The Tennessee Sports Wagering Council (SWC) says that it has been successful in its efforts to get social casino and sportsbook Sportzino to pull out of the state.
In a notice sent out on Thursday, Sept. 18, the SWC said that Sportzino, one of several brands run by Ontario-headquartered social gaming company Blazesoft, has stopped offering what the council called “sports-related sweepstakes operations” in Tennessee.
A spokesperson for the SWC confirmed that the regulator sent a cease-and-desist order to Sportzino. SBC Americas reached out to Blazesoft for comment but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
Blazesoft unveiled Sportzino at the end of 2023 and subsequently launched it in markets across the U.S., touting it as a brand that offers social casino gaming combined with free-to-play sports predictions and esports. The platform offers more than 1,000 games, many of which resemble casino-style titles like slots, and allows predictions on dozens of major sports.
Sportzino is one of several brands under the Blazesoft umbrella, which also include Fortune Coins, Zula Casino and the Yay Casino platform launched in fall 2024.
The parent company has come under fire in other states, and was the defendant in a class-action lawsuit filed this April in New York which alleged it is illegally offering real-money online casino games in the Empire State through a dual-currency sweepstakes casino model despite purporting to be free-to-play.
Operators under duress in the Volunteer State
The Tennessee SWC has previously issued similar C&D notices to the likes of offshore operator Bovada and Legendz social casino and sportsbook, and it noted in its release that both of those operators also shut down. The council said in its Sportzino release that Bovada left Tennessee last November and Legendz pulled out of the Volunteer State this April.
Tennessee is the largest online-only sports betting market in the U.S. The SWC stressed that it looks to shut down unlicensed online gaming operators through several methods, including a total of $600,000 in fines issued to 12 illegal sportsbooks to date.
In July 2025 alone, the SWC fined several unauthorized operators a total of $200,000 including Costa Rica-based BetAnySports and Panama-located BetOnline.
Regulator hopes for more help from AG
The council told SBC Americas at that time that it hopes to work with the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office to turn the fines into “fully enforceable judgments” that can be recovered against any assets the authorities become aware of.
“Offering sports wagering in Tennessee is a taxable privilege, and we’re exploring every tool available to us as regulators in our effort to shut down illegal sportsbooks,” said SWC Executive Director Mary Beth Thomas in the Sept. 18 release. “Licensed sportsbooks offer critical consumer protections that unlicensed operators do not, and we will continue to work with our law enforcement partners in this effort.”
Tennessee’s regulator has also spoken out this year about prediction markets such as Kalshi, Robinhood and Crypto.com offering sports contracts. Thomas wrote to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in April to ask the federal derivatives market regulator to “respect the policy decisions made by the Tennessee Legislature and not permit the offering of sports events contracts.”
