Stake Casino Review

Stake is a crypto-first casino and sportsbook founded in 2017 by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, and it now ranks among the largest gambling platforms in the world. The interface reflects that scale. A search bar and a provider filter sit above the games grid, the live chat icon is visible from any page, and the dark colour scheme holds up over a long session.

The flip side of that is the choice that the game library provides. Over 3,000 titles, a sportsbook, a poker room and 55 in-house games share one lobby, and a first visit takes longer to navigate than a smaller casino would. There is no downloadable app.

• Pros: search bar, filter by provider, live chat icon easy to notice, non-intrusive colour theme
• Cons: no mobile app, crypto-only cashier, bonus wagering counted on deposit plus bonus

Stake features a cryptocurrency-only cash desk. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Tether, TRON, Ripple, Dogecoin and Bitcoin Cash all deposit and withdraw directly, from NZ$5 with no maximum and no fee charged by the casino. Payouts typically complete within 30 minutes, which puts Stake among the quicker fast payout casinos available.

Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and Google Pay do not fund a casino balance at Stake. They buy cryptocurrency through a third-party provider inside the platform. That provider sets its own exchange rate and service fee before the coins reach your account. A player without an existing crypto wallet therefore pays a fee that never appears in the table below.

Stake has no downloadable app. The site runs in a mobile browser instead, carrying the full lobby, cashier, sportsbook and live chat without a separate mobile version.

Two-factor authentication is available in account settings and is worth switching on before the first deposit. A transfer out of the account cannot be reversed once it is sent to the network.

The welcome offer is an exclusive 200% match up to $2,000 from a NZ$100 minimum deposit, and the wagering requirement is 40x counted on deposit plus bonus rather than on the bonus alone.

“Read the wagering terms in full, not just the multiplier. Most casinos apply their multiplier to the bonus. Stake applies it to your deposit and the bonus together. Funding the offer to its ceiling means depositing $1,000 (or NZD equivalent) to receive $2,000, so 40x runs against $3,000 rather than $2,000. That is $120,000 in bets, one third of it demanded by money that was already yours. The same 40x on the bonus alone would ask $80,000.”

Beyond the welcome offer, Stake leans on recurring competitions rather than deposit matches, and a 5% rakeback applies automatically from the first deposit with no code required.

Daily Race

A 24-hour leaderboard with a NZ$100,000 prize pool. Casino play and sports bets both climb it, and the top 5,000 players share the pool when the day closes.

Weekly Raffle

Participants share a NZ$75,000 pool each week. Every NZ$1,000 wagered buys one ticket into the draw.

Conquer the Casino

A NZ$50,000 pool split among players who reach the top of the Lucky Wins or Big Wins leaderboards on newly added games.

Stake vs Eddie

A NZ$30,000 pool for players who beat Eddie's multiplier on the selected game.

The Level Up challenge

A NZ$20,000 pool for players who beat target multipliers on selected games.

The Multiplier Race

A NZ$10,000 top prize for the highest multiplier achieved on specified games.

Chaos Collector

Active players collect 100x multipliers on selected games through the week and share a NZ$10,000 pool.

VIP programme

The VIP ladder goes from Bronze to Diamond, and progress depends on wagering volume rather than results. Higher tiers raise the rakeback percentage and add bonuses, free spins and a dedicated account manager. Anyone comparing this against a conventional loyalty scheme should read the terms for real money play first.

Tournaments

Tournaments usually run during a limited time, but the casino makes sure there are always active competitions. Prizes from them generally arrive without a wagering requirement.

More than 3,000 titles fill the lobby, 55 of them built in-house as Stake Originals. Dice, Crash, Plinko and Limbo sit in that group and carry lower house edges than most third-party pokies, which is why high-volume players gravitate towards them.

Besides the Originals, you’ll find game shows, table games and a live casino section: 

• Roulette: Stake Roulette, Gold Vault Roulette, XXXtreme Lightning Roulette
• Blackjack: Stake Blackjack, Lightning Blackjack, Bombay Live Blackjack Lobby
• Baccarat: Peek Baccarat, Stake Baccarat, Golden Wealth Baccarat

Pokies are the core of the catalogue. Four titles show the range:

Razor Returns has 40 paylines with nudges, mystery symbols, free spins, increasing multipliers and a symbol collection feature, topping out at 100,000x the bet.

Fire Joker keeps to 3 reels and 5 paylines, with a respin on near misses and a multiplier wheel.

Starburst pays across 5 reels and 10 paylines. Expanding wilds trigger respins, and the max. win is a modest 500x.

Big Bass Splash carries an RTP of 96.71% and high volatility, with free spins, wilds and scatters, and a maximum win of 5,000x.

Open the info screen of any title before spinning and read its RTP, because studios license more than one build of the same game and the casino chooses which to run.

Stake is operated by Medium Rare N.V., registered in Curacao and holding a Curacao Gaming Authority licence, number OGL/2024/1451/0918. The older 8048/JAZ number quoted in places belongs to the master-licence system that Curacao retired, so the OGL figure is the one to check against the regulator's validator.

The platform supports two-factor authentication and publishes provably fair verification for its Stake Originals. That means the result of a Dice or Crash round can be checked against a committed seed rather than taken on trust. Stake is also a verified member of the Crypto Gambling Foundation.

Any honest review should mention that in September 2023, attackers drained roughly $41 million from Stake's hot wallets, and the FBI attributed the theft to the Lazarus Group. Player balances were not lost and withdrawals continued, but the incident is a reminder that a crypto casino holds custody of your coins between deposit and payout. Keep no more on the platform than the amount you intend to play with. 

Around 38 studios supply the library. Pragmatic Play, NetEnt, Play'n GO, Playtech, Evolution, Games Global, Big Time Gaming, Red Tiger, Push Gaming and Relax Gaming offer the most titles percentage-wise.

The rest of the catalogue is provided by Hacksaw Gaming, BGaming, Blueprint, Playson, OneTouch, TrueLab, Endorphina, Thunderkick, Belatra, ELK Studios, Wazdan and Spinomenal. The in-house Stake Originals come from Easygo, the studio the founders built before launching the casino.

Live chat runs 24 hours a day and is the fastest route to resolve a problem. Email reaches support@stake.com and typically takes longer, up to a day.

When you want a resolution as fast as possible, attach a transaction hash, the coin and the amount to your message. A blockchain transfer can be traced from the hash alone, and an agent otherwise has to request it before anything can be checked.

• Live chat: 24/7
• Email: support@stake.com