The widespread trend of social/sweepstakes casinos! Are these considered legit online casinos?

Dearest community members!

I get the impression that more and more players are coming to us with inquiries regarding the quality or safety of various social or Facebook casinos, so I believe it will be useful to stay up with that trend.

I am also led to this by the fact that we currently do not review such casinos for objective reasons, and therefore, in my opinion, a situation arises where players do not need to receive basic information. So I'll try to fix it a little.

🐱‍🏍Let's start with a few facts regarding social casinos which will naturally define how they differ from regular online casinos:

💲How do social casinos work?

"Social casino games are mostly free-to-play games that imitate the gambling experience without offering a real cash payout. These gamers play exclusively with virtual in-app currency."

💲What is the difference between a casino and a social casino?

"Real-money casino sites tend to focus on giving players more chances at winning prizes and keeping them. Social casinos emphasize the entertainment principle and let players enjoy games for the thrill of it with virtual tokens."

And now, in my opinion, a very interesting question arises...

Do you also wonder how many players may deposit real money on such sites or apps?

The in-game store seems to be the answer.

These days, it is not unusual for a lot of applications to let users buy different addons, chic ingame gear, and other 

things. This is what it means to buy ingame currency in our situation, which is typically given out for free until it runs out. All you have to do is reach for real money to continue playing when it runs out.

Just do not expect a payout in return 🤷‍♀️

It is now appropriate to introduce the sweepstakes casinos!

💲How do they work and differ?

"A Sweepstakes Casino, alternatively known as a sweeps casino, or sweeps coins casino, operates under a unique legal framework, offering online casino-style gaming through the sweepstake model. This innovative approach allows for legal gaming in jurisdictions where traditional online gambling faces restrictions."

Yet "at the end of the day, sweeps casinos aren't considered to be gambling due to the use of wagering with virtual currency instead of real-money wagers. But again, you can accumulate Sweeps Coins and redeem them for cash and/or prizes like gift cards."

As you can see, none of these models require the same amount of real money investments as traditional online casinos, which, in my opinion, minimizes the overall standards 

that, on the other hand, each solid standard online casino has to meet.

As a result, most of its terms and conditions sound vague, but what is the true game changer in this industry of so-called free entertainment? The complete lack of power in handling player concerns.

At least we in Casino Guru are unable to address players' complaints raised against these casinos.

At this point, I feel it's fair to ask for your experiences and contributions on this topic. Don't stand aside, please. 😉💚

To contribute something more practical to this topic, I am attaching a few threads where similar sites or applications were discussed in the past:

https://casino.guru/forum/general-gambling-discussion/facebook-casinos-to-play 👈

https://casino.guru/forum/general-gambling-discussion/best-place-to-play-at-on-facebook-casinos 👈

https://casino.guru/forum/casinos/zula-casino-are-they-any-good#post-93737 👈

https://casino.guru/forum/casinos/instagram-or-other-social-media-promos 👈

Along with that, I would like to invite everyone interested in sharing their experiences to add such "fun" casinos to this thread. 🙏

We are thrilled to welcome you to our official SLOTXM website, your ultimate destination for the most exhilarating slot gaming experiences in Thailand!

Hey there,

Even though I'm more than convinced your first intention was to promote this site, I'd like to take a bit of advantage of your efforts, if you don't mind. 🙂

As I previously stated, my goal in this thread is to highlight gambling-related websites that are not quite full-fledged casinos. I may be mistaken, and I acknowledge that I had trouble accessing the URL you provided. Basically, I could not redirect anywhere to access crucial information, such as terms and conditions, online casino section, and so on.

I would still like to know how this specific website functions and whether it is a typical online casino.

Especially the missing registration form seems weird and may indicate the site is not a real casino. You see, standard online casinos do not provide the option "Apply for membership."

Additionally, the PAGCOR license is among the non-verifiable ones, so I'm a bit hesitant to take this information as a reasonably proven fact confirming this is an actual, fully licensed online casino.

If you could shed some light on this whole topic focused on distinguishing between authentic, industry-standard online casinos and the rest of the sites, I would truly appreciate that.

I have been doing a bit of brief research on the subject, and it came to me that a concrete example is worth a thousand words:

Not so long ago, an unusually high number of US players came to us asking for help with the ACORN mobile app (the associated thread is here )👈. It took us quite some time to recognize that the situations the players have been reporting had nothing to do with the Acorn Casino.

Thus, all complaints concerning various issues, starting with inaccessible accounts and ending with unpaid balances, ended up being rejected:

"I apologize, but we are not able to proceed with complaints unless the casino has an official website, because we have no option to add a casino like this to our database. I genuinely hope you will be able to find assistance on some other platform."

