Best VPN for Stake: Stake.com vs Stake.us Explained

Stake operates two separate sites, and where you live decides which one applies. Stake.com is the international crypto casino and sportsbook, licensed in Curaçao and closed to everyone in the United States. Stake.us is a sweepstakes casino built for American players, and it operates in most US states with no VPN involved.

For players in the countries Stake.com serves, a VPN has a limited job. It encrypts the connection. Your ISP or the owner of a shared network then can’t see which casino you opened or what you did there. It can’t make Stake.com legal where it isn’t, and Stake checks for exactly that.

Does Stake Work in the US?

Stake.com doesn’t operate anywhere in the United States. Its terms name the US as a prohibited country, and a Curaçao license leaves it with no standing with American regulators. Every state that allows online casino play licenses operators through its own gaming board, and Stake.com has none of those licenses.

Stake.us is the company’s American product, and it requires no workaround. It uses a sweepstakes model with two currencies: Gold Coins have no cash value, while Stake Cash can be redeemed for prizes. No purchase is required to play, which keeps it outside most state gambling laws. Players must also be 21 or older.

Stake.us Restricted States in November 2026

Stake.us can’t accept players in these states:

• Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho
• Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana
• Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada
• New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island
• Tennessee, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia

The list keeps growing as states ban sweepstakes casinos. California’s ban took effect at the start of 2026, and Indiana, Iowa, and Maine followed in July. Stake.us then left Oklahoma in late October, before a ban there took effect. Other states have bills in progress, so check the Stake.us help center before signing up.

Where Stake.com Operates

Stake.com’s main license comes from Curaçao, and it also operates local sites under national licenses in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Denmark. Players in those countries use the local site, since Stake.com itself is closed there. A Curaçao license covers many countries, but it doesn’t override national law.

Stake’s terms list more than 40 prohibited countries. They include the US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Australia, plus the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Alberta. The rest of Canada, however, is open.

Stake also left the UK in 2025 and no longer accepts British players. India isn’t on Stake’s list, but Indian law closes it anyway: a 2025 law banned real-money online gaming nationwide, including offshore sites that take Indian players.

The list changes whenever a market closes, or a license comes through, so read the terms on the site before you open an account.

How Stake Checks Where You Are

Stake checks location twice, and an IP address is only the first signal it reads. At registration, an automated check looks at your IP address, device details, and geolocation. Stake’s terms also say it looks for IP masking, which covers VPNs and proxies.

If the result places you in a prohibited country, the account isn’t created. Even when it is, a second check comes at verification. Stake requires an ID and proof of address, then compares them with the location the account was opened from.

A mismatch closes the account, and withdrawals are the usual trigger, so a balance can build for weeks before anyone looks. Because Stake’s terms prohibit misrepresenting your location, the company can then close the account, void bets, and withhold money it would otherwise pay out, including winnings.

Stake.us is no different. It applies the same rule to players in an excluded state and can keep the Stake Cash tied to the account.

Stake VPNs Compared

Speed loss is the share of download speed each VPN lost in the same tests we use to rank the best VPNs overall. Prices are approximate monthly rates on the longest plan.

VPN	Speed loss	Server countries	Devices	Crypto payment	Price
NordVPN	7.8%	152	10	Yes	About $3.50/mo
Proton VPN	10.2%	149	10	Yes	About $3/mo
ExpressVPN	7.8%	113	10-14	Yes	About $3/mo
Private Internet Access	12.7%	113	Unlimited	No	About $2/mo
Surfshark	9.6%	100	Unlimited	Yes	About $2.50/mo

The Five Best VPNs for Stake

We recommend these five for gambling and betting sites in general, ranked here on privacy, security, and speed for players in the countries Stake serves.

1. NordVPN: Best Overall VPN for Stake

NordVPN tied for the fastest result in our tests, with a 7.8% speed loss. A loss that small won’t disturb a live dealer stream or a page of in-play odds.

Its privacy setup matches the speed. Every NordVPN server uses RAM only, so a reboot wipes it, and there’s no disk to seize. Its no-logs policy has also been independently audited. On top of that, Double VPN sends traffic through two servers when you want a second layer.

NordVPN also accepts cryptocurrency, so the subscription doesn’t have to appear on a card statement. As for price, the Basic plan costs about $3.50 a month on the two-year plan, but it covers the VPN only. Next-gen antivirus blocks malicious sites such as fake casino login pages, but it starts on the Complete plan.

