Stake Casino - Player’s funds have been played by someone else.

To whom it may concern,

Stake.com are a crypto-based casino. I had deposited around $2000 and waited for it to come through. I open the website and see nothing is in my balance although the deposit was confirmed. I look at my recent bets and see live blackjack and Stake Originals Roulette. I checked my email and someone had tried to withdraw these funds but luckily I have a withdrawal code sent to my email before a withdrawal is confirmed so they couldn't withdraw. They then decide to spend their money for fun on their casino games. I contact their live support and show them the screenshot of the withdrawal request they made which I still have. There was also another session on my account somewhere in Romania. Usually, when logging into Stake they send a login code via email and another email saying a new session has started. I hadn't received this whenever the infiltrator logged into my account either because he bypassed it or for any other valid reason. I explain all of this to their live support but they do not help and reply by saying sorry there is nothing we can do. I have a download of the chat with them if required. A picture of the session that was not me and the picture of the email with the withdrawal request. This is unacceptable hence why I actively searched for websites to complain and see if we can take this further as $2000 is a lot of money and they weren't withdrawn and stolen they were just spent on the site but without my authorisation. For your information, my account is now secure with 2fa and I changed my password. Hopefully, we can find a way to obtain my funds back.

Kind regards, 

Andrew M***

Dear Andrew,

Thank you very much for submitting your complaint. I’m sorry to hear about your problem. Please allow me to ask you a few questions, so I can understand the whole situation completely. Do I understand correctly that you have never placed any bets and your deposited funds were played down to zero by a third party? How long ago did you register your casino account, please? This wasn't your first session, is that correct? Which games do you usually play?

I understand that it might seem like a lot of questions, but I would like to understand your problem as accurately as possible. Thank you very much in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Petronela

Hi Petronela

On that day I had deposited and played about 1 hour before which was me. Around the next hour I deposit 3 sums one being around $250 the other $600 and the other $1200 in the span of 30 minutes because I wanted to place a big sports bet on their sportsbook. I then check my email and see a withdrawal request to my email with a code which triggers my reaction to get on the site and see whats up. When I get on the website I see the deposits confirmed and but no money. I look at my bets and see that they’ve played a live blackjack at a provider (pragmatic) that I’ve played once before but I don’t play that live black jack I play from Evolution, but that’s beside the point.

I have registered my account about a year ago and yes have played in the past this was not my first session.

Like mentioned above I do play blackjack but never on pragmatic the provider they spent my funds on and always evolution live blackjack and Stake should’ve even see that because there was a $1200 bet on that blackjack. I also play the Stake Originals roulette which is what they played too. I play slots and I place sports bets.

Sorry if it’s not clear message me if you need any clarification or explaining.

Thanks

Andrew

Thank you, Andrew, for your reply. Could you advise if you have received any email recently, that would look like being sent by the casino, but now you suspect that it wasn't authentic? If yes, please forward it to petronela.k@casino.guru.

Hi Petronela

No I haven’t received any suspicious emails from them.

Like mentioned when a person logs in I should receive and email saying that there’s a new session on your account but I hadn’t received this when they tried to log on clearly. So they must’ve bypassed that because when the situation happened there was a session somewhere in Romania on my account and even after seeing that new session they said "We don’t find any irregularities on your account"

Only email I received was a genuine email from Stake.com with a withdrawal code on it as the person wanted to withdraw the funds but couldn’t get the code from my email.

Thanks

Andrew

Could you please forward the original email to petronela.k@casino.guru? Thank you in advance.

I only have a screenshot of the actual email. Should I send that ?

Screenshot from the player:

I received that inside the complaint when you submitted it.

I will now transfer your complaint to my colleague Matej (matej@casino.guru) who will be at your assistance. I wish you best of luck and hope to see your problem being resolved to your satisfaction in the near future. 

Hello Andrew.

I am sorry to hear about what happened to you.

Generally speaking, there is a rule in every casino that players are responsible for the security of their accounts.

Because the intruder couldn't make a withdrawal, it looks like only your casino account was compromised.

Did you ever log in to the casino from another device than the usual one? Was the password you had in the casino unique, or did you use the same password on another website/store?

Hi Matej,

Yes I explained that to the support team as well, that my account is secure but they must’ve bypassed the login someway and in addition Stake.com have recently being dealing with DDOS attacks which may have an effect on this I don’t know.

Regarding your question, yes I have logged in from other devices and always gotten a log in email from them saying "You've started a new session". Since I contacted live support they have removed all sessions for security purposes but the evidence still remains there that a session somewhere in Romania was on my account.

I generally use the same password for most sites but this one for Stake was unique and different one to the one that I usually use. I have since then changed the password for security reasons again to the one I usually use for most sites. I also added 2FA.

