OPERATOR REVIEW · Sweepsteaks Limited
Stake
21+ minimum age per Stake's terms state floors and our 21+ readership
The short answer
Stake
Showing the national rating. Choose a state to see how its sweepstakes law changes the score.
- Where you can play
- 31 states
- Pick your state to see the answer for you.
- How solid our proof is
- Medium
- Useful but incomplete evidence
- Where our review stands
- Tested
- First-hand account activity documented, but the editorial review is incomplete.
The Trust Score is computed from seven factors. Research status and evidence confidence describe our review, not the operator.
3 of 7 factor inputs carry evidence reviewed and approved. 1 more carries an automated draft that no editor has signed off yet.
What BonusBandit knows that other reviews do not
- Operator terms reviewed July 31, 2026 Operator terms
- Owner on record Sweepsteaks Limited Ownership record
This operator's evidence fingerprint
A compact read of the records that make this review different. Unknown means the evidence is not recorded here, not that the operator failed the test.
- Terms and availability
- No material change found across 47 tracked months; 31 accepted states
- Evidence coverage
- 4 of 7 factor inputs have verified evidence coverage; 3 evidence gaps remain
- Public record
- Unknown: no recorded event count; 7 score-history entries
Reader decision: Use the factor inputs with verified evidence coverage for Stake as the starting point. A delivered payout is unknown from the records shown here.
Where this review stands
No written verdict on Stake has been published yet. We only publish verdicts after working an operator's evidence by hand, and Stake hasn't cleared that queue. The score below reflects an individual re-verification, computed from the same seven-factor formula as every operator on the site. Automated watchers track Stake's terms and availability in the meantime, and any score movement lands in the changelog with its reason.
First-hand evidence
The complete first-hand record
First-hand tests
Each delivered redemption contributes +5 to this operator’s Track Record score, up to +20.
Most recent test Jun 19, 2026.
Daily bonus: week at a glance
Week of Jun 14–Jun 20
| Sun14 | Mon15 | Tue16 | Wed17 | Thu18 | Fri19 | Sat20 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GC | · | · | · | · | · | · | · |
| SC | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Score breakdown
Scored with the published, versioned formula: methodology v1 (scoring version e9a89dbe). Affiliate status has zero input.
3 of 7 factor inputs carry evidence reviewed and approved. 1 more carries an automated draft that no editor has signed off yet. Score last verified July 31, 2026. The published score is recomputed by the seven-factor formula from those inputs, not set by hand. What this means.
Stake: what we know so far
Stake's strongest signal is Player reviews at 84/100. The biggest concern is Terms honesty at 13/100.
STRENGTHS
- Player reviews 84
(2026-07-02): player-reviews factor rebuilt from LIVE Trustpilot aggregate 4.4/5 over 16913 reviews (10% 1-2 star). Deterministic rubric mapping.…
- KYC fairness 80
Is verification a process or a payout-avoidance wall?
- Redemption reliability 70
Do payouts arrive, and on time?
WATCHOUTS
- Terms honesty 13
Version 17.0 states Gold Coin purchases are final and non-refundable and requires binding individual arbitration with a class-action waiver. It also…
- Support 50
Response quality when something goes wrong
- Track record 68
Track record reality check: no published verdict + no verified first-hand cashout + legacy-migration baseline. Operator has not earned the…
| Factor | What it measures | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Redemption reliability | Do payouts arrive, and on time? | 70 |
| KYC fairness | Is verification a process or a payout-avoidance wall? | 80 |
| Terms honesty | Do the terms match what the marketing implies? | 13 |
| Playthrough | How burdensome are wagering requirements? | 70 |
| Track record | Years operating without scandals or exits | 68 |
| Player reviews | Sustained sentiment across platforms | 84 |
| Support | Response quality when something goes wrong | 50 |
How this score is calculated
- Base score
- 62
- renormalized weighted average over 7 of 7 factors
- Freshness decay
- −0
- current, no decay
- Complaint penalty
- −0
- none
- Published score
- 62
- → Caution
The adjustments are formulas, not discretion. How they work.
Why this score?
Open any factor to see the evidence that placed Stake in its band.
Redemption reliability 70
Score derived from our public-record rubric. No logged review for this factor yet.
KYC fairness 80
Score derived from our public-record rubric. No logged review for this factor yet.
Terms honesty 13
13/100, weak (below 50).
