Is there such a thing as “try before you buy” with regard to online casinos? As a matter of fact, there is.
If you love games of chance and want to check out a new casino site, we have selected low deposit online casinos that let you register for free, get free currency, and continue playing with deposits as low as $0.99.
This is only possible at sweepstakes casinos, which are the only legal US alternative to online casinos. Unlike the latter, sweeps casinos are available in around 47 US states to residents 18 and over.
When you deposit at a sweepstakes casino, a sizable amount of gold coins is transferred to your bankroll, along with cash-redeemable sweeps coins, enabling you to play any game you want.
Let’s find out which are the top casinos with the lowest minimum deposit and what you need to do to secure bonuses and free sweeps coins.
Sweepstakes Casinos Minimum Deposit
There is a unique common theme about all legit sweepstakes casinos: they have a no-purchase policy which is valid for every registered player.
Without any strings attached, players can create an account and obtain free gold and free sweeps coins in a variety of ways, any day of the week.
However, due to the finite amount of coins that you can get each day, many players opt to enhance their casino experience by purchasing a gold coin package.
Purchasing gold coins is also the quickest way to obtain free sweeps coins for promotional play, which puts the player in a position to win cash-redeemable prizes.
When depositing the minimum amount that certain sweepstakes ‘zinos have set at $0.99, you receive a sizable amount of gold coins which are intended for free play.
It’s worth emphasizing that a minuscule amount can buy plenty of excitement on the best casino games online, but it also lets the player experience high-potential slots that most people play with sweeps coins.
Top List of Low Minimum Deposit Online Sweepstakes Casinos US
Now that you’ve discovered our best-of list of low-deposit casinos, the question that standardly pops up is whether they are legit? This is a crucial checkpoint that we always opt for thorough verification.
Our casino reviewers located the best promos at casinos that are safe and have a solid reputation among players. Our check for the SSL encryption came out positive for each site. We looked for customer service and tested each venue to make sure they replied within a reasonable time frame.
Just as important is the quantity and the quality of the games, as well as their origin. Proprietary games are mostly alright, with a handful of top titles. On the other hand, those that are made by world-class providers offer stunning graphics and exceptional bonus features that can trigger and retrigger multiple times. The casinos on our list have that covered too.
And lastly, if you’ve already played at a sweepstakes casino, you already know the drill for how to claim a bonus. If you haven’t, simply select Play Now to claim a welcome bonus for any of the casinos on this page.
No Minimum Purchase Online Casinos
If you are located in a state where traditional online casinos are licensed and legal, you can find and register at a low-deposit casino accepting $5, $10, or $20. In addition to the welcome bonus, players can also claim ongoing promotions.
Like in the case of sweepstakes casinos, most US online casinos can boast their unshakable reputation for fairness and legitimacy. To obtain state licenses, real money casinos need to be partnered with a brick-and-mortar casino or a specific casino brand with locations across the country.
One key difference is that no deposit bonuses for real money casinos are extremely rare and the entry bar, i.e. minimum deposit requirement, is notably higher compared to sweepstakes casinos.
This brings us to the casino alternative that you can always lean on – no-purchase sweepstakes casinos. These sites MUST offer regular free credits to be classed as legal, and o’ boy they do!
$1 Minimum Deposit Casinos USA
You can say that real money casinos have realistic deposit minimums within their category, but you won’t have any luck finding minimum deposits as low as $1.00.
On the contrary, if you want to play at an online casino you need to deposit at least $10.00. Sweepstakes casinos are in a league of their own. Our favorite casino category is gaining more ground because of its free-to-low threshold for new signups.
Sweepstakes casino sites start you off with a trove of free gold coins, which you can always increase with unbelievably low deposits. Purchasing methods include debit and credit cards, e-wallets, and the like, and indeed, you can spend a dollar, no questions asked.
The following venues are among top examples of the large amount of gold coins that you can get with the lowest possible deposit:
- WOW Vegas Casino: $0.49 for 5000 wow coins.
- Fortune Coins: $0.99 for 100,000 coins.
We should emphasize to our readers that although the amounts of GC’s above appear drastically different, they more or less have the same value which is adjusted per each play. On the other hand, one sweep coin is generally worth one US dollar when it comes to redeeming your winnings.
$5 Minimum Deposit Casinos
This is another deposit level that is impossible to find outside sweepstakes casinos, except for DraftKings, the best low deposit online casino. With its $5.00 minimum, one of the leading US sports betting and casino sites overall is doing what the other casinos don’t, or perhaps can’t.
By all means, five dollars is a low minimum deposit that puts the exact amount of fiat currency in your bankroll. On the other hand, you’ll hardly ever get free bets as is the case with sweepstakes casinos.
