What Is Stake?
Stake launched in 2017 and is now the world's largest crypto-native casino. The site is owned and operated by Medium Rare N.V., registration number 145353, at Seru Loraweg 17 B, Curaçao. Payment processing runs through two wholly owned Cyprus subsidiaries named in the terms: Medium Rare Limited (HE 410775) and MRS Tech Ltd (HE 477481).
The license matters more than the registration number. Medium Rare holds a direct Curaçao Gaming Authority license, OGL/2024/1451/0918, issued after the LOK reform replaced the island's master-license system in December 2024. Operators now answer to the regulator itself rather than to a private master licensee, and the current regime carries obligations the old one did not, including mandatory independent dispute resolution. It is still a lighter-touch regime than the UKGC or MGA.
Ultimate ownership sits with Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani via Easygo Entertainment Pty Ltd, a private Melbourne company. The scale is real: Forbes put Stake's 2024 gross revenue at $4.7 billion. That figure matters only because an operator this size can pay a seven-figure win without flinching.
The compliance record is mixed. Stake surrendered its UK license and ceased operations there on 11 March 2025 under Gambling Commission pressure, after white-label partner TGP Europe was fined £316,250 in 2023 for anti-money-laundering and social-responsibility failures.
Stake also runs separately licensed local sites through different legal entities in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Italy and Denmark. Those are distinct businesses from stake.com, which is why all six appear on stake.com's own prohibited list.
These are two different products and the difference decides whether you can use either.
- Stake.com is the real-money crypto casino and sportsbook reviewed on this page, operated by Medium Rare N.V. under a Curaçao license. Its terms list the United States as a prohibited jurisdiction.
- Stake.us is a separate sweepstakes and social casino built for the United States market, on a different legal model. We do not review or list it, and nothing on this page describes it.
Search results for "stake casino" mix the two constantly, and so do a lot of published reviews. If you are reading a Stake review that quotes United States sweepstakes coin packages, it is describing Stake.us, not the platform here.
Our Rating: 4.0 / 5
The score comes from our eight weighted criteria applied to documented evidence: the operator's own terms read in full, its license checked by register number, the regulator's published complaints framework, and public complaint records. Our method is set out on our How We Rate Casinos page. The overall rating is the same number that sets Stake's position on our ranking pages.
Is Stake Legit and Safe?
Stake is generally a safe and legitimate crypto gambling platform: it is operated by an identifiable company, holds a Curaçao Gaming Authority license, and has been active since 2017. Its size, established track record and contractual segregation of player funds are reassuring. There are still meaningful drawbacks in its terms and in how its published complaint path is written.
The license
Stake's terms and its licensing page both state that stake.com is operated by Medium Rare N.V., licensed by the Curaçao Gaming Authority under license number OGL/2024/1451/0918. That is a direct business-to-consumer license under Curaçao's current regime, held by the company that actually runs the site, and it is checkable by number. That is better than a large part of the crypto casino market, where the "license" on the page is often a Costa Rican company registration, which is not a gaming license at all.
Be clear about what a Curaçao license does and does not buy you. Under the reformed LOK framework it sets requirements on fair play, segregation of player funds, anti-money-laundering procedure, and, since the 2025 complaints policy, free access to independent alternative dispute resolution. What it does not give you is the enforcement muscle and public casework of the UK Gambling Commission or the Malta Gaming Authority. If Stake refuses a payout, you now have a defined escalation route beyond Stake itself, but less leverage than a UK or Maltese licensee would face.
Reputation
Trustpilot shows 3.9 out of 5 from 17,581 reviews, with 5,870 in the last twelve months, checked on 10 August 2026. The distribution is polarized: 66% five star and 21% one star, with very little in between. That shape is normal in gambling, where sentiment tracks whether the last session won or lost, but the one-star fifth is not noise. The profile is claimed, active and not suspended, and Stake has answered 98% of negative reviews.