From another source, I also found this disclaimer, and in my opinion, this information demonstrates the way it works quite openly:

"Disclaimer: We have thousands of distributor across the globe. We do not do screening or monitoring of all of them. Hence note that the player and the distributor shall be solely responsible for solving all of their disputes regarding payment for credit or cash-out of money in the account. We do not entertain any disputes between players and stores. Thank You."

It is, therefore, necessary to be careful and to distinguish between whether we register with a specific company that will provide us with services and when we "register" with a third party, which only offers us further opportunities to play elsewhere, and bears no responsibility for possible difficulties.

So, do you prefer casinos or these other alternatives? 🙂

Greetings from Texas! I wasn't sure if the topic was about social casinos or the Facebook independent operators of casino sites. I have been playing at a few well-known social casinos for about a year now, so I can share my experiences with them as an active member. I have become disenchanted with most of the online casinos that I've played at for a few years. As time went on, and their popularity grew, the perks and bonuses became either scarce, or the requirements associated with using them became so ridiculously hard to win from, as well as the general chance of winning from regular deposits dwindling down to rarely it started to feel like I was forking over money for nothing, not even entertainment. So I checked out the social sites. In my experience, there's much less unfair terms and conditions, and the ones I play at payout instantly or within 24 hours, with no hassle or worrying whether or not they'll pay out a win. It's much more fun, and in my opinion the payouts are definitely fairer. I've won so many more times on those sites than the " official" casinos, it makes me wonder exactly what is going on with all those offshore establishments. Anyway, this is just my experience, and I'm sure others have a different experience to tell, which I'm interested in hearing about too.

Greetings to you!

I really appreciate your response, and I truly hope you would not mind asking me a few questions. 🙂

Could you perhaps name some of the well-known social casinos you mentioned? I'd love to check their terms, especially the part focused on payouts. You see, as far as I understand, their procedures are not as thick as in a standard online casino, which also raises other questions, at least to me.

For instance, a standard real casino needs to carry out player verification in order to approve withdrawals. This is mostly because players risk losing their own money and getting back real money if lucky. While in social casinos, the player is overwhelmed by tons of promotions promoting the best deals to acquire playing currency/coins. Yet it seems real cash is being given back.

Is there any kind of verification, please? Does it work the same in those places that duplicate casinos but are not fully established casinos?

I have never found anything concrete related to payouts—limits, conditions,... well, nothing in detail.

I was more than convinced that in social casinos, you purchase in-game currency to keep playing, and the winnings are not actual winnings as we know them from online casinos. Players may exchange these "coins" for cash, right?

So, I would really appreciate it if you could explain to me how this payout works.

In any case, picture yourself not receiving your payout on schedule. Who would you call to get assistance?

I have to admit that this model sounds pretty easy to enjoy; maybe even the losses are lower than in standard casinos simply because of the initial "investment."

One way or another, I'd love to hear more from you!

Don't keep us waiting 😉

Goodnight Evening Radka! Thanks for your reply and follow-up questions. I'll try to provide you with some answers as best as I can. So firstly, KYC in social casinos. I feel that their process is more stringent than others because they use software that requires the user to provide their physical identity card for verification, followed by facial recognition. all done on the spot in real time. This makes it difficult ( but not impossible I assume) for fake documents to be used for setting up accounts. Many regular online casinos' KYC processes accept photos of IDs and photos of selfies, which can easily be altered, or actually be someone else's identity other than their own that they've created files or PDFs of. The social sites that I have played at and withdrawn winnings from are Stake US, High Five, Chumba, Fortune Coins, and Pulz. Stake deals exclusively in cryptocurrencies, while the others use bank transfers, and options like PayPal and Cash App. Their Ts& Cs , or rules are minimal which makes it more enjoyable to play there. For example, they don't offer a whole bunch of different deposit bonuses which as we all know always causes confusion and problems for players when it comes time for payouts. The amount of your deposit is what you play with. Most have a minimum withdrawal of $100. The difference between the social casinos and the others is that if you want to withdraw but you're short of the amount needed, you can deposit more on top of whatever is already on your account. The only stipulation is that you must wager each deposit at least one time. So for example, $20 requires that you spin 20 times at 1$ each once. Then you can withdraw. The other casinos have the unfair advantage of requiring players to either meet the minimum withdrawal amount in their account from a single deposit, or lose. Because you won't be able to deposit any additional funds until the account is less than $1. No " mixing funds", which gives casinos a huge likelihood of keeping your entire deposit if you can't win enough to get it up to the minimum for withdrawal. Many times I have been in that situation where I had like $95 in my account but couldn't win that last $ 5 required to withdraw, and had to watch my money go down the drain. Hopefully this answers some questions, and I have more answers if you're interested! Kind regards 😜

Good day to you too!

