Stars Casino by PokerStars Online Casino Review 2023

Stars Casino is the online casino gaming wing of PokerStars, one of the biggest poker companies in the world. Since 2020, the Stars Group and all its associated platforms has been owned by Flutter Entertainment, the company behind the likes of Paddy Power and Betfair.

Stars Casino is up and running in three states so far: New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan. It’s a platform with a lot of firepower behind it, so we decided to ask our experts to carry out a comprehensive review of the site to see what the fuss is about.

Where is Stars Casino Available?

For now, Stars Casino is available in three states: New Jersey, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The casino is licensed and regulated separately by the gaming control boards in each state.

It’s worth noting that there might be minor differences between the platforms in each state, specifically in things like accepted payment methods. All the info for our Stars casino review comes from the Pennsylvania platform.

Stars is licensed in PA as part of an agreement with Mount Airy Casino at 312 Woodland Rd, Mt Pocono, PA 18344.

Bonuses and Promotions at Stars Casino

There’s a lot going on in the Promotions section of Stars Casino, with a nice blend of offers for new users and on-running promos to encourage players to keep coming back. You’ll also find plenty of interesting special offers at both PokerStars and FOXBet, which you get automatic access to when you sign up with Stars Casino.

In this section though, we’re keeping things casino-focused. Here’s what you can expect from the casino bonuses at Stars.

Stars Casino $50 Welcome Bonus

Stars welcome offer is worth $50 in casino credits as soon as you bet just $1 on the site. It’s one of the more unique offers around, and will probably prove particularly attractive for lower to mid stakes players.

Here’s how it works.

Sign up for a new casino account with Stars Casino, and opt-into the offer. Deposit some money – $10 is the standard minimum deposit available – and bet at least $1 on any casino game within 5 days of signing up. You’ll be credited with $50 in bonus cash.

You’ll have another 5 days to complete the wagering requirements, which is less time than average. You can unlock bonus funds by earning something called redemption points, with 100 points in total required before your cash gets unlocked. You earn redemption points at a different rate depending on the RTP of the game. A $6 bet on roulette earns 1 redemption point for example.

Overall, this is a good bonus. Getting $50 in bonus cash after depositing as little as $10 effectively feels like a 5x deposit bonus, which is considerably better than most casinos. On the other hand, other casinos let you claim a lot more than $50 total in bonus cash.

Find Similar Online Casinos to Stars Casino

Stars Casino Bonus Code

No bonus code is required to claim your Stars Casino welcome bonus. You just need to make sure you opt into the bonus when you have created your account, and follow the instructions to claim your bonus cash.

Daily Free Casino Bonus

There’s a new instant bonus up for grabs every day for every single player. To qualify, you just need to gamble at least $1 on any given day and opt into the promotion in your challenges window. Once you bet $1, you’ll be able to open your mystery box.

The mystery box contains a random prize worth up to $500. You can receive the bonus cash, free spins, deposit bonuses, a risk-free bet, or other promos. Just like with the welcome bonus, any winnings from your daily bonus is subject to wagering requirements before you can withdraw them.

Stars Casino Long Term Promos

Stars have other on-running promotions, which get updated over time. For example, during our Stars review, there was a daily blackjack promotion where you could claim back 25% of your losses every day.

Check out the Promotions section to see what kind of on-running promos are available when you sign up.

VIP Program

The VIP Program at Stars Casino is part of an overarching offer with PokerStars. It’s called PokerStars Rewards, and you’ll earn Stars Points every time you gamble in the casino or play online poker. When you earn enough points, you’ll be rewarded with a random prize from a chest.

You can see your progress bar to the next chest in your My Rewards section. You can win free bets, deposit bonuses, bonus cash, free spins, and Stars Coin which can be used in the Reward Store.

It’s a good program, especially if you’re likely to play some online poker as well as Stars Casino games.