Rubric band (methodology)
The Terms honesty factor (0-100) - 90-100: clear language, no hidden caps, redemption rules stated up-front, no class-action waiver, dispute resolution accessible; 70-89: mostly clear, some buried caveats but no traps; 50-69: standard sweeps boilerplate, redemption rules require careful reading; 30-49: misleading marketing vs ToS, hidden caps, complex playthrough lock-ins; 0-29: explicit player-hostile clauses such as refunds excluded, redemptions invalidatable at will, or indefinite KYC freezes.
Evidence type: Operator terms. Researched and written by Noah Rafkin on July 31, 2026.
Version 17.0 states Gold Coin purchases are final and non-refundable and requires binding individual arbitration with a class-action waiver. It also reserves broad discretion around accounts, verification, odds, prizes, and balances. These express provisions match the rubric's 0-29 band. The existing score of 13 remains supportable, so this packet fills the missing rationale without changing the number.
- Some source dates are not recorded.
Playthrough 70
70/100, strong (70–100).
Rubric band (methodology)
The Playthrough factor (0-100) - 90-100: no playthrough or <=1x on Sweeps Coins purchased entries; 70-89: 1-3x wagering requirement on SC; 50-69: 3-5x on SC; 30-49: 5-10x on SC or confusing GC/SC mixing; 0-29: >=10x on SC, lifetime wagering caps, or unrecoverable bonus locks.
Clause 13.1(c) explicitly requires a 3x playthrough for Stake Cash other than Stake Cash won through Promotional Play. The rubric places 1-3x in the 70-89 band and 3-5x in the 50-69 band; 70 is the conservative boundary score for an exact 3x rule and is better supported than the current 83.
- Review date
- July 31, 2026
- Reviewer state
- Human authored
- Some source dates are not recorded.
Track record 68
68/100, mixed (50–69).
Track record reality check: no published verdict + no verified first-hand cashout + legacy-migration baseline. Operator has not earned the track-record score it was assigned by the rubric: applied -15 until evidence accumulates.
- Review date
- June 19, 2026
- Reviewer state
- Human authored
- Some source dates are not recorded.
Complaint adjustment: Complaint penalty recomputed: legal events with documented player impact (each easing 1 point per 90 days) plus any standing editorial complaint penalty. Legality-classification suits stay on the legal tracker and state adjustments and no longer reduce the national score (methodology narrowed 2026-08-13).
Player reviews 84
84/100, strong (70–100).
Evidence type: Public reviews. Automated draft dated July 3, 2026, not yet reviewed by an editor.
(2026-07-02): player-reviews factor rebuilt from LIVE Trustpilot aggregate 4.4/5 over 16913 reviews (10% 1-2 star). Deterministic rubric mapping. Source: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/stake.us
- Some source dates are not recorded.
Support 50
Score derived from our public-record rubric. No logged review for this factor yet.
BonusBandit's notes on Stake
Why Stake.us sits in the caution tier and not higher
Stake.us carries a BonusBandit Trust Score that lands it in the caution tier. That placement is worth unpacking, because Stake is one of the most recognized names in the sweepstakes space and people are often surprised it does not clear our trusted line. The single biggest drag is transparency of terms: our terms-honesty factor for Stake sits near the floor of the 0–100 scale, and that one factor is doing most of the damage. By contrast, the operator scores reasonably well on the mechanics that matter to players (redemption process, KYC, playthrough, track record, and reviews all land in solid mid-to-upper territory) but a near-floor terms score pulls the weighted total down hard. For the live number and the full per-factor breakdown, see the score box at the top of this operator’s page; the weighting logic is on our methodology page.
One important clarification first: this page is about Stake.us, the US-facing sweepstakes platform run by Sweepsteaks Limited. Do not confuse it with the global crypto casino at stake.com. They share branding, not regulatory footing. Everything below is about the sweepstakes product.
What BonusBandit has actually observed first-hand
We have logged exactly one first-hand test of Stake.us, on 2026-06-19, and the honest headline is that we have not completed a cashout here. There are zero received redemptions on file. What we did capture is the daily-bonus cadence: across seven consecutive days (June 14–20), BonusBandit recorded a 1 SC daily bonus every single day: a small, consistent free Stake Cash drip rather than a headline daily prize. That is real, repeatable behavior we watched, and it is the kind of low-friction daily mechanic that keeps people logging in.