This is amazing. Thanks to you, I'm more and more convinced it was a good idea, filling in the gap I felt I had with these kinds of casinos! 😀

I mean, your experiences are worth a bar of gold to me, and I have to admit I better understand their popularity... Mostly, I agree that many players probably feel standard casinos are more complicated, and provide many chances to misunderstand rules and processes. Can't say I don't understand they're looking for something easier to use.

Yet, based on your information, I see many things both ways have in common:

verification - or some version of it

real money investment - playing with the real money

deposit wagering requirement

But what I found extremely cool is the way to solve potential mixed funds issues! This is something I'm really glad to hear, maybe you would be surprised at how many complaints get raised due to this problem.

Well, if you have anything else you want to add, I'm all ears! For now, I'm thinking about doing a little research about where those social casinos are available, maybe one day I'll test a few you mentioned. 🙂

I think it's fair to practice as well. 😊

One way or another, have a great weekend and come back whenever you like!

Hello Radka, I hope all is well with you and yours! I'm glad you're finding my information helpful, and so I thought you might like me to answer a common question about social casinos, which is: what is the deal with the coins, what are they used for, and what can they be redeemed for? They make it sound much more complicated than it really is, and there is a reason for that. Many states in the US ( including my state, Texas) do not allow commercial gambling casinos either land-based or online. What is allowed and doesn't require permissions or regulatory conditions to be met are online sites that offer casino-type games that are for fun. The actual term for the casinos where you can redeem coins for monetary value is Sweepstakes Casino. The casino offers a certain number of free coins to players to use to play games like the slots for free. If you've used up your free coins for the day, but want to keep playing, you can then purchase more of them. These coins have no value other than entertainment, so purchasing them is not classified as gambling and, thus considered legal. With the purchase of the free coins, you will also receive "sweepstake coins", or SC as they're referred to on the sites. These come free with your fun coin purchase, so no laws are being broken, and they can never be bought outright by themselves. Only as a gift with the purchase of the no-money value fun coins. These SC coins are typically valued at $1 for 1 SC coin. One way to look at them is as if they are raffle tickets you might be given to enter a contest for prizes. What all these gold coins and sweeps coins classifications are about is a way for a casino to legally be able to claim they aren't accepting money for gambling. It's a loophole they use to be able to attract players interested in real money wagering, while staying within the laws of the states where it's not legal. The sweeps coins can be redeemed for crypto or USD if you win enough to make the minimum withdrawal amount. So simply put, the sweepstakes or social casinos are in fact casinos where you can win real money if you play with the SC coins. The gold coins are just for fun, like the online casinos that have a "fun mode" you can play the games with for free. This careful way of using certain words, and how your deposit of money translates into money used to play slots and other games of chance is how these casinos can legally operate. Because it's legal to pay to be entertained by buying gold coins to play games with. The sweeps coins are free, so if you win prizes with them, it's not because you bought them. They were given to you. They are sold in packages together. So for instance I will purchase 30 gold coins for $30 dollars. This comes with 30 sweeps coins. Gold coins= no money. Sweepscoins= money. The games can be set to play one or the other. If you win 200 SC on a slot machine, you've won $2.00. I hope this helps players to understand why these casinos are structured so oddly, it's so they can operate 100% legally, because technically they're not a "real money" casino, and don't have to comply with all the regulations that come with those. As far as the questions of do they really pay out winnings, and what happens if there is any problems, I can't imagine it's any riskier than playing at all the ones originating from who knows what country, claiming to have a supposedly official gaming license that protects players and guarantees fair play, or quickly help players that have been cheated out of winnings. I recommend staying with the established well-known ones, because just as has happened with regular online casinos, there's a bunch of people rushing in to open this new type of casino hoping to cash in on all the new players wanting to try them, and no doubt there will be scammers and thieves looking to get people's money with no intention of honoring winnings. The older bigger sweeps casinos are happily making billions of dollars fairly, and have no problem paying winners their money quickly, assuming they've verified their accounts. Word of mouth is crucial to these casino's reputations, and the last thing they want is reports of players not getting paid, or ridiculous long waits for payment. I think these social casinos are the future of online gaming. It really highlights the unfair ways the other casinos are taking advantage of its players, with the crazy bonus playthrough requirements, max cashouts, having to either lose the entire amount, or withdraw from each deposit before another one can be made, not being able to play certain games or being able to bet certain amounts or your wins will be voided, all the nonsense put in their terms and conditions make player's chances of winning even less than they already are by the nature of gambling. Sites like Stake US don't have max withdrawals, restricted games, conditions on cash back or bonus money awarded. You can win as much as your luck allows.

Hey there again! You have no idea how much I appreciate your feedback on those specialties. 🙂

But I feel like I've been finally enlightened.