The public complaint record holds both resolved and unresolved cases against Stake. The resolved ones tend to involve stuck deposits and payment-method failures that were eventually refunded or credited. The unresolved ones are the more instructive category, because they show what happens when Stake's position and the player's do not converge. We found no regulator warning-list entry for stake.com in the registers we checked.
We read Stake's terms in full and flag two clauses below that we consider unfair to players. Neither is unusual in this market, which is a comment on the market rather than a defense of the clauses.
The 2023 theft
On 4 September 2023, approximately $41 million was stolen from Stake's hot wallets. The FBI publicly attributed the attack to the Lazarus Group, the North Korean state hacking operation, in a press release naming Stake.com directly and listing the wallet addresses the funds moved to.
That press release establishes the theft, the approximate amount and the attribution. It does not establish what happened to player balances, and we are not going to fill that gap with inference. Term 9.1 is Stake's contractual commitment to segregate player funds; it is a promise in a document, not proof of how the 2023 incident was absorbed.
If you want a stronger account of operational continuity through the hack, it needs a contemporaneous source, and we do not have one we are willing to stand behind. It remains the largest documented event in the company's history, and any review that leaves it out is not being straight with you.
Two terms we think are unfair
Term 10.5 reserves Stake's right to adjust the house edge of any slot game at its "sole discretion and without prior notice", and disclaims liability where the house edge conflicts with the RTP displayed inside the game. You are told to contact support if the two disagree. It is worth reading in the original, because the disclaimer at the end of the clause does more work than the first sentence.
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Term 13.1 states that the decision of Stake's management on a dispute is final and not open to review or appeal. Term 11.3 makes Stake's own transaction log the deciding authority in a bet dispute.
Read together, these put you at a disadvantage in exactly the situation where you would most want recourse. Note that term 13.1 governs Stake's own internal procedure. It cannot remove your access to the independent ADR route the regulator requires, described below, but Stake's terms do not tell you that route exists, which is the problem.
The complaint path
Terms 23 and 29 route complaints to Stake's own support. Term 25.1 sets Curaçao law and the exclusive jurisdiction of the Curaçao courts. No independent alternative dispute resolution provider is named anywhere in the terms.
That omission matters, because under Curaçao's current framework an ADR route is mandatory, not optional. The CGA's complaints policy, made under the reformed LOK, requires every B2C licensee to hold an agreement with at least one CGA-certified ADR provider, and requires operators to tell players in their terms and conditions which ADR entities are available to them. Clause 3.2 of that policy sets out the escalation ladder in order, ending at point 4 with the operator's obligation to offer an ADR option.
The framework as published works like this:
- You have six months from the disputed bet or incident to file a formal complaint.
- The operator must handle it internally first, via live chat or email, using an official complaint form.
- Responsible-gambling complaints, such as a self-exclusion breach, must be resolved within five business days. Everything else must be addressed within four weeks, extendable once by a further four weeks.
- If internal resolution fails, you can escalate free of charge to a CGA-certified ADR provider. The operator covers the cost. ADR decisions are due within 90 days.
- Once an ADR provider has decided your case, you cannot take the same dispute to a different one.
CGA-certified providers publish their own websites and accept claims directly; CADRE, certified under number CGA/ADR/2025/01, is one of them. The CGA does not adjudicate individual disputes itself, but it supervises how operators handle them and can act where an operator breaches license conditions. Operators must also report complaint volumes and outcomes to the regulator twice a year.
So the honest position is narrower than "there is no independent umpire". There is one, it is free to you, and Stake's terms should name it and do not. If support says no, escalate to a certified ADR provider before considering a public complaint-mediation service, and long before considering litigation in Curaçao.
Safety verdict
Stake is a genuinely licensed, very large operator with contractual fund segregation, no stated withdrawal ceiling and no regulator warning-list entry we could find. The risk here is not that Stake is a scam. It is that the regulator is lighter-touch than a European one, the terms are written firmly in Stake's favor, and the escalation route that the regulator guarantees you is missing from the document Stake asks you to agree to.