Because we have no verified payout of our own yet, the score does not get the track-record credit a hands-on cashout would earn. In fact, our score history shows an explicit -15 adjustment to track record on 2026-06-19 (from 83 down to 68) with the public reason: no published verdict + no verified first-hand cashout + legacy-migration baseline. In plain terms: we are not willing to vouch for what we haven’t personally collected. Stake’s redemption minimum on file is 48.4 SC, so a full cashout test is a meaningful commitment we haven’t yet closed out.
Promotions and the daily-bonus picture
When BonusBandit last snapshotted Stake.us promotions (recorded 2026-06-15 from stake.us/promotions), the slate was unusually deep for a sweeps brand. It included 50M GC Daily Races, a Weekly Promotion sharing “GC + free SC every single week,” a Weekly Wrapped advertised at “50K SC or 500M GC,” plus poker-flavored extras like a 1,000,000 Bad Beat Jackpot and a 500,000 All in or Fold Jackpot. Stake leans heavily into a VIP Club loyalty structure, with an “Only on Stake VIP Boost” giving 2x progression on its house slots. The poker product (Stake Poker, “Next!” ring games with random sweep drops) is genuinely differentiated: most sweeps casinos don’t run a real poker room. That breadth is a strength; the catch is that the welcome/sign-up offer wording was not captured in our snapshot, and we could not re-verify the live homepage at draft time (more on that below).
The state map: broadly available, no exits
Stake.us accepts players across a broad slate of states per our last verification (2026-06-11) and has logged no state exits. The notable exclusions are the usual sweeps holdouts plus some surprises: it does not accept New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Washington, Nevada, California, Connecticut, Maryland, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Idaho, among others. The Stake ToS sets a 21+ minimum age, which we re-confirmed directly against the operator’s help center at draft time (help.stake.us, “Minimum legal age to play”, exact wording: “our platform is exclusively for users who have reached the age of 21 or older”). That 21+ floor is stricter than the 18 most sweeps sites and most states allow, so check your state on our legal tracker before assuming you qualify.
The legal cloud, and what we’re watching
Stake.us is a named defendant in the City of Baltimore v. VGW Holdings et al. social-casino lawsuit (Case No. C-24-CV-26-001646, Baltimore City Circuit Court, e-filed 2026-03-04), which lumps Sweepsteaks/Stake.us in alongside VGW (Chumba/LuckyLand), McLuck, Pulsz, High 5, and Fortune Coins as defendant groups in an illegal-gambling claim. It is not a payout-failure complaint, it is a regulatory and legal exposure item, but it’s real. The complaint penalty attached to this suit came off the national score on 2026-08-13, when the methodology narrowed so that legality-classification suits no longer reduce it. The suit is still pending, it remains logged on our legal tracker, and it still informs state-level adjustments. The score card above carries the current adjustments.
What would move this score: the fastest path up is a completed, documented first-hand cashout from BonusBandit: that alone would unwind much of the -15 track-record hit. A published verdict and a genuine improvement in terms transparency (that near-floor terms factor is the ceiling-killer) would do the rest. The fastest path down would be an adverse ruling in the Baltimore matter, a new state exit, or first-hand redemption trouble.
How Stake stacks up
Among caution-tier peers, Stake sits ahead of fellow Baltimore defendants chumba and lucky-land-slots, but behind better-scoring names like pulsz and mc-luck. If your priority is a proven-payout track record over brand recognition, trusted-tier operators like mega-bonanza and crown-coins have earned more of our confidence. You can line them up side by side on our compare tool. Stake’s product is among the most feature-rich in the category; our hesitation is about transparency and an unfinished payout test, not about whether the games exist.
Verified against BonusBandit’s live database on 2026-06-25; first-hand tests as logged; external signals from help.stake.us (minimum-age article, fetched live). Stake.us homepage, /promotions, Trustpilot, and Reddit were all unreachable (403/blocked) at draft time, so promotion details are cited from BonusBandit’s 2026-06-15 database snapshot rather than a live re-fetch.
BonusBandit editorial · updated August 30, 2026. Cashout times, amounts, and availability trace to our live database and first-hand testing.