Kind regards

Andrew

P.S: Just want to thank Petronela for being prompt with replies and understanding my case and taking it seriously.

Thanks, Andrew.

I would like to invite the casino representative into the case.

Could you please explain to us what happened and why Andrew didn't receive information about another active session on his account?

Dear Sir,

In order to properly assess this case, we need to know the date when the player claims the account was hacked. Would you kindly provide us the mentioned information?

Kind regards,

Stake

Hi stake,

I understand your concern for the date but I don’t know exactly when the account was logged in from because I didn’t get the email saying a new session had started. The closest I can get to the date where it had been compromised was when the session had last been used which was in Romania.

Unless from your side you can check when that session was logged on first.

Would you like me to show you a screenshot showing the session from Romania that was closed by Live Support when I messaged them?

Thanks

Andrew

As you can see from this you can see that there was a session from Romania which was removed by live support when I messaged them. But I never had the need to check my sessions and whenever they may have logged into my account I didn’t get the email.

If you guys are able to find out when this session was first logged on you will have the date that they logged into my account.

And the rest of the story from then on is explained in the above paragraphs.

Kind regards

Andrew

Dear Stake Casino representative, from screenshots that Andrew sent us the incident happened on 15/5/2022 at 10:45 PM +-. The next day (0:03 AM - just 1:15 later) Andrew contacted live chat and informed them about unusual activity on his account.

Dear Andrew,

Following your complaint on Casino Guru, Stake hereby presents its formal reply.

As mentioned in clause 3 of our Terms of Service, "it is your sole and exclusive responsibility to ensure that your login details are kept securely. You must not disclose your login details to anyone." Stake cannot be liable or responsible for any abuse or misuse of your account made by third parties due to your disclosure, whether intentional, accidental, active or passive, of your login details to any third party.

Although Stake understands it shall not be liable in this case, it has performed an assessment on your account and verified the following:

a)    Account Login

You opened your account on the 12th of May 2021. After you have registered you have been using multiple browsers to login to your Stake account, having the present date login from a total of 6 different browsers from different countries, including Romania. Also, as we can see from your session login history, you have already login from Romania multiple times. Being the first time on the 20th of October 2021. Accordingly, our system did not find it suspicious that you have tried to login from Romania.

Further to the above, after assessing our database, we verified that there was no evidence of your account being hacked.

b)    Withdrawals

We have looked at all of the withdrawals made on your account between the 14th and 16th of May and we have confirmed that all withdrawals have been made to the usual crypto address that you use for withdrawals.

According to the above, we understand that your allegations shall not proceed and that you are not entitled to any reimbursement.

Best,

Stake

Dear stake,

Yes I am not denying that I have logged in from Romania before, however this specific time was not me. Causation doesn’t mean correlation.

In addition to this, why would I get a withdrawal request email from Stake without my authorisation on that day? This pulled the trigger and was the reason I contacted support and realised what had happened.

Another thing you can see from my account is that I never play the blackjack lobby from pragmatic and always play on evolution gaming which is what they've played.

If you don’t want to give me a reimbursement for money that was not withdrawn but was used on your site without my authority is absolutely disappointing and so disgusting and to think even after this situation happened and after I secured my account with 2FA and changed my password I still continued to deposit my hard worked money and play on your site. It’s embarrassing and I think you’ve lost a once loyal customer to your site and word of mouth does spread.

Andrew

Dear Andrew.

After considering all the above, I believe you can't blame the casino. 

First of all, as the casino pointed out:

"it is your sole and exclusive responsibility to ensure that your login details are kept securely. You must not disclose your login details to anyone."

Because you accessed your account from multiple countries (Romania VPN too) and used numerous browsers (six), it was hard for the casino to determine that it wasn't you who was playing. A Withdrawal attempt has been made to the usual crypto address. There was nothing suspicious about that. And regarding the new game: The casinos cannot verify players every time they try a new game; this is simply impossible. I believe that the casino has the right in this case.

Alright Matej

No casino will be willing to reimburse anyone as they’re a casino and don’t want to lose money.

I completely agree with you and Stake when they write it like that. Of course it makes them look right and they don’t need to take ownership for what happened. But only I will know the true story.

Thanks for at least bringing them into the case and I appreciate your help. There’s nothing else we can do here and Stake don’t want to cooperate.

Kind regards,

Andrew

I appreciate your understanding, Andrew.

If you look into the case from their perspective, everybody could lose the money and then tell the casino that it was not him who played. In your case, the evidence is on the side of the casino. 

Stake Casino cooperated fully and explained the whole situation.

Therefore we are closing the complaint as rejected.