Stake: what its Curaçao licence shows, and what it means in Malaysia

Stake and the Malaysian legal position

Stake’s terms list the countries it will not serve. They include the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and most of the European Union, but not Malaysia. The word “Malaysia” does not appear anywhere in the terms^[2]. The same terms put the legal question back on the customer. It is “the User’s sole responsibility to ensure that their registration of the Service is lawful in their jurisdiction”^[2].

In Malaysia that registration is not lawful. No authority here licenses online casinos. The Common Gaming Houses Act 1953 treats a phone or computer running a game of chance as a gaming machine, and magistrates in Kuching fined players for gambling on their phones throughout 2026^[5][4]. Our guide to Malaysian online gambling law and the 2026 cases sets out the offences and penalties in full. Nothing in this review is a suggestion to use Stake. It records what Stake says about itself and what the regulator’s own records show.

What Stake says about its licence

Stake’s site footer names the company behind it: “Stake is owned and operated by Medium Rare N.V., registration number: 145353, registered address: Seru Loraweg 17 B, Curaçao.” It adds that payments may be handled by two companies registered in Cyprus, Medium Rare Limited and MRS Tech Limited^[6]. The licence number does not appear in the footer. It appears on a separate licences page and in clause 1.1 of the terms. Both say Medium Rare N.V. is licensed by the Curaçao Gaming Authority under number OGL/2024/1451/0918^[6][2].

Two details are worth noting. First, the footer carries no Curaçao Gaming Authority seal or link to a validator page. The only seals shown are from two certification services, not from the regulator^[6]. That makes the claim harder for an ordinary reader to check, though not less true. Second, the licences page lists separately licensed local companies for Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru^[6]. Malaysia has no such entity, because there is no Malaysian licence to hold. Everything Stake offers to Malaysians runs under the Curaçao licence, and its terms give the Curaçao courts exclusive jurisdiction over disputes^[2].

What the Curaçao register actually shows

The Curaçao Gaming Authority does not offer a searchable database. It publishes its registers as downloadable lists^[7]. In the online gaming licence registry last updated on 20 October 2026, one row reads: licence OGL/2024/1451/0918, Medium Rare N.V., business-to-consumer, registration 145353, issued 9 December 2025, expires 9 June 2026, status “Assessment in progress”^[1]. The licence number, company name and registration number all match Stake’s claim exactly.

The status needs careful reading. The listed expiry date had passed by the time we read the register, yet the status does not say expired, suspended or revoked. It says “Assessment in progress”, which 297 rows in the same registry also carry. The registry does not explain what that status means^[1]. The authority also warns that its overviews “do not guarantee the current validity of the licenses”^[7]. The accurate description is therefore that Stake’s licence is listed and under assessment. We cannot describe it as active, and we have no grounds to call it lapsed.

We also searched the authority’s enforcement register, dated September 2026, for Medium Rare N.V. and for the licence number. Neither appears^[8]. If you want to repeat this check yourself, our step-by-step guide to reading offshore licence registers shows where each list lives and what to match.

Ownership questions and Stake’s record elsewhere

A licence tells you who regulates an operator. It does not settle who owns it. On 22 September 2026 the Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money reported on a leak from the Curaçao licensing system. It said Stake had been licensed while the regulator still lacked key information about ownership^[9]. According to the report:

• Medium Rare N.V. lists a Serbian national, Mladen Vuckovic, as its owner;
• officials questioned whether he was the sole owner after finding loans and payments of “tens to hundreds of millions of dollars” from Medium Rare to entities linked to Stake’s founders;
• the authority did not dispute that it had granted licences while ownership questions were open, and pointed to a transition period;
• Stake’s response, if any, was not reported^[9].

Stake’s history in regulated markets is also relevant. In Great Britain, Stake was offered through a white-label arrangement with a licensed company, TGP Europe Limited. On 12 February 2025 the Gambling Commission announced that the Stake site there would “no longer be a licensed website”, with final shutdown by 11 March 2025. The announcement followed an investigation into a Stake-branded social media video^[10]. The brand remains highly visible in sport. Under the Premier League’s voluntary ban on gambling sponsors on the front of shirts, it moved from the front of Everton’s shirt to the sleeve for the 2026-27 season^[11].