As I see now, the whole point is to target (offer a way to have "casino gambling fun") players from generally restricted countries which are hard to approach the usual way.

Thus, money needs to be converted to coins, and so on.

One point I can't figure out is whether the games are original slots or just social versions.

Any hint, perhaps? 🙂

On 1st March I had a big win playing Wild Fox slot on the Pussy888 app which took my account balance to just over $21,000 AUD.

To deposit and withdraw an agent must be used via WhatsApp chat. Mine was MasBet168 who I had been using since November 2022. MasBet168 had payed me many winnings in the past, multiple times with the largest being $5000.

On 1st March I requested to withdraw $20,000. My agent MasBet168 advised that this was no problem and that they would arrange the transfer but due to the large sum it would take a bit longer.

Around 2 hours later I asked for an update on the progress of my transfer but received no reply because they had blocked me on WhatsApp and locked my Pussy888 account.

Just to be clear I think MasBet168 have stolen my winnings, not Pussy888 casino, however it could be the case that MasBet168 and Pussy888 Casino are in cahoots.

I write this post for 2 reasons. Firstly to warn others about this incident so that it hopefully doesn’t happen to anyone else. And secondly, to see if anyone has had any similar experiences or has suggestions for me on how I might get my $20,000 back.

I did put in a complaint with CasinoGuru but was advised that they could not assist as Pussy888 is an app, not a website.

Hello Radka! I'm happy my information was helpful. So you asked a question about what games are on these sites. The answer is that it varies from casino to casino, but the more established sweepstakes casinos do have games by the same brands as regular online casinos do presumably with permissions from the software owners. You'll find slots from Pragmatic Play, Evolution, Betsoft, ect. I've not seen any Real Time Gaming games at any social casinos, and some of the smaller ones have some kind of funky older slots that are poorly done and glitchy. Some do have original games like Plinko and Keno, and claim to have provable fairness associated with them. If you have any more comments or questions, I'm happy to hear from you! Have an awesome day!

I'm really sorry to hear this! Experiences like yours led me to start this thread in the first place.

Even though I understand that holding conversations with agents via many different chat platforms feels very in nowadays, as you may confirm, there is a high level of risk in the game.

Would be best to keep the communication inside the "casino" app. 🤷‍♀️

If you had played in a standard online casino, there could have been a chance to figure something out, and your complaint would have been addressed. It's really a tough situation.

What happened to you is actually one of my main concerns regarding other forms of "fun-like-gambling" in non-standard casinos.

Do you have any idea where you can find official help in this situation?

I aim to gain some insight in that regard, hence, anything you wish to share on the subject is very welcome. 🙏

Hi again!

It's lovely to be in touch. So as usual, it is about taking a decent pick, even when it comes to the game's origin. 🙂

I thought that the most well-known sweepstakes casinos must have access to the "real games", because some of them - but correct me if I'm wrong - seem to be kind of side projects of regular online casinos. Stakes, Wow, Pulsz,... you name it.

And here comes the interesting part - again, I do not understand how the withdrawal is made when the Terms and Conditions say:

"Can I make a deposit into my account?

Wow Vegas is not a deposit & withdraw website. When you spend money with us, you are paying for entertainment and purchasing Wow Coins to play on our games, with no financial reward."

Furthermore, McLuck's Terms and Conditions do not mention any redeem option at all.

Any hint on that? It feels strange, isn't it?

Can't change the way I think about gambling, still mainly oriented on precaution 🤷‍♀️

Have a good one! I'll be here. 😉

O Hello Jaro.

Ignite Classic slots platform

Frozen High Roller Game

Jackpot

User ID 1170064786

Whenever I request a withdrawal messages appear requesting deposits,

I requested three withdrawals, the first R$300. The second R$500. And finally R$1000. Just under analysis and nothing to pay.

Hello, if you're talking about a specific casino, you'll have to help me, because you wrote your posts under the game. About what casino you are talking about ? Or is it possible that you played this game only here on our site ? 

I would like to point out that you can't deposit or withdraw here, so please let me know where you have this problem so I can have a better overview and try to advise you. 

I made the initial deposit but I still didn't receive what I won, but I continued playing and now it asks me to deposit more money so I can withdraw it, this can only be a scam

Hey there!

I really have to ask you whether this "Ignite Classic slots platform" is actually a real online casino.

As far as I can see, it's only a free app available in the Google Play store:

"Is Ignite Classic Slots legit?

Ignite Classic Slots is intended for an adult audience for entertainment purposes only. Success at social casino slot gambling does not reward real money prizes, nor does it guarantee success at real money gambling."

It also says "In-app purchases" so, I'm convinced you have purchased in-game currency.

To me, this is just an app allowing you to play for fun.

I would really appreciate if you could explain where did you play, just to be certain. 🙏