We can opine that this deposit level works for the casual sports bettor or casino player, where the $5 limit suffices to shoot some proverbial dice, just for kicks. But if you want to play many different casino games and for much longer, there are these great sweeps casinos that do $5 deposits.
- Pulsz Casino: $4.99 for up to 79,500 GCs, 5 SCs, and 45 VIP points.
- WOW Vegas: $4.99 for up to 250,000 gold coins and 5 sweeps coins.
Nevertheless, the standard minimum deposit for all other online casinos is $10.00. All would be fair and square for casino players, except this amount and the fun you can have with it won’t last as long compared to how much you can get at the top sweepstakes casinos.
$10 Minimum Deposit Online Casinos
With $10.00 minimum deposits being the standard adds another level of rigidity on the part of real money casinos. That, their limited availability and the fact that you can get a much better deal with the same deposit is what makes sweepstakes casinos a widely accepted option.
Many sweeps casinos provide a 150% or even 200% match on your first purchase. One of the best examples of this is WOW Vegas Casino where the first deposit is matched 200%.
In real terms, this means new players can get $30.00 worth of gold coins for $9.99, plus the accompanying free sweeps coins, with a value of $30 for a payment of $10.00.
Other Minimum Deposit Casino Categories
There isn’t too much of a difference in cost if you spend $2.00 instead of a buck on the basic gold coins package at a sweepstakes casino. But there is a difference in the value of the $2.00 package, where you get a lot more bang for that extra buck. Three of the top sweeps casinos accept two dollar deposits and some even throw in the extra perks, as below:
- Jackpota Casino: $1.99 for 4000 gold coins.
- High 5 Casino: $2.00 for 10 game coins and 2 sweeps coins.
Once you find your favorite venue and you already have your favorite slot games, purchasing more coins makes more sense. Most of the casinos have a flexible table where values range from a couple to a couple of hundred dollars.
Stake US is the only casino that starts off a bit steep, a $20.00 minimum purchase with few options between the most expensive one of $300. The rest have a coin package for everyone. Some examples follow:
- WOW Vegas: $7.49 for 750,000 GCs.
- Funrize Casino: $11.99 for 360,000 GCs and 1,680 free entries.
- WOW Vegas: $24.99 for 3 mil. GCs and 55 SCs.
- Sweeptastic Casino: $29.49 for 45,000 GCs + 45 SC (35% discount)
How Minimum Deposit Sweepstakes Casinos Work
The entry requirements for signing up at casinos under this category are refreshingly low and sensible. We know from our younger days how frustrating it can be to be turned away from a casino because you are not 21. That requirement wouldn’t be a bother for anyone who is 18 years or older and lives in a state where sweepstakes casinos are legal.
With respect to the latter detail, it’s an unwritten rule that sweeps casinos are available in between 46 and 48 states. The usual suspects in terms of impossibly vast regulation for sweeps casinos are Washington, Idaho, Michigan, and Nevada. Visitors to this page can find out which states are accepted by a specific casino, by visiting its respective page on our website.
Registering at a sweeps or social casino requires creating a user profile with your email address. Another detail that you can’t go without is your telephone number, as it is required to verify your profile and enable you to utilize the casino’s promos and bonuses, as well as to convert your sweeps coins into cash.
Supported Banking Methods
As a patron of a sweepstakes casino, you can transact between your accounts through any of the leading payment systems in America. Visa, MasterCard, and Amex are the gold standard and, of course, online banking is available for those who master the use of these apps and web platforms.
However, it appears that the most preferred way of receiving payments from sweeps casinos is e-wallets, like Skrill, PayPal, and similar ones. This is due to expedient processing times, which is more synonymous with e-wallets than bank accounts.
Here is a full list of the payment methods that are found across sweeps casinos:
- Online banking
- Crypto
- Visa
- MasterCard
- Amex
- Discover
- Skrill
- Trustly
- Instant ACH
- Rapid Transfer
- Apple Pay
- Google Pay
- Gift Card
When talking about payments and social/sweeps casinos we can’t evade crypto. Although most of the venues we know stick to the payment methods above, pioneers, like the US version of Stake Casino accept crypto payments such as bitcoin and have low minimum deposits – and gift cards.
The latter is another popular payment method because these gift cards are usually electronic, i.e. sent to your email, and require smaller minimum balances for withdrawal.
How Redemptions Work at These Low Minimum Deposit Casinos
Casino winnings can be redeemed by following on-site instruction which is straightforward and universal across all sweepstakes casinos. First off, the account holder needs to have their personal information and address verified by submitting digital copies of a utility bill, driver’s license or other forms of government ID.
Once your profile clears the KYC process, you can visit the Wallet or Payments tab on the menu and select your preferred method and the sweeps coin amount you wish to redeem. It is here that some venues differ.