Who Is Stake Best For?
| Someone who wants an independent adjudicator | A qualified fit. Curaçao's regime guarantees you free ADR, but Stake's terms do not name the provider, so you will have to find a certified one yourself |
Does Stake Require KYC?
Verification is not necessarily requested at signup, but treating Stake as an anonymous casino is how people get caught out.
Term 4.8 lets Stake request whatever documentation it considers necessary to establish your identity and location, at any time, and restrict the service, a payment or a withdrawal until it is satisfied. The clause is broader than the phrase "KYC documentation" suggests, and it is worth seeing where it sits in the terms: immediately after the warranty that everything on your application form is true.
Term 8.1 makes verification a precondition of any withdrawal. Term 8.12 permits additional checks on any individual withdrawal. Verification is tiered, and player reports describe requests for identity documents, proof of address and proof of source of funds as amounts increase.
What the terms establish is Stake's right to ask at any point, particularly around a withdrawal. They do not establish a reliable pattern for when the request actually arrives, and we are not going to publish one without a dataset behind it. Plan for the request rather than timing it.
Before you deposit, check that:
- Your legal name and address details match documents you can actually produce.
- You are not in one of the prohibited jurisdictions listed further down.
- You can meet the 100% deposit turnover rule before you will want to withdraw.
- The withdrawal destination is an account or wallet of which you are the legal holder, as term 8.1 requires.
- You have accepted that documents may be requested before a large withdrawal clears.
We do not recommend using a VPN or any other method to get around country restrictions. Term 14.3 treats misrepresenting your location as a breach of the agreement, which puts your balance at risk.
There is a welcome offer, and most reviews get it wrong in one direction or the other.
Stake's help center article "How to get my Welcome Offer?" describes it plainly: entering a valid affiliate or referral code within 24 hours of opening your account gives you immediate access to rakeback, which is otherwise unlocked at the Bronze VIP level. You enter the code on the offers page in your account settings. Miss the 24-hour window and you cannot add it yourself, though Stake says support can help if you signed up under a code. Stake's affiliate bonus article adds that where an affiliate's promotion includes rakeback, you can ask support to enable it and give them the affiliate's Stake username.
Two corrections follow, and they cut in opposite directions.
First, Stake does publish a rakeback rate. The help center states 3.5% of the house edge back on every game, with a worked example: wager 1 BTC on a game with a 2% house edge and you receive 0.0007 BTC, win or lose.
Second, that is not what most affiliate copy says it is. "3.5% rakeback on every wager" describes a share of your turnover. Stake's figure is a share of the house edge. On that 2% game, 3.5% of the house edge works out to roughly 0.07% of turnover, about one fiftieth of what the sloppier phrasing implies. The rate is real and sourceable. The way it is usually advertised is not.
What we could not source to Stake's own documentation is any conventional deposit match or free-spins package. Sites advertising a "200% up to $2,000 Stake welcome bonus" are not supported by Stake's published help material, and some of them are describing Stake.us.
Published prize promotions, as listed on 30 July 2026:
These are pooled competitions. Your share depends on turnover and on how many other players enter, so the headline number is not an amount you can expect to receive. The VIP Club is where weekly boosts, reloads, level-up bonuses, monthly bonuses and eventually a dedicated host come from. Tiers are set by lifetime amount wagered, and Stake publishes more than 15 of them. Checked on 10 August 2026:
One detail worth knowing if you bet sports: Stake counts sports turnover at three times its value for VIP progress, so $1 wagered on sports moves you as far as $3 wagered in the casino.
Term 12.3 confirms that cash balances are always wagered before bonus balances. Terms 12.7 and 12.9 give Stake broad discretion to withdraw a bonus from anyone it considers to be abusing a promotion.
Deposits and Withdrawals
Stake settles in cryptocurrency and supports a broad multi-coin wallet, including BTC, ETH, LTC, DOGE, BCH, XRP, USDT, TRX, LINK and BNB, with no forced conversion into a single house currency. The supported list changes, so check Stake's own payments pages before you plan a route in or out.
