Topic: Stake.com has permanently closed my account with 17 000 USD in it (Read 1041 times)

No, that is uncommon. Reputable gambling platforms [I believe you're quite familiar with at least the big ones here on the forum] will, more likely than not, explain the clauses being breached, either when they first restricted access to the account and the player asked live support or sending an email, or later when they inquired here and the casinos' representative take a look into the matter.

I am not sure from where you got the impression that it's something that not uncommon.

i've never used stake before but i heard they have great bonuses and stuff, and all the good things lately ... but confiscating funds and closing account without disclosing anything is not something thats uncommon around gambling industry i must say.. i have heard a great share of stories about bookies that are well reputed from bet365 , fanduel all the way to those tendy crypto casinos and trust me, its always either something the user is hiding, winning too much, suspicious aka fixed betting, or just money laundering.. and they love when they catch you doing one of these. But then, there are exceptions.. esp in crypto casinos that holds a very controversial license (curacao) that they might harass you and try their best not to let you withdraw your winnings , considering you didnt do any of the thing mentioned above to break their ToS and you're just a gambling addict being lucky... so if i were you, i'd take this as a lesson, and not to keep enough money to your one of those crypto casino.. and in any case you are a high roller, just use casinos that are available locally or use offline bookies ! i do hope you recover your funds though! good luck!

Thank you for your great replies, I will be writing to them this afternoon. Im sorry for being so slow about this, but the amount of money i lost has taken a toll on me.

I think, given antillephone will be obsolete in a couple of months, and that [IIRC] by early 2025 as the latest, all of the sub-licesor of the soon-to-be-obsolete master license will be required to acquire their own licensing under GCB [which later will turn into CGA], a better approach will be to tell GCB that stake still have one issues with a player, with a rather large sum of fund involved, and ask GCB to perhaps reconsider granting the license to Stake, given the current situation.

This Curacoan Gaming Control Board will maybe not handle the dispute between the customer and the casino itself, but at least it might ask the master license holder aka Antille Phone why it didn't reply to the customer and didn't manage to handle the dispute.
According to this document Antille Phone master license will expire soon, in 2 months, so it could be an explanation why they don't bother to handle disputes anymore. But the curacaoan authorities should remedy to that.
https://gamingcontrol.spin-cdn.com/media/online_gaming/20240808_07082024_master_license_expiry_date.pdf

Anyway Stake will need  to claim another and more serious license very soon if they want to stay incorporated in Curacaoan islands.
You've forgotten to put the link OP was looking for btw https://www.gamingcontrolcuracao.org/contact

I'm a bit unclear yet about these new regime, so there is a very huge chance my information is wrong, and I welcome corrections, but...

This topic of Curacao with their new gambling license regime was first brought to my attention perhaps around the end of last year or earlier this year, and I didn't pay much attention to it, as at that time, it's still rather vague, so only gave them a quick glance, summarizing that they will implement a new system that will make the old one [the one with four master license holder and their sub-licenses] obsolete once the new system fully take place, that they will gave some grace period for master license holder and sub-licensee to adapt to these new system, etc.

Sometime around this month or one month back, I had a discussion with someone complaining about a case [for different casino, if I am not mistaken, not stake], where they claimed the casino just trying to stall while they applied for their new license. I assumed at that time that they're talking about Anjouan, as many casinos seems to run to Anjouan these days, having both Curacao and Anjouan license, which I assume, was a preparation for Curacao license overhaul.

With this topic being brought back to my attention, and with a quick reading from several pages, to sum it ups, Curacao's Gaming Control Board [GCB] will oversee the transition of the old system to the new one, where every casino and gambling activities, both the B2B and B2C business models, will be directly supervised by one new "master license", the Curacao ministry themselves, under Curacao Gambling Authority [CGA].

For the time being, though, until this new regime fully operational and everything will be supervised by CGA, GCB will handle and ease each parties with the transition. But, a quick glance at GCB tell me that they're not exactly handle mediation.

Could you point me in the right direction to where i can submit this report? I am truly devastated by how little Stake wants to solve this. This could have been sorted in minutes if they set up a video call or something like that.

It's sad to hear that, it's the license provider duty to check if the casinos using its licenses are respecting their requirements, but I don't understand why this platform which is one of the largest casino in the world and certainly the biggest one incorporated at Curacao is still using the old license system while its contestants are already using the new one. I guess you should be able to report your case to the new Curaçaoan Gambling authority though.

Actually, they do.

