Gold Coins let you play hundreds of free casino-style games. If you choose a sweepstakes casino, there’s a chance to play using Sweeps Coins instead. Those provide you with a chance to win more of them, and any Sweeps Coins winnings you manage to accumulate can later be redeemed for real prizes. Stake.us hits the top spot, but there are several other sites providing access to a wide range of casino-style games as well.
You can get the best start at Stake.us if you sign up using the exclusive code MIKBONUS. Enter this in the box when you create your account and you will receive $55 in Stake Cash, which is their version of the usual Sweeps Coins you’ll see elsewhere. You will also receive 260,000 Gold Coins, along with 5% rakeback. And there’s plenty to play once you begin to explore, too, with hundreds of slots from brands such as Pragmatic Play and Hacksaw Gaming on offer. You’ve also got a handful of scratch cards, some live dealer social games to try, and a separate section for the newest additions to the site.
Pros
Stake Poker
Stake Original games
Live social games
Famous slot titles
Con
Rating: 4.9 / 5.0
Yes, there is a live area of gaming to enter when you rock up at McLuck. There are only a few available titles, but they do cover roulette, blackjack, and baccarat. Elsewhere, the standard social casino is packed with hundreds of games to try. Exclusive titles include Amazonia Spirit Hold & Win by 3Oaks, and Coins and Cannons from Slotmill. They provide categories for other free casino games with free coins too, so you can choose Play the Feature or social casino games with cascading reels, for instance.
Pros
Welcome offer
Loyalty club
Hundreds of games
Slingo and slots
Con
Rating: 4.8 / 5.0
WOW Vegas is all about slots, with 900 and counting added to the collection thus far. They’ve expanded the site of late, adding several new developers and their games to the social and sweepstakes casino. This means you can play free casino games that pay real money by using Sweeps Coins to play titles from Spade Gaming, Rogue, and Netgaming, among others. If you do this and manage to scoop some SC prizes, you can redeem those later for real prizes by following the steps they give you to do so.
Pros
900+ slots
Multiple developers
WOW Exclusives
Famous slots
Con
Rating: 4.6 / 5.0
With four Gold Coin jackpots available at Jackpota, there’s a lot going on for everyone who decides to sign up. There is nothing to entertain table game fans or those who want some live social games to play, but slot players will certainly find everything they could hope for here. There are multiple game studios adding their titles to the site, and there are 7,500 GCs available when you sign up to play there.
Pros
Four GC jackpots
Hold & Win games
18 game studios
Social media giveaways
Con
Rating: 4.6 / 5.0
It certainly helps to have a modicum of poker knowledge before you start playing some of the social poker games available on this site. You can easily tell the difference between the coins too – Gold Coins are, well, gold, while the Sweeps Coins look like green poker chips. Clubs Poker provides a range of poker games such as Texas Hold ‘Em and Omaha Hi-Lo, yet also has room for 100+ casino-style slots to explore.
Pros
Con
Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
It’s vital to know the difference between these sites and standard online casinos you might have come across elsewhere. You cannot win real money prizes directly from social and sweepstakes casinos. They do not accept deposits, nor can you make withdrawals from them. However, you can play using Sweeps Coins, a proprietary currency used at sweepstakes casinos. If you play using Sweeps Coins, you might win some Sweeps Coins – and if you do, you can redeem your SC winnings later on for a real prize. Check out some more info about how these sites work – along with the currency and coin systems they use.
Sweepstakes casinos provide Sweeps Coins to play games with. Here are the basics on those:
You cannot purchase them
You can usually collect some as part of your welcome offer
You may receive some as part of a daily bonus program
You may win more via social media competitions if you enter some
There are other ways to get them too, but the key to remember is that you cannot redeem the Sweeps Coins you collect for real money. You must play a social casino game with them first – you can only redeem any Sweeps Coins winnings you receive from doing so.
Gold Coins are used for social gameplay, so you cannot convert those to real prizes at any stage. You can use them to enjoy a range of social casino games though, including slots, table games such as baccarat and roulette, and scratch cards or other titles that might be available. You can understand how they work by going through the following points:
You can get some as part of a signup offer
You can collect a daily login bonus of Gold Coins
You can play with them and potentially win more to play with
You can enter social media giveaways to try and get more
You can purchase more too if you wish, but there is no requirement to do this
You can see how the Gold Coins unlock the social gaming portion of a social and sweepstakes casino. Meanwhile, the Sweeps Coins are intended to use when playing sweepstakes games.