The rule most reviews leave out
Terms 8.5 and 8.10 both state that you need to wager 100% of the value of your deposit in order to request a withdrawal, for fiat and for crypto respectively. They sit in separate blocks of the same section, which is part of why the rule gets missed, and the same screen carries most of the other levers Stake can pull on a payout.
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Deposit and immediately try to withdraw, and the request will not go through. This is a 1× turnover requirement, it applies with no bonus involved, and it is the single most useful thing to know before your first deposit.
Limits
Stake's terms do not state a maximum withdrawal or a maximum win. For a player who lands a large win, the absence of a stated ceiling matters more than any bonus. Note that this is an absence rather than a guarantee: term 8.9 separately allows Stake to charge a withdrawal fee at its discretion, so "no stated cap" is not the same as "no friction".
What can delay a withdrawal:
| Fees | Term 8.9 allows Stake to charge a withdrawal fee at its discretion |
What Do Real Players Report?
Public Reddit accounts are mixed, and none of them establishes how Stake will handle any particular withdrawal. Every account below is an unverified player claim. Every post was live when we checked it on 10 August 2026, so you can open each thread and read the surrounding discussion rather than taking our summary on trust.
The strongest positive theme is payout speed on crypto. In a March 2026 thread asking whether any crypto casino actually pays out instantly, a commenter named Stake and called the withdrawal "instant", putting the longest wait they had ever had at five seconds. The qualification matters more than the quote: they were describing USDT withdrawals of roughly $30 to $600, not a large win.
In a separate discussion about why players move to crypto sites, u/oinkoinkacab said recent Stake payouts had been "just as quick as my deposits," worth noting mainly because Stake came up incidentally there rather than in a thread about Stake.
There are positive reports at much larger amounts too. In a February 2026 thread asking directly whether Stake causes problems on high-value withdrawals, one commenter said they had moved $83,000 of XRP to a Crypto.com wallet with "no issue at all", arriving in about a minute, and had repeated $20,000 to $30,000 withdrawals without trouble. That is a single unverified account describing something that happened roughly a year earlier. It is still the most direct counterevidence we found to the assumption that a large win automatically turns into a fight.
Complaints cluster around limits, delays and verification rather than refusal to pay. In February 2026, u/_____Daydreamer objected to not being able to take a full win out in one go, asking "What do you mean I cannot withdraw all the money I won?" and saying support could not explain why their withdrawal limit differed from their partner's.
Read that one carefully. It describes a per-transaction or account-level cap, and the post does not establish whether the restriction originated with Stake or with the payment provider. It is not evidence that the terms contain a maximum-win clause, because they do not.
A second February 2026 thread documents a real delay without overstating it. A player reported that a USDT withdrawal on the Ethereum network had still not arrived after thirty minutes, against a normal experience of funds landing "in minutes". Another player in the same thread reported the same problem and said it had been "so frustrating", while adding that they expected to be paid eventually.
Verification is the recurring friction. In July 2026, u/Electrical-Prize-156 described cashing out as turning into "another verification email, another document, another 'your withdrawal is under review'", and listed Stake among several sites where they kept balances. The complaint was aimed at the industry rather than at Stake specifically, which is the honest way to read it, but it describes exactly the latitude terms 4.8 and 8.12 give Stake around a withdrawal.
Taken together these point both ways. Routine crypto withdrawals are frequently described as very fast, including some sizeable ones, while the friction reports concern individual limits, occasional stuck transactions and verification. Treat them as risk signals and texture on the user experience, not as proof that either outcome is typical.
Casino Games
The casino carries a broad, mainstream supplier roster rather than a thin white-label catalogue, including Evolution, Pragmatic Play, Hacksaw Gaming, Nolimit City, Play'n GO, Push Gaming, Big Time Gaming, Relax Gaming, BGaming, PG Soft and Games Global.