So choose that plan if phishing is your main concern. The apps take some time to learn, though the defaults work well without changes.

Buy at NordVPN

2. Proton VPN: Best for Open-Source Apps

Proton VPN publishes the source code of every app it releases. Outside researchers can check what the apps do instead of taking a privacy promise on trust. Independent auditors have also reviewed its no-logs policy every year, as our Proton VPN review sets out.

Privacy also comes from where it’s based. The company is in Switzerland, outside the EU, and Swiss law doesn’t require it to keep connection records for foreign authorities. In our tests, it lost 10.2% of its speed, which still leaves room for live tables. VPN Accelerator also helps on long connections, such as a server on another continent.

On top of that, NetShield blocks malware and tracking domains, and Proton VPN takes Bitcoin, so you can pay without a card. On a two-year term, the VPN Plus plan is about $3 a month and covers 10 devices. Post-quantum encryption, which protects recorded traffic from future quantum computers, is still missing.

So, choose ExpressVPN if that long-term risk concerns you. The app also packs many options onto one screen, but it makes sense after a session or two.

Buy at Proton VPN

3. ExpressVPN: Best for Post-Quantum Protection

ExpressVPN adds post-quantum protection to the key exchange, so traffic recorded today should resist decryption by a quantum computer later. It also matched NordVPN for speed, but as our ExpressVPN review found, the apps are its strongest point: install, press connect, and you’re done.

That simplicity helps when traveling with a VPN, since a casino session on a hotel laptop takes one click. Split tunneling sends the casino through the VPN and leaves your banking app on the normal connection.

On privacy, its no-logs policy has been independently audited, and ExpressVPN says it never stores source IP addresses, timestamps, or session lengths. Its Basic plan, in turn, comes to about $3 a month over two years and covers 10 devices, with 12 and 14 on the higher plans.

The trade-off is fewer advanced settings and no multi-hop, two of the main differences between ExpressVPN and NordVPN. For that reason, players who like to adjust their connection will prefer NordVPN.

Buy at ExpressVPN

4. Private Internet Access: Cheapest VPN for Stake

PIA is one of the cheapest VPNs we recommend, and it doesn’t cut security to get there. It has been ordered in US court to hand over user records and had none to give. Independent auditors have since verified its no-logs policy.

Beyond price, almost everything is adjustable, from the encryption strength to the DNS server it uses. MACE filters out ads, trackers, and known malware domains. The browser extension, meanwhile, suits a casino you only open in one tab, since it leaves the rest of the connection alone. PIA also sets no limit on how many devices connect at once.

PIA costs around $2 a month on its two-year plan, and PIA’s free trial lasts seven days on Android and iOS. It lost 12.7% of its speed in our tests, and the app looks cluttered next to newer designs. Still, for live tables, connect to a server close to you, and the speed difference won’t show.

Buy at Private Internet Access

5. Surfshark: Best for Blocking Ads and Malware

Surfshark’s CleanWeb blocks ads, trackers, and malicious sites on every plan, including the cheapest one. That covers cloned casino pages and fake crypto wallet prompts at no extra cost. Speed was close to the leaders as well, with a 9.6% loss in our tests, and its UK server lost almost nothing.

Surfshark adds post-quantum encryption, no device limit, and payment in cryptocurrency, and its servers use RAM only, like NordVPN’s. It’s also about $2.50 a month when you choose two years. However, some connections took several seconds longer than the others in our tests, so give it a moment before switching servers.

Since the renewal price is well above the first term, the two-year plan offers the best value.

Buy at Surfshark

Is There a Good Free VPN for Stake?

Free VPNs are a poor fit for a casino session. Data caps can stop a live table mid-hand, speeds drop when servers are busy, and many free services sell usage data to cover their costs.

That said, among the best free VPNs, Proton VPN’s free plan is the strongest on privacy: unlimited data, the same no-logs policy as the paid plan, and no ads. Still, it assigns a server automatically from 10 countries and works on one device at a time.

NetShield is also off, so a paid plan is the better choice past light use, and all five VPNs offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Conclusion

Stake’s verification settles the US question. A VPN can’t put an American player on Stake.com, and using one from an excluded state puts the whole balance at risk. In the states that allow it, Stake.us is the legal option.

Where Stake.com is licensed, by contrast, the choice is simpler. Every VPN in our ranking protects a casino session well, and they differ mainly in price and extras. If you’d rather not compare them, NordVPN is the one we’d install first.

Try NordVPN Risk-Free

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