How Stake serves Malaysian customers

Stake does not merely tolerate Malaysian customers. Its own blog includes a guide dated 24 April 2026 to depositing Malaysian ringgit^[3]. According to that guide:

• ringgit deposits are made through mobile wallets, after the customer has verified an email address and phone number and uploaded identification;
• withdrawals go to a Malaysian bank account and need the second verification level, with government ID confirmed;
• deposits and withdrawals are each limited to between 25 and 4,000 per transaction (the guide does not state the unit);
• a customer may make up to five withdrawal requests in 24 hours, which Stake says take “on average up to 60 minutes”;
• a customer cannot change their local currency “without first providing proof of a location change”^[3].

The processing time is Stake’s own statement, and we have not tested it. Stake also accepts a range of cryptocurrencies, which is how much of its business outside fiat markets works^[3].

When we tried to load the main stake.com address from a Malaysian connection on 28 October 2026, the internet provider’s DNS returned an address that timed out. Public resolvers returned the site’s real address. That behaviour is consistent with ISP-level blocking, but no published list we found names the domain, so we do not claim it has been blocked by the MCMC^[12][13]. Stake’s terms separately say that using a VPN or proxy to get around geo-blocking or jurisdiction restrictions breaches its terms^[2].

Withdrawal and bonus terms in Stake’s own words

The terms carry several conditions that matter more than any promotion:

• Wagering before withdrawal. A customer must wager 100% of the value of a deposit before requesting a withdrawal, for both fiat and crypto (clauses 8.5 and 8.10)^[2].
• Same route out as in. Withdrawals go back through the method used to deposit (clause 8.3), and Stake “may charge You a fee on withdrawals at its discretion” (clause 8.9)^[2].
• Verification at any time. Stake may ask for identity documents at any point and restrict payments or withdrawals until identity is “sufficiently determined, or for any other reason in Stake’s sole discretion” (clause 4.8)^[2]. Its KYC guide says checks can cover identity and age, legal residence, permanent address and source of wealth^[14].
• Game edge. Stake reserves the right to adjust the house edge of any slot game “at our sole discretion and without prior notice” (clause 10.5)^[2].

We found no public welcome offer on Stake’s promotions page when we read it. The page showed raffles, races and event promotions instead^[15]. Where Stake does attach a deposit bonus, its rules set the requirement by expected house edge rather than as a simple multiple. The deposit and bonus together must be turned over at a 4% edge, so a game with a 1% house edge counts at 25 cents in the dollar towards the requirement^[15].

Complaint record

On Trustpilot, Stake had a score of 3.9 out of 5 from 12,242 reviews when we read the page, with 64% five-star and 23% one-star ratings. The profile is claimed by the company, which the page says has replied to 99% of negative reviews^[16]. Recent negative reviews concern:

• slow or held withdrawals;
• pending deposits;
• race prizes and VIP rewards;
• games said to have been removed after wins.

AskGamblers, in a copy archived on 26 July 2026, listed 74 complaints about Stake, of which 46 of 51 were shown as resolved, with an average disputed amount of US$12,363. The recurring theme was multi-level verification stalling before a withdrawal could be paid, including accounts restricted after a win^[17].

Complaint sites record only what people choose to post, so these figures show patterns, not rates. The pattern matches the terms: Stake’s discretion over verification is wide, and it is exercised hardest at the moment a customer wants to withdraw.

Responsible-gambling tools Stake offers

Stake’s responsible-gambling section lists more controls than most sites aimed at Asian markets^[18]:

• loss and wager limits over a day, week or month;
• a daily deposit limit set in US dollars;
• exclusion from casino or sports products for 24 hours up to indefinitely;
• a “break in play” of a day, week or month;
• indefinite self-exclusion with a minimum of six months before a formal review.

Reducing a limit takes effect immediately. Raising or removing one carries a 24-hour cooling-off period^[18].

The footer refers customers to Gambling Therapy, an international service, and names no Malaysian support line^[6]. An exclusion at Stake covers Stake alone. Our guide to gambling support in Malaysia covers free services and blocking steps that do not depend on any operator.

What this check shows, and what it does not

Of the brands in our checks, Stake is the one whose licence claim most closely matches a regulator’s record. The company, number and registration on the Curaçao register are identical to what Stake publishes^[1]. Against that, the register shows a passed expiry date and an unexplained “assessment” status. Investigative reporting has also raised questions about the operator’s ownership that the regulator has not publicly answered^[9]. And Stake’s withdrawal terms leave verification wide open to its discretion^[2].

For a reader in Malaysia, none of this changes the starting point. The licence is Curaçao’s business, disputes go to Curaçao’s courts, and playing from Malaysia is an offence under Malaysian law^[5]. A matching register entry is the best evidence an offshore operator can offer. It is not permission, and it is not protection.