Terms and offer facts
- Minimum redemption
- $48.40 catalog median $100
- States accepted
- 31
Read off Stake's own terms, July 31, 2026. Stake Terms of Service ↗
Where Stake accepts players
AK · AL · AR · CO · DC · FL · GA · HI · IA · IN · KS · MA · ME · MN · MO · MS · NC · ND · NE · NH · NM · OH · OK · OR · SC · SD · TX · UT · VA · WI · WY
Availability changes as state laws change. Check the tracker for your state.
Terms-of-service changes
Stake's Terms of Service appear stable . No material change across the last 47 months of archived snapshots. Current terms ↗
Bonus & features
Site features as observed Jun 15, 2026 · source (stake.us) ↗ · offers change. Verify on-site before depositing.
Recurring promotions
9 ongoing
- Daily 50M GC Daily Races : Earn a share in 50,000,000 GC!
- Weekly Stake.us Weekly Promotion : Play to earn entries into a promotion where anybody can win. Just one entry could see you sharing in GC + free SC every single week
- Weekly Weekly Wrapped : 50K SC or 500M GC!
- Event RNG Rush : 50K SC or 500M GC!
- Event Challenges : The competition just got more intense, with Stake's brand new Challenges now giving you even more chances to win!
- Ongoing Only on Stake VIP Boost : 2x VIP Progression on Only on Stake Slots and Burst Games
- Ongoing Next!: Drops Have Arrived : 1,000,000 in random sweep drops on Stake Poker’s Next! ring game tables
- Ongoing 500,000 All in or Fold Jackpot : What’s All in or Fold (AoF) without a Jackpot?!
- Ongoing 1,000,000 Bad Beat Jackpot : Win a share of the 1M Bad Beat Jackpot!
Site features
- Support
- Live chat
- Loyalty / VIP
- VIP Club
What's the daily bonus really worth?
A daily bonus is free play, but its real worth depends on how hard it is to clear and whether Stake actually pays out.
Observed daily reward 1.0 SC/day Measured Averaged in person over 7 logged observations (2026-06-14 → 2026-06-20). ~$347/year projected, at 1× playthrough, before payout risk
Risk to collect Mixed payout signals
| Period | GC accumulated | SC accumulated | Potential cash value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 days | – | 7.0 | ~$6.65 |
| 30 days | – | 30 | ~$28.50 |
| 365 days (annualized) | – | 365 | ~$347 |
Annualized figures are a projection, not a promise. They assume you claim the bonus every day and Stake's bonus structure holds steady. Daily bonuses change often; values shown as of 2026-06-20.
How this is calculated
We start from 1.0 SC per day (the average across the logged days), multiply by the number of days, divide by the playthrough (1× unless we've actually measured otherwise), then take a small RTP haircut, and nothing else. That's the value Stake offers:
- playthrough 1× playthrough (the sweeps norm), then a 5% RTP haircut
- ToS signal Stake's ToS playthrough language rates 70 → tos allows discretion. Almost every sweeps site is 1× in practice, so this is a TRUST read; it doesn't move the cash figure.
Why isn't redemption in the formula? Because how reliably Stake actually pays out is a separate question from how much it puts on the table. Discounting the dollar figure by redemption made a slow-paying operator look like it offered a smaller bonus, which is backwards. So payout reliability is shown above as the risk-to-collect badge, never baked into the number. Stake's redemption factor is 70 → mixed payout signals.
We assume 1 SC ≈ $1 at redemption and that you claim the bonus every day. Averaged in person over 7 logged observations (2026-06-14 → 2026-06-20). The annual figure assumes the bonus structure stays stable. Full formula on the methodology page.
Source: Averaged in person over 7 logged observations (2026-06-14 → 2026-06-20). See the full first-hand log. See more daily-bonus value comparisons →
Recent Reddit bonus links
26 link drops in the last month across 15 days, most active in r/CasinoFreebies.
No links are live right now. This operator has community activity on record, but nothing posted in the last 24 hours.
Free entry (AMOE)
We don't earn affiliate revenue if you use this documented no-purchase route.
Stake's published terms include a no-purchase alternative method of entry. Here's the route we've recorded.
- Method
- Mail-in postcard
- Per free entry
- ~$5.00 value per free entry
- Mail to
- Sweepsteaks Limited, 13101 Preston RD STE 110-5027, Dallas, TX 75240
- Notes
- 5 Stake Cash per Request Card (T&C section 8.3 Stake Cash through Post Card, read 2026-07-17). Handwritten card at least 4x6 unfolded, stamped envelope marked Stake Cash Credits, unique postcard code, one card per envelope, mailed from the customer's verified state. There is no separate sweeps rules doc; section 8 of the T&C is the operative text.