Most of the casinos have a minimum threshold of 20 sweep coins, i.e. $20.00 for withdrawals. Some require 50 and yet others require 100 SC – unless you opt to use a gift card which usually allows 10 SC/$10.00 minimum withdrawals.
Are Minimum Deposit Sweepstakes Casinos Safe?
We’ve gathered an enviable roster of legit sweepstakes casinos that players can rely on for as long as they are active as legal companies. Your safest point of departure is to choose your next sweeps casino adventure from our best-reviewed venues.
These casinos offer minimum deposits under terms and conditions which are regulated by each state and by the Federal Trade Commission. In other words, your sweeps coin winnings are legit and honored as long as the winner is in compliance with the casino’s T&Cs.
To be sure that you are headed to a casino that is safe and respects the laws and regulations, we investigated each website for the following items:
- Company name and address
- Contact details
- Privacy policy
- Customer support
- SSL encryption
- Legit bonuses
These and other less crucial but important keystones are what every sweeps casino site must have in order to appear on our website. Although games and their providers are not part of the technical identity of a casino, we can’t let a venue pass unless it offers high-quality games from verified providers.
Gaming Options
With only sports betting not considered, we are yet to find a legit sweepstakes casino that lacks in quality or quantity what online casinos have. Across the board, sweeps gaming categories consist of slots, table and card games, bingo, scratch cards, jackpot slots, fish games, and live dealer options.
Our casino experience at sweeps venues is diverse. We’ve enjoyed many online slots that were made in-house for specific casino brands and we’ve had tons of fun (and winnings) on games from international providers.
The difference in quality between in-house and provider-made games, with rare exceptions, is immediately apparent. Thankfully, many sweeps casinos have enviable catalogs consisting of famous providers.
Casinos like Fortune Coins, WOW Vegas, Pulsz, McLuck Casino, and High 5 Casino – among others – offer some of the best online slot titles from exceptional casino game studios like Pragmatic Play, 3 Oak, Nolimit City, Red Tiger, NetEnt, and so on.
Best Low Deposit Free SCs Bonuses
The incredible rise of sweeps casinos and their coins-galore policy is defined by the fact that casino fun can be had for free. Free is the keyword concerning gold coins and sweeps coins, however, most players turn their focus on the second currency.
Sweeps coins are what makes real money redemptions possible. These are obtained when you win in promotional mode, meaning, you are making sweep coin entries, but you can also get them from competitions, random drawings, and mail-in cards.
The quickest way to obtain sweeps coins is by purchasing a gold coin package. Sweeps casinos keep the entry bar low, so that you can get a decent amount of SCs even by purchasing low-cost packages like these:
- Fortune Coins: $5.00 for 515 fortune coins and 1,000,000 gold coins.
- High 5 Casino: $5.00 for 5 sweeps coins and 10 gold coins.
- Chumba Casino: $5.00 for 5.05 sweeps coins and 1,000,000 gold coins.
- Vegas Gems Casino: $5.00 for 5 gems (SCs) and 5,500,00 shards (GCs).
Note that you can claim our exclusive no-deposit bonus for any of these casinos by selecting the “Play Now” button when you locate their promo image or on the respective casino review page.
Users who are willing to take their first purchases a notch higher can also grab outstanding 150% – 400% discounts for $9.99 or $19.99 on all the above brands!
Minimum Deposit Sweepstakes Casinos Vs Real Money Casinos
While the tally of upsides is largely on the side of sweeps casinos, we can’t avoid the couple of downsides that many online casinos tend to cover pretty well.
We are talking about the fact that the smallest available sweepstake casino purchase of $0.99 doesn’t entail sweeps coins, only gold coins as part of the package. All of the higher purchasing tiers do.
The other obvious downside is that sweeps casinos don’t offer sports betting and probably won’t in the near future, except for Fliff and Sportzino. This puts sites that double as a casino and a sportsbook in the lead, but that’s valid only as far as states where both forms of gambling are legal.
On the other hand, some sweepstakes casinos do offer real dealer betting, which itself is a highly popular form of online gambling with a live edge to it.
Key Takeaways
A birdie inside the online casino world tells us that a handful of US states are looking to regulate online gambling in the short to medium term. With that in view, we may expect another low-deposit casino with $5.00 or lower to appear online.
On the other hand, we can anticipate that a greater number of states will legalize betting sites only, leaving the number of regulated online casinos in short supply.
That said, the majority of casino players in the US who like to play legally and for a chance to win real money will stick to sweepstakes casinos instead of shady offshore sites.
This is where the lowest minimum deposit casinos in the sweepstakes casino category will enjoy the first pick on the part of the players. With hundreds of games available, people will want to sample the offer, and spending a buck to purchase gold coins sort of comes naturally.
Unless, you want to get sweeps coins right away in which case $5 – low, still – will put you in the driver’s seat on your next casino adventure.
