Stake says it has paid more than $14 billion in cash bonuses to its VIP players since 2019, a rare look at how much the crypto casino spends to keep its highest-value customers.
The figures were released by co-founder Ed Craven, who said Stake changed the direction of online casino loyalty programs when it introduced daily reloads, weekly boosts and monthly bonuses in 2019. He said those mechanics have since become common across the sector.
Stake did not publish financial records or third-party verification alongside the breakdown, so the totals cannot be independently confirmed. The company says the figures cover the six years to 2025.
Where the $14 billion went
Manual bonuses issued by VIP managers made up the largest share at $6.39 billion. Coupons accounted for $4.06 billion and reload bonuses for $2.04 billion.
The remaining categories were smaller: $975 million in rakeback, $213 million in automated webhook credits and $191 million paid through races and betting-volume competitions. Together the categories come to more than $14 billion over the six years.
The split shows how much of Stake’s spending runs through account managers rather than automated systems. Manual bonuses and coupons alone account for more than $10 billion, roughly three quarters of the reported total. That points to a retention model built around direct contact with individual high-value players rather than blanket promotions.
VIP retention under scrutiny
High-value players have become increasingly valuable to operators, and loyalty schemes have moved well beyond simple cashback into bonuses, reloads and personalised rewards. Stake has built its VIP program into a central part of how it competes, and the disclosure puts a number on the cost of that approach.
It also lands while operator treatment of the most active customers is under regulatory pressure in several markets. Regulators, including the UK Gambling Commission, have examined how VIP schemes interact with affordability checks and problem gambling, and cash bonuses aimed at the heaviest bettors are exactly the mechanics under review. Stake operates outside the UK licensed market, but the categories it has detailed mirror the ones regulators elsewhere have questioned.
Stake has grown into one of the world’s most-visited online casinos, and its crypto-first model has let it scale quickly. Its platform partner SOFTSWISS has said it helped Stake grow from 15 games to $4.7 billion in GGR, a figure that gives some context to the $14 billion in bonuses the operator now says it has returned to VIPs.
The company has released unusual internal detail before, including when it disclosed a live casino fraud ring tied to European arrest warrants. As with that disclosure, the VIP figures come from Stake itself rather than an audited filing.
What the numbers do and do not show
The breakdown is one of the clearest public indications of the scale of VIP spending in crypto gambling, a part of the market that publishes little verified financial data. It does not show net revenue, player losses or how the bonuses map against deposits, so it cannot be read as a measure of profitability or of what VIP players spent to receive the rewards.
Whether rivals follow with comparable figures is the open question. Crypto casinos rarely disclose retention costs, and Stake’s decision to put a headline number on its VIP payouts sets a benchmark competitors may now be pressed to match or explain. For regulators watching how operators court their highest-value customers, the numbers are a reminder of how much is being spent to keep them.
Source: Stake
