Stake Review: Safety, Licence and Fairness of Terms

Who is behind Stake: Medium Rare, a Curaçao licence and a long complaint file

Stake.com was founded in 2017 by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, who started with a provably fair dice game. Its terms name the operator as Medium Rare N.V., registration number 145353, at Seru Loraweg 17 B, Curaçao, with payments handled by two Cypriot subsidiaries, Medium Rare Limited and MRS Tech Ltd. The company belongs to the Easygo group, which also owns the streaming platform Kick.

The casino holds Curaçao Gaming Authority licence OGL/2024/1451/0918, set out in clause 1.1 of the terms. The terms are governed by Curaçao law, with exclusive jurisdiction for Curaçao courts, while Stake keeps the right to sue elsewhere. Stake.us, the US sweepstakes site run by a separate company, is a different product with its own rules, and the lawsuits filed over it in 2025 and 2026 do not concern stake.com.

The global site is closed to 45 jurisdictions under clause 14.3: Afghanistan, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, the Netherlands, North Korea, Ontario, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Syria, the United Kingdom, the United States and Zimbabwe. Brazil, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, Peru and Denmark appear because separate, locally licensed Stake sites serve them. The UK site closed in 2025. Using a VPN or proxy to get round the block breaches clause 14.4, and the site detects masked IP addresses.

The trust scores are strong for an offshore casino. Casino.guru gives a Safety Index of 7.9/10, rated “Above average”, and finds no blacklist entries. AskGamblers awards a CasinoRank of 9.7/10 and a player score of 8.8/10 from 297 reviews. On Trustpilot, Stake holds 3.9/5 from 11,958 reviews, 64% of them five-star and 23% one-star, and the company answers 99% of negative reviews, usually within 48 hours.

Volume brings a heavy complaint file, and player complaints are claims, not rulings. Casino.guru has logged 426 complaints: 340 rejected, 63 resolved, 19 open and 4 unresolved. The recurring themes are accounts restricted or closed with withdrawals blocked, slow verification, deposits not credited, delayed or partial payouts, Mines results players call rigged, bonuses that did not match what was promised, and winnings refused with the message “unsupported in your region”.

In September 2023, about $41M was stolen from Stake’s hot wallets on Ethereum, Polygon and BNB Chain; two days later the FBI attributed the theft to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Casino.guru records that player balances were covered.

Several clauses in the terms carry a direct cost:

• Stake can change the house edge of slots at its discretion and without notice, and accepts no liability where play differs from the displayed RTP (clause 10.5).
• Accounts can be suspended or closed for fraud, collusion, failed verification or a breach of terms; bets can be voided and winnings withheld (clauses 4.19–4.22).
• Suspected bonus abuse, including multiple accounts, allows Stake to withhold or remove bonuses and block the account (clauses 12.7–12.8).
• Stake reserves the right to charge withdrawal fees and to combine pending withdrawals (clauses 8.8–8.9).

There is no dormant-account fee in the terms; inactive accounts only lose any outstanding bonus.

No withdrawal cap, fast crypto payouts and checks at any stage

Stake sets no daily, weekly or monthly cap on crypto withdrawals, a rare position among crypto casinos. Once approved, payouts typically arrive within 15 minutes to 2 hours in independent timing tests, and requests are processed at weekends. A manual review can stretch that to 24 hours, and unconfirmed blockchain transactions or coin-mixing controls add further delay. Very large withdrawals can go through manual handling.

Stake does not charge its own fee on crypto withdrawals, so the player pays only the network fee, although clause 8.9 reserves the right to add one. The minimum withdrawal is shown on the site. Where local banking is available, bank transfers take three to five days.

Every deposit must be wagered once (100% turnover) before it can be withdrawn, in crypto or fiat (clauses 8.5 and 8.10). A player who deposits $2,000 and changes their mind therefore has to place $2,000 in bets first, with the house edge working against the balance the whole time.

Verification is the other gate. Sign-up asks only for basic details, but the terms allow a KYC request at any time (clause 4.8), on any withdrawal (clause 8.12) and on deposits (clause 7.11), and service can be restricted until documents clear. Verification takes up to 72 hours. Verification problems and withdrawals blocked during account reviews are recurring complaint themes.

No standard welcome, a 200% offer on request and 40x on both halves

Stake has no standard on-site welcome package and puts its value into rakeback, reloads and races instead. A 200% first-deposit offer does exist, but it is requested through support, and its maximum is put at anywhere from $200 to $2,000. Its conditions are demanding:

• Qualifying deposit between $10 and $1,000, with Level 2 identity verification completed first.
• Bonus credited 24–48 hours after the request.
• Wagering of 40x the deposit plus bonus, about 60x the bonus alone, within 30 days.
• Maximum bet of 1% of the deposit while the bonus is active; many games excluded; no free spins.
• No cap on what can be cashed out once wagering is complete.

The absence of a maximum cashout is unusual and in the player’s favour. Combined wagering of 40x deposit plus bonus is at the strict end of the market, however, and the 1% bet ceiling makes the turnover slow to complete. Players also complain that wagering requirements change between promotions, so check the conditions support confirms before depositing.

The regular promotions need no deposit match. The Daily Race shares $100,000 every 24 hours among the top 5,000 wagerers. The Weekly Raffle pays $75,000 to 15 winners, with one ticket for every $1,000 wagered, so ten tickets need $10,000 of play. Stake vs Eddie ($50,000), Conquer the Casino ($75,000 on new releases), Wheel Wars with Pragmatic Play ($150,000 a month) and monthly Casino Challenges complete the calendar. All of them reward volume: a casual player wagering a few hundred dollars a week will rarely finish near the paying places.