Individual sites like Stake.us and McLuck have hundreds of social casino games to enjoy. It’s great to recognize that you can play these games without ever parting with a cent. There are lots of ways to pick up more Gold Coins for social gaming. Even if you only get the welcome offer and the daily login bonus, you should find you have lots of GCs to use when checking out the game titles.
Plenty of players love the games, but they do not want to spend any money playing them. Social casinos give you this opportunity if you’re thinking the same way and want entertainment over cost. That said, if you do want to add some more Gold Coins to your account, you can do so by purchasing one or more Gold Coin packages during your time at the social casino.
You know by now that Sweeps Coins are not available for purchase. This would contravene the sweepstakes rules these sites must abide by. You have also seen how you can get hold of these SCs during your membership, although some ways are easier to use than others.
Look out for a loyalty program of some sort – the most common one presents you with a daily login bonus. If you remember to log into your account each day – even if you don’t go on to play – you should receive one Sweeps Coin, potentially more, for your trouble. The sweepstakes rules also usually list all the ways you can collect more coins, with specific rules for a mail-in request. This is the trickiest one to follow as you must be precise. The best option is to follow the site on Facebook or any other social media site it has a page on. You can then check the page each day and make sure you enter any competitions they advertise there. These often have Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins available as prizes.
Make sure you save up as many Sweeps Coins as you can, and then choose a casino-style game to play that offers a low requirement per spin or game. For example, you’ll get more spins out of a batch of Sweeps Coins if you only need to play two SC per spin rather than 10.
Now you’ve seen a range of the best social and sweepstakes casinos around today, you can start thinking about the features you might see across that range. Go through the following categories to get a feel for how they work and what to look for when you decide which site to choose.
While slots take up plenty of space at all social and sweepstakes casinos, you might well find other games to play too:
Table games – roulette, blackjack, baccarat
Video poker – think of it as a cross between regular poker and a slot game
Scratch cards – use your finger or cursor to ‘scratch off’ the foil to reveal what’s underneath
Live social games – not as common, but they provide a real dealer-style approach to table games
Of course, if you only want to play slots, you can find a site that offers hundreds of those via the above table. Most social and sweepstakes casinos have plenty available, but some provide good scope for playing some other casino-style games too.
Start by reviewing any promotions you can find when visiting a specific website. You can also review the sweepstakes rules, which should be available for non-members to read as well. Check the bottom of the site for the usual crop of smaller links to find those. They should give details of the many ways you can find Sweeps Coins to play these casino-style games. It gives you additional info to consider before picking which site to play at.
This guide is all about free casino games that pay real money, yet it is vital to know how this format works before you try it. Real money winnings are not available for social casinos. Social and sweepstakes casinos do not accept deposits, and there is never a requirement to purchase anything to use them or play the social casino games provided there. So, can you win real prizes? Here is how the process works.
Play using Gold Coins for amusement purposes only – Gold Coins have no value and cannot be redeemed for real prizes
Play using Sweeps Coins to attempt to win more – you can redeem SC winnings for real prizes if you meet the threshold for doing so
Remember that these coins may have different names according to the sites you’re using. You’ve seen that Sweeps Coins are known as Stake Cash when visiting Stake.us, while WOW Vegas calls their Gold Coins WOW Coins instead. Make sure you’re clear on the names before you start playing any social casino games.
Many social and sweepstakes casinos don’t bother releasing apps. Plenty of sites choose to go down the route of a fully-featured site that looks good on every device, from a computer to a smartphone, so you may not find an app to download. The question here is to consider which device you are most likely to play these social casino games on. If you are likely to use a smartphone or tablet, you can check whether there’s an app to download and use. If not, you can consider how well the site performs on the device you’re going to use.
Most modern sites work well across all platforms, and the social casino games you’ll play are usually designed to provide excellent performances on touch screens as well as regular computer screens where you’d use a mouse to move around.
You’re almost at the point of selecting a social or sweepstakes casino to start playing at. Before you do so, there are a few site features you should consider. This will help you identify whether one site offers a stronger platform to enjoy than another.
When reviewing a regular casino, the license – or lack thereof – is essential to check. However, social and sweepstakes casinos do not require the same license, so you cannot use this as a marker. You can do some research online to see how long the site has been around for though. Check the ownership details too – there are some trusted owners who have strived to create the best social and sweeps casinos for players to enjoy.
This point applies to apps as well, so if you have found one of those to download in lieu of a website to visit, consider the following pointers in that case instead. Usability isn’t something you’re likely to think about, but you’ll surely know all about the website or app’s performance in this area once you begin to explore.