Alongside them sit Stake Originals, the operator's in-house titles. These use provably fair mechanics, so the result of each round can be independently verified against a published seed rather than taken on trust. Stake is also listed as a verified operator on the Crypto Gambling Foundation network on its own licensing page. That is an industry provable-fairness initiative, not a regulator, and it should not be read as oversight.
Live dealer tables cover blackjack, roulette, baccarat and game shows. Stake does not publish a single total game count or studio count, so treat the "2,000+" and "3,000+" figures that circulate as unsourced.
Note term 10.5 again here: Stake can adjust the house edge on a slot at its discretion and without notice, and tells you to contact support if that disagrees with the RTP shown in the game.
Sportsbook and Esports
The sportsbook runs on the same account and balance as the casino, covering football, basketball, tennis, American football and a deep esports section, with pre-match and live in-play betting. Promotions on 30 July 2026 included boosted odds on a sponsored esports team and a refund offer on deciding-map esports markets, which indicates where the sportsbook's marketing focus sits.
Term 10.3 is worth knowing before you place anything: once a bet is placed you cannot cancel it yourself, other than through the Edit Bet feature where it is offered. Stake can void or amend a bet where an event is canceled or there was an obvious pricing error. The clause spells out both halves of that asymmetry.
Mobile and The Fake App Problem
Stake says it does not have an official App Store mobile app. Its official mobile product is the website, which can be added to your home screen as a progressive web app. Stake's own installation instructions start at Stake.com in Safari rather than with an App Store download.
There is a documented reason to be careful. In July 2025, a user on Stake's own community forum reported downloading a fake app called "Stake" from Apple's App Store, depositing $50 and then being locked out after the app returned a 404 error. The app was listed under a developer called P.T Top program, not Medium Rare N.V. A Stake representative replied that the application was not authorized by Stake.com and warned users to report apps claiming an association with the company. The thread, including the App Store listing the player screenshotted, is below.
That makes the risk more than theoretical. Do not assume an app is genuine because it carries the Stake name or logo, or because it appears in an app store. Start from Stake.com itself and follow the installation instructions published there rather than searching independently for a download.
Supported and restricted countries
Term 14.3 lists the prohibited jurisdictions. Read on 30 July 2026, they were:
Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, North Korea, Ontario, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and Zimbabwe.
The clause as published also carries the anti-circumvention wording that makes a VPN a contractual problem rather than a technical one:
Term 14.2 additionally bars anyone subject to United States, European Union or other sanctions lists. Stake reserves the right to change its terms, and country lists move. Treat the list above as a snapshot of one date rather than a current guarantee, and read term 14.3 yourself before depositing.
Six of those entries are there because Stake serves those markets through separately licensed local sites: Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Italy and Denmark. Curaçao is excluded because operators licensed there generally cannot serve their own domestic market. Ontario is listed separately from the rest of Canada.
The restriction applies to residents and to anyone physically located in a prohibited jurisdiction, whatever their nationality. Term 14.3 states that any attempt to circumvent it, including manipulating the information Stake uses to identify your location or giving false location details, is a breach of the agreement. That means a balance built behind a VPN can be confiscated and an account closed. We do not tell readers how to get around geo-blocks, and you should not risk it.
Customer Support
Support is 24/7 live chat plus email at support@stake.com, with the chat reachable from any page. Stake publishes no support telephone number. On the public-facing side, Stake has answered 98% of negative consumer reviews, which suggests the function is actively staffed.
That is a measure of responsiveness, not of outcomes. Under the Curaçao complaints policy, Stake's internal process is also now the mandatory first stage before ADR, with defined deadlines: five business days for responsible-gambling complaints and four weeks for everything else.
Responsible Gambling
This is an area where Stake does more than most crypto casinos, and the tools are worth using.
- Deposit limits, set in USD on a daily basis. Crypto deposited above your limit goes to a withholding balance and is released as the limit resets, rather than being available to play.
- Loss limits over a day, week or month, calculated net, so profits in the period do not count against the limit.
