Stake Restricted Countries: The Full List of 44 Prohibited Jurisdictions, Quoted From Its Terms

Stake’s terms of service name 43 countries and one Canadian province where you may not be located or reside while using the site. The list covers almost all of Western Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and five of the largest Latin American markets — Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Peru.

Here is the clause in full, as we read it on 8 September 2026:

Persons located in or reside in Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, North Korea, Ontario, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, South Sudan, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States, Zimbabwe (the “Prohibited Jurisdictions”) are not permitted make use of the Service. For the avoidance of doubt, the foregoing restrictions on engaging in real-money play from Prohibited Jurisdictions applies equally to residents and citizens of other nations while located in a Prohibited Jurisdiction. Any attempt to circumvent the restrictions on play by any persons located in a Prohibited Jurisdiction or Restricted Jurisdiction, is a breach of this Agreement.

— Stake Terms of Service, clause 14.3

The list, sorted

Region	Prohibited Jurisdictions
Europe (20)	Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
Americas (10)	Argentina, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Cuba, Curaçao, Mexico, Ontario (Canada), Peru, United States
Africa (7)	Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Libya, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Zimbabwe
Middle East (4)	Iran, Iraq, Israel, Syria
Asia-Pacific (3)	Afghanistan, Australia, North Korea

Forty-four entries. The clause does not list its own catch-all beyond this — unlike Shuffle’s, which adds “any other location where provision of the Services would require licensing”. Stake’s exposure to regulated markets is handled by naming them, which is why the European section is so long.

What the wording actually means

“Located in or reside in.” Both tests apply. A resident of a listed country is caught even when travelling; a visitor to a listed country is caught while there. The sentence that follows spells it out: the restriction “applies equally to residents and citizens of other nations while located in a Prohibited Jurisdiction”.

Ontario, not Canada. This is the only sub-national entry in the clause. Ontario runs its own licensed iGaming market under iGaming Ontario, and offshore operators that want to keep serving the rest of Canada typically carve the province out by name. The clause therefore does not name Canada — and that is all it tells you. Whether offshore casino play is lawful where you live in Canada is a matter of Canadian law, not of this clause.

The VPN clause is separate and explicit. Clause 14.4:

The attempt to manipulate your real location through the use of VPN, proxy, or similar services or through the provision of incorrect or misleading information about your place of residence, with the intent to circumvent geo-blocking or jurisdiction restrictions, constitutes a breach of Clause 5 of this Terms of Service.

We have a longer explainer on how crypto casinos enforce VPN rules. The short version: location is checked at withdrawal, not at sign-up, so a mismatch is discovered at exactly the point where there is a balance to lose.

Japan: not named, but not available

Japan does not appear in clause 14.3. It does not need to: when we opened stake.com from a Japanese connection on 8 September 2026 the site answered HTTP 451 — Unavailable For Legal Reasons before any page loaded. Stake’s help centre is also geo-blocked from Japan. The practical position is that Stake is not available from Japan, whatever the clause says, and online casino play is in any case an offence for the player under Japanese law.

This is also why our re-read of this clause is overdue: our editorial base cannot open the terms, and proxies are refused. The next reading is scheduled through a connection outside Japan; until then this page carries the 8 September 2026 text and says so.

Countries that are not on the list

For readers who arrive here with the opposite question — “does Stake take my country?” — these countries with meaningful traffic to this site are not named in clause 14.3: Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines, Ghana, Vietnam, Thailand, Ukraine, Türkiye, India, Kenya, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Switzerland and New Zealand.

Three things to hold onto before that becomes a decision:

• Not being named is not permission. India’s Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act 2025 bans online money games outright; Türkiye criminalises both play and promotion; New Zealand’s new licensing regime takes effect this year. Stake’s clause is silent on all three because an operator’s list is written for the operator’s protection, not yours.
• KYC still applies. Stake verifies identity and address when it chooses to, typically before a large withdrawal. An account from an unlisted country can still be closed at that step if the documents do not match the account.
• The list changes. Operators add countries as markets regulate — Cloudbet added Japan and Türkiye on 30 September 2026, Shuffle added three countries the same month. A country that is open today is not guaranteed to be open at your next withdrawal.

For a per-country answer across every operator we track (Stake, Shuffle, BitStarz, Cloudbet, BC.GAME, Roobet, Rollbit, Gamdom, Thunderpick and Bitcasino) see the country pages: Nigeria, Indonesia, Philippines, Ghana, Vietnam, Thailand, Ukraine, or pick any country in the casino country checker. Readers in Mexico, South Africa and Czechia, which Stake names, can see which of the other four do not: Mexico, South Africa, Czechia.

How Stake compares with the other operators we track

Operator	Named countries	US	UK	Germany	Brazil	Australia	Japan
Stake (14.3)	43 + Ontario	Barred	Barred	Barred	Barred	Barred	Not named; HTTP 451
Shuffle (8.3)	14 + catch-all	Barred	Barred	Barred	Not named	Barred	Not named
BitStarz (3.6)	66 + territories	Barred	Barred	Not named	Barred	Not named	Not named
Cloudbet (7.1.3)	22 + 3 regions	Barred	Barred	Barred	Not named	Barred	Barred (since 30 Sep 2026)
BC.GAME (4.3)	12 + FATF list	Barred	Barred	Barred	Not named	Barred	Not named; refuses by region

Stake’s list is the second-longest of the five and the most explicit about Latin America. It is the only one of the five to name Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Peru all together, and the only one to name South Africa.

What we do with this

We publish an honest review of Stake and we have a commercial relationship with it. If your country is in the table above, no link on this site is worth anything to you and neither is the offer; we hide our buttons in those countries for that reason. If it is not, the things worth checking next are the licence status — Stake’s Curaçao licence is recorded as “Assessment in progress” on the regulator’s register — the withdrawal behaviour, and whether the rakeback structure suits how you actually play.

Terms change without notice. This page quotes the version read on 8 September 2026 and links the source above — check the live text before you deposit. Play only what you can afford to lose, where it is legal for you.