Though they can't be conclusive due to the complexity of the situation [which I assume your change of occupation plays some role on this], they were compelled to rule in casino's side,


Have you PM Stake's staff who monitor this board? Ask her to ask her team to reconsider KYC? That's the only way left that I can think off.

This sums it up nicely. CG did tough not rule in Stakes favour, they just said it had to be taken up with their license holder.. And they have not responded nor shown any interest in helping me out with Stake just stealing 17k of my money.

Ive only played on their sportsbook (Atleast 99% of my wager) Im quite certain im up a fair bit, but i have done numerous deposits and withdrawals over the year. The account is atleast 4 years old, if not more.

That could mean that they deemed the case as baseless and in favor of the casino, that they deemed the casino has taken the correct course of action.

Remind me again if I'm wrong because I do have to re-read the whole thread [of which I only skim through them], but you've escalate to CG [or was it AG?] and they reached a conclusion that the action taken by stake is within what's applicable their ToS? And now that their licensor didn't respond to you, we've [so far] exhausted: me giving you the account of the staff who monitor this board [of which I suppose you PMed her], efialtis reached his contact to get things in motion, attempted ADR by CG, and now their licensor silence?

I read the entire thread and from what I conclude is that the decision was final. The casino and Casino.Guro agree that you provided documents that have some kind of flaw or are not true. Now you did not say in this thread how much money you deposited in the casino, how much money you played and won and lost during the game. Why is this important?

It is important to know because if you deposited a lot of money, something like $50,000 and played a few times and then wanted to withdraw $170,000 then the casino system could be detecting signs of money laundering for that reason they asked you for KYC and by providing false documents it would confirm the casino's suspicion and in that case their decision would be final.

There would also be another scenario in which you deposited a small amount of money, something like $1000 and won $17,000 and the casino system suspected cheating and by asking you for KYC and you providing false documents, the casino confirmed that they are dealing with a cheater and made the final decision.

Their License provider has not responded to any of my 2 emails..

There seems to be no interest from Stake to even try to solve this, so it seems that they rather confiscate my 17k usd than work with me for a solution (For instance a video-call?)

Are there anyone here able to try to help me one last time?

I might repeat my self but, the account is mine, in my name etc. I own the apartment its registered to, and i can provide any legal document that is required and possible to get from my country about who I am etc (Norway)

I believe the rule of thumb is to never gamble more than you can afford to lose.

OP, kindly update us when you've heard back from antillephone. If I am not wrong, basically the procedure of raising a complaint to a licensor is you have one shot at describing your situation best you can, with proper and as many supporting evidences supplied, and the licensor will then move with their investigation by reaching the casino and get to the bottom of it rather privately.

You'll only heard back when they've reach their final verdict [or perhaps they needed more details from you]. At least that's what I understand this far. I'll appreciate if you can give us your first-hand experience in dealing a dispute through master license holder. For my future reference.

And uhh... for the time being though, unfortunately I'll still have to adhere to CG's ruling as a status of your case on my list, resolved, given you both initially agreed to their ruling.

Are you a winning or a loosing customer?
I dont understand why they would treat a loosing customer like this..

Thank you for the swift response. I have sent them an email.


This has been one terrible life experience for me, please dont ever hold serious cash with these books..

According to their Terms of Service, Stake operates under a Curacao license issued to Antillephone. The site's gaming license number is 8048/JAZ2021-027.
I think you can send your complaints and enquiries to [email protected]. If you are accessing Stake from some of its other country-specific domains, check out https://stake.com/licenses for more information about the regulators.

Sorry for the very late reply. This case really ruined my mental health.
I have tried contacting their licensholder, without any reply. Could anyone point me to the correct email address?

You're going to drop $17,000 like that without doing anything more? If you are not a cheater and the real player who deposited funds, played and won those bets you shouldn't give up. Sending an e-mail to Curacao authorities costs nothing, they can ask Stake what is going on, or help/explain you how to sue them in the courts of Curaçao. I guess there are special procedures for foreigners not living in the country. You can either contact Dutch authorities to get help, since Curacao belongs to the kingdom of the Netherlands AFAIK.

You can still escalate to their licensor, like CG suggested. It's very far less transparent than mediator, as they [far as I know] will review your complaint, reach to the casino, inquire basis and proof from that casino, and return to you with their final verdict. So, [again, far as I know], they won't ask you for supporting documents to debunk the casino's claim if they deemed the other party has a better proof, and for this reason, I think you better prepare the strongest and best explanation.

Luckily though, they're with antillephone. IIRC they're the best from four Curacao Master Licensor.