The North Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in No Limit Games’ bid to overturn an order that blocked its machines from operating in Robeson County. The dispute turns on how far the state’s video-sweepstakes law reaches when a prize is determined by chance but the player can also use optional games that No Limit says are based on skill.
No Limit’s latest brief says its system lets participants obtain and claim sweepstakes prizes without playing at all unless they choose to do so. Through its “Instant Reveal” function, the company says, players can learn and receive prizes immediately, with no video display and no game.
The company also argues that North Carolina’s statute does not ban sweepstakes as such. It says the law targets only a narrow category of gameplay that is not dependent on skill or dexterity when used in the entry or reveal of a prize, and that the Court of Appeals substituted its own factual view for the trial court’s findings.
A January 2025 UNC School of Government summary described the kiosks as tied to youbux.com, where customers buy gift certificates and receive sweepstakes entries. It said a $1 gift certificate produced 100 entries, and that players could reveal prizes instantly or through a simulated game.
State lawyers took the opposite position. In a July brief, the Department of Public Safety, the State Bureau of Investigation and Alcohol Law Enforcement said G.S. 14-306.4(b)(1) bars a sweepstakes conducted through a video game when chance, rather than skill or dexterity, predominates in determining the available prize. They said No Limit tried to sidestep the statute by attaching skill tasks to casino-style games even though those tasks do not determine the prize.
At argument, Special Deputy Attorney General Michelle Liguori told the justices that the General Assembly wanted to severely curtail video games and that there is only “a very narrow window” in which a No Limit-style game does not fall within the ban because chance determines the prize. Craig Schauer, for No Limit, countered that the company’s games are skill-based and that a ruling against it would effectively outlaw all video sweepstakes in the state.
The justices pressed both sides on the line between chance and skill. Trey Allen questioned whether the lower court’s opinion was being read too broadly, while Richard Dietz worried that the state’s position could open the door to more such businesses. Phil Berger Jr. asked how the state’s approach would affect sweepstakes promotions such as McDonald’s Monopoly.
The case has moved through a long procedural path. No Limit sued in May 2023 in Robeson County Superior Court, seeking to bar prosecutions over possession of its kiosks. A trial judge granted a preliminary injunction, the Court of Appeals later stayed it, and in December 2024 the same court reversed in a 2-1 ruling.
That appellate majority said No Limit’s game was the sort of electronic sweepstakes the legislature meant to prohibit, while Judge Jefferson Griffin dissented and said skill predominated over chance. The state has been fighting video sweepstakes for years, and the Supreme Court upheld the statute’s constitutionality in 2012.