Verified 2026-07-17. Source ↗ All free-entry routes →
Risk timeline
-
Complaint penalty +4 applied: Complaint penalty recomputed: legal events with documented player impact (each easing 1 point per 90 days) plus any standing editorial complaint penalty. Legality-classification suits stay on the legal tracker and state adjustments and no longer reduce the national score (methodology narrowed 2026-08-13).
-
Track record: 83 → 68 (-15). Track record reality check: no published verdict + no verified first-hand cashout + legacy-migration baseline. Operator has not earned the track-record score it was assigned by the rubric: applied -15 until evidence accumulates.
-
Complaint penalty -4 applied: Complaint penalty recomputed from active legal events (lawsuits and regulatory actions); each penalty eases by 1 point per 90 days.
-
City of Baltimore ex rel. Ebony Thompson v. VGW Holdings Ltd. et al. (social-casino illegal-gambling suit)
Ownership
Operating entity on record: Sweepsteaks Limited. That is what the corporate record and the operator's own terms show, which is not the same as knowing who runs the brand day to day.
Score history
Every change to this operator's score, with the reason it was made:
- 2026-08-13 Complaint penalty: -4 → 0. Complaint penalty recomputed: legal events with documented player impact (each easing 1 point per 90 days) plus any standing editorial complaint penalty. Legality-classification suits stay on the legal tracker and state adjustments and no longer reduce the national score (methodology narrowed 2026-08-13).
- 2026-07-31 Terms honesty: 13 → 13.
- 2026-07-31 Playthrough: 83 → 70.
Show the full history (4 earlier changes)
- 2026-07-03 Player reviews: 71 → 84. (2026-07-02): player-reviews factor rebuilt from LIVE Trustpilot aggregate 4.4/5 over 16913 reviews (10% 1-2 star). Deterministic rubric mapping. Source: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/stake.us
- 2026-06-19 Track record: 83 → 68. Track record reality check: no published verdict + no verified first-hand cashout + legacy-migration baseline. Operator has not earned the track-record score it was assigned by the rubric: applied -15 until evidence accumulates.
- 2026-06-14 Complaint penalty: 0 → -4. Complaint penalty recomputed from active legal events (lawsuits and regulatory actions); each penalty eases by 1 point per 90 days.
- 2026-06-10 Baseline published. Initial published score under methodology v1 (June 2026). Prior scores migrated from the legacy site.
Sites like Stake
Each one beats Stake on a single thing we can prove, and the card shows both sides of that comparison. If switching costs you something, that is on the card too. Nothing here is an affiliate link, and commission never decides who appears: the ranking is the same seven-factor Trust Score used everywhere else.
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CrownCoins
73/100 TRUSTED VERIFIED JUL 31, 2026We have watched more payouts land
We have watched 28 payouts land from CrownCoins, against none from Stake.
-
MegaBonanza
77/100 TRUSTED VERIFIED JUL 31, 2026Better score for paying out
MegaBonanza scores 94 out of 100 for paying out, against 70 for Stake.
-
HelloMillions
73/100 TRUSTED VERIFIED AUG 13, 2026Better score for honest terms
HelloMillions scores 25 out of 100 for honest terms, against 13 for Stake.
See the full ranking of sites like Stake, with evidence and tradeoffs.
Sites like Stake: common questions
What are sites like Stake?
The closest by Trust Score are MegaBonanza, WowVegas, CrownCoins, each within 15 points of Stake's 62/100 on the same seven-factor formula. The full alternatives rundown, with the review-base and first-hand payout evidence for each, is on the dedicated "sites like Stake" page.
Head-to-head
Keep researching: every cash-out we've logged · casinos that actually paid · how redemption works · current top-rated
Report your Stake experience
Cashed out, stalled, or stonewalled? Tell us what happened. No account needed, and we never publish your name. Dates, amounts, and methods are what make a report usable.
- You send it. It is not public, and it is not evidence yet.
- A person reads it, usually within 48 hours. Nothing posts automatically.
- If it holds up we publish it with the community reports for Stake. Some reports get logged and never published.
No report changes the Trust Score. The score is computed from the seven factors, and a submission cannot move it. Community reports also stay separate from our first-hand tests, which are cashouts we paid for and recorded ourselves.