Twenty-plus coins on several networks, with local options by country

The cashier takes more than 20 cryptocurrencies, among them BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE, SOL, TRX, XRP, BCH, BNB, USDT, USDC and POL, with EOS, DAI, LINK, SAND and SHIB also accepted. Deposits carry no fee. The minimum depends on the coin and network and is shown in the deposit dialogue.

The network is chosen separately for each deposit and withdrawal, and speed and cost depend on it. Pick the same network in the wallet as in the cashier: USDT sent over TRC20 to an ERC20 address is lost, and blockchain transfers cannot be recalled. TRON is usually the cheaper route for small, frequent stablecoin moves.

Stake is crypto-first, but local options depend on country and account. Card purchases through on-ramp partners such as MoonPay, along with Interac, Pix, SEPA, Apple Pay and Google Pay, appear in some regions, while cards cannot be used for withdrawals. Stake’s own guides explain local-currency deposits. A player in a country without these options must buy crypto on an exchange first and send it to the casino.

5,000+ games, a poker room and dozens of provably fair Originals

The library runs to 5,000–6,000+ titles from dozens of studios, including Pragmatic Play, Evolution, NetEnt, BGaming, Hacksaw Gaming, Play’n GO, Relax Gaming, Nolimit City, Playson and Paperclip Gaming, along with Easygo’s own studios Twist Gaming and Massive Studios. Slots, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, video poker, keno, bingo, scratch cards, crash games and progressive jackpots are all covered, and a poker room sits in the same account. The sportsbook, Stake’s other main product, shares the wallet.

Live tables come from Evolution, Pragmatic Play Live and Animo Studios: roulette, blackjack, baccarat and game shows.

Stake Originals are the brand’s own games, dozens of titles including Dice, Mines, Plinko, Crash, Limbo, Keno, Dragon Tower, Hilo, Wheel, Coin Flip, Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat and Video Poker. All are provably fair. Before each bet the game commits to a hashed server seed; after the seed is rotated, the player can enter it with their client seed and nonce into a seed checker and confirm that the result was fixed in advance.

Studio slots work differently. Clause 10.5 lets Stake adjust slot house edges without notice, and the RTP shown varies by game, for instance 98.00% on Big Bass Rock and Roll and 96.00% on Sugar Rush 1000. Casino.guru’s Gamecheck found no fake games, yet 25 of the user reviews about games there raise doubts over fairness or RTP. Checking the RTP in each game’s information panel before playing is the only protection the terms leave.

Chat in seconds, but only for registered players

Live chat runs 24/7 but opens only after registration and login, so questions about terms cannot be put to an agent before signing up. Replies are fast: an independent test timed them at about two minutes, and Casino.guru rated five of ten chat tests “Excellent” and five “Good”, with an instant response. Email, a help centre and accounts on X, Facebook and Telegram complete the channels.

Speed does not always bring substance. Players complain of template answers and slow handling at peak times, and Stake’s public replies to reviews often point to its Stake Smart responsible-gambling programme without addressing the case. For a stuck payout, put the amount, coin, network and transaction hash in writing and keep copies of the replies in case the matter goes to a complaint service.

The site comes in 16 languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Russian, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Turkish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hindi, Finnish and Arabic. Support covers 14 to 16 of them, and not all of the terms are translated, so read the English version before raising a dispute.

Account controls include deposit, bet and loss limits, self-exclusion, cool-off periods, a self-assessment test and game history. Session time limits and reality checks are absent, although the Daily Race and Weekly Raffle reward long sessions.

A browser-first app experience on phones

Stake runs as a mobile-optimised web app that can be saved to the home screen as a progressive web app; an iOS app also exists in some markets. The mobile version carries the full casino, Originals, poker and promotions in one account with desktop, and the Daily Race leaderboard and raffle tickets update in the same view.

Two-factor authentication is available and worth switching on before logging in from a phone, since a lost handset with a saved session would otherwise expose the balance.

A VIP ladder from $10,000 to $2.5M in wagers

The VIP club is Stake’s main reward mechanism. Entry is automatic once wagering passes $10,000, and each level unlocks at a set cumulative turnover:

Rakeback starts at about 5% of the house edge at Bronze and rises with level, to roughly 7% and above at Platinum; it is calculated on the casino’s expected margin, so the cash returned is far smaller than the headline percentage suggests.

The ladder clearly favours high rollers: the personal host arrives only at $2.5M wagered. Players praise the hosts, while others call the weekly and monthly bonuses weak. A player wagering a few thousand dollars a month will spend a long time below Bronze and receive little from the club.

Other casinos worth comparing

• Bitcasino.io — an older crypto casino with roots in a rival group and an industry award to its name.
• Thrill — skips the welcome bonus and pays instant rakeback and lossback without wagering from the first bet.
• Sportsbet.io — a broad multi-network cashier with some fiat routes alongside its coins.
• Roobet — splits rakeback into several wager-free streams of withdrawable cash, with a boost for completing verification.

Is Stake’s uncapped cashier worth its strict terms?

For high-volume crypto players, largely yes. Stake combines no withdrawal cap, near-instant approved payouts, a fixed VIP ladder and solid independent trust scores, and it has operated at scale since 2017. The costs sit in the terms: identity checks at any time, a 1x deposit turnover, the right to change slot house edges without notice and a complaint file built around frozen withdrawals.

Stake suits players from accepted countries who complete identity checks early, who wager enough to climb the VIP table and who stick mainly to provably fair Originals. Players who want a simple welcome match, live in one of the 45 excluded jurisdictions or prefer fixed slot RTPs will find little here to justify the trade-offs.