- Wager limits over a day, week or month, calculated gross.
- Cooling-off on increases. Setting or lowering a limit takes effect immediately. Raising or removing one is held for 24 hours.
- Self-exclusion, available indefinitely, with a minimum six-month exclusion and a formal return-to-play review before an account can be reactivated.
- Break in Play for a shorter, temporary suspension.
- A self-assessment questionnaire and a budget calculator.
If a self-exclusion is breached, that is one of the complaint categories the Curaçao framework puts on the fastest track: five business days internally, then free escalation to a certified ADR provider.
Stake's own responsible gambling material states plainly that games carry a house edge, that outcomes are random and independent, and that you should not spend more than you can afford to lose. If gambling has stopped being entertainment, use the self-exclusion tool and seek support. Free, confidential help is available through GamblingTherapy.org and through BeGambleAware.org. Gambling is for adults aged 18 or over, or the legal age where you live if it is higher.
Top Alternatives to Stake
If Stake does not fit, these are also covered in our directory.
| BC.Game | Very large crypto casino with a broad game catalogue. Read our review for its licensing and complaint history first |
How We Reviewed Stake
This is a desk-based review. Here is exactly what we did, and when.
On 30 July 2026 we read Stake's terms of service, licensing page, promotions page, VIP Club page and responsible gambling pages in full, and cited them by clause number rather than paraphrasing loosely. We confirmed the operating company, registration number, registered address and license number from Stake's own terms and licensing statements, and checked the license number against the Curaçao Gaming Authority's published framework for direct B2C licenses under the LOK.
On 10 August 2026 we re-checked Stake's help center documentation on the welcome offer, rakeback and VIP tiers, and refreshed the Trustpilot figures. We reviewed the CGA's complaints and ADR policies to establish what escalation route a Curaçao licensee must provide. We reviewed reputation using Trustpilot's score and rating distribution, public complaint records, and the FBI's public statement on the September 2023 theft.
We searched public Reddit archives for player accounts of withdrawals, verification and account closures, and we cite six of them with usernames, dates and links to the original threads. Every one is labeled as an unverified player claim. Where a post has since been deleted or removed by moderators, we say so and note that the wording comes from an archived copy rather than from anything a reader can still see on Reddit. Where surviving comments contradict a complaint, we have reported the contradiction rather than quoting the complaint alone.
We did not deposit, play or withdraw for this review, so nothing here is presented as a hands-on payout test.
Stake is a paid partner and Bitcoin.com earns a commission when you sign up through our links. Payment buys a listing in our directory. It does not buy the ranking, the rating or the verdict, and no operator sees this page before it publishes. Our full criteria and commercial arrangements are set out on our How We Rate Casinos page.
Last checked: 10 August 2026.
Final Verdict
Stake is what it appears to be: a very large, genuinely licensed crypto casino and sportsbook with deep game coverage, no stated withdrawal ceiling, contractual fund segregation and no regulator warning-list entry we could find. For a high-volume crypto player in an eligible country, it is one of the strongest options available, and the VIP ladder rewards sustained play in a way few competitors match.
The reasons to hesitate are structural rather than scandalous. The welcome offer is early access to rakeback via an affiliate code, not a deposit match, and at 3.5% of the house edge it is worth far less than the way it is usually advertised. You must turn over your deposit once before you can withdraw. Verification can be requested at any time and the terms give Stake wide latitude to pause a payout while it asks. The regulator is lighter-touch than a European one, and the terms let Stake adjust a slot's house edge without notice and declare its own decision on a dispute final.
Curaçao's framework does give you a free independent ADR route on top of that, which is a real improvement, but Stake's terms do not name the provider, so you will have to find it yourself at the worst possible moment. More than 40 listed jurisdictions, including the United States and United Kingdom, cannot use the site at all.
Go in with those facts and Stake is a reasonable place to play. Go in expecting a deposit bonus, anonymity, or an operator that volunteers your appeal rights, and you will be disappointed.
