world value. Yes, Sweeps Coins can be redeemed for cash prizes, but you couldn’t use Sweeps Coins to buy groceries.

All social and sweeps casinos listed on this page use 100% legal promotional sweepstakes models. You can rest assured you aren’t doing anything illegal by playing at free casino sites like Pulsz and Chumba Casino.

Is My Information Safe on California Online Social and Sweepstakes Casinos?

Yes, completely safe. Or, at least as completely safe as it would be on any real-money online casino. Social casinos are big businesses that use state-of-the-art digital security to keep their customers’ personal and financial information safe. They are also regulated, and part of them operating legally means that they have to pay out fairly.

So, playing on promotional sweepstakes sites is much like playing for real at a real-money online casino in terms of safety. If you ever have a problem while playing on one of these sites, you can file a complaint to the regulatory body. The same can’t be said if you face an issue gambling with an unregulated offshore casino site.

California Online Casinos FAQs