Stars Compared to Mohegan Sun and Scores Casino

Players in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan have lots of options to play casino games online. Check out the table below to see how Stars compares to some of the other top-rated platforms.

As you can see, each of the three has its own strengths and weaknesses. If you’re looking for the greatest variety of games, Mohegan Sun is your best bet. If super fast withdrawals are your priority, it’s hard to look past Stars.

Figure out what you value most in an online casino, and choose accordingly.

Stars Casino Software and Mobile App

If you want to play at Stars Casino in NJ or MI, your best bet is to download the Stars Casino app. To play on desktop, you’ll need to download the PokerStars client, but there are separate apps for the poker platform and casino games – which feels neater to us.

The mobile casino is very good, cleverly designed and nice, and easy to use. You can get it for either Android or iOS and iPhone from both the Google Play Store and the App Store. It’s currently rated 4.3/5 at the latter, from more than 5,000 reviews.

You’ll get access to everything on the mobile casino app, including all the live dealer games. The software transfers to the smaller screen very well.

Range of Games Available at Stars Casino

Our overall gaming experience at Stars Casino was very positive. The variety of the gaming menu is good, although certainly on the smaller side overall. We’re big fans of the design of the site software, which is easy to use and includes some nice touches that make the experience more smooth and fun.

In total there were around 150 games available, from a selection of providers including NetEnt and Play’n’Go. There are definitely casinos out there with more games – Party Casino is pushing over 1,000 – but we still like the focused selection at Stars.

Slots

There are more than 100 slot games at Stars, with a fun and diverse range of games covered. You’ve got classic games like Gonzo’s Quest, Starburst and Divine Fortune, as well as new releases getting added all the time, like Juice Bar.

Stars have lots of progressive jackpot games. Mercy of the Gods had a $75,000 prize attached during our review. Stars also has a decent selection of games designed exclusively for the platform, which is a fun touch. There’s a separate section for Megaways games too.

Overall, even though it’s a small menu, the number of different types of games means it’s still impressive.

Table Games

Stars has a decent selection of table games. The menu is split up into subcategories for blackjack, video poker, and roulette – with a handful of variations of each available. There’s also a baccarat game.

There are also a few of our favorite games missing here though. Craps and keno would both be good additions, as would some bingo-style games. There are also no scratch card games currently available at Stars Casino.

Live Casino

The live software at Stars comes from Playtech, with 8 different games on the books in total. We were very impressed with the technology during our tests. The dealers were professional and welcoming and the video betting software worked perfectly.

Live Blackjack

Stars has two blackjack tables. Regular blackjack (which has a max bet of $1,500) and Infinite Blackjack, which means unlimited players can play at the same time (and has a max bet of $100).

Live Roulette

There are three types of roulette available: regular American roulette, auto-roulette, and lightnight roulette. The latter introduces random multipliers into the game, injecting a modern twist into the classic format.

Live Baccarat and Live Poker

Stars has one live baccarat table as well as live Ultimate Texas Hold’em and live three-card poker.

Stars Races

Races are basically Stars Casino’s version of tournaments or leaderboards, and there are a lot of them. They can last for anything from a couple of hours to a week or more, and pay out cash prizes or Star Points depending on the type of Race.

You’ll find races for slots, table games, and live dealer games. It’s a very fun addition.

Registration at Stars Casino

Registering at Stars is extremely easy, and should only take you a minute or two tops. It’s a two-step process and involves providing some fairly basic info.

Don’t forget that even though you can sign up in just a couple of minutes, you’ll also have to fully verify your identity and that may take a little more time. You might have to send Stars some additional documentation, like your passport or driver’s license.

Here’s the info you’ll need to provide to register:

• Email address
• Username
• Password

You’ll also need to confirm your age and that you accept the privacy policy:

And then you’re good to go!

Payment Methods Available at Stars Casino

Here’s the full list of supported methods at Stars Casino.

Deposits

• Bank Cards (Visa/MasterCard)
• Bank Transfer
• PayPal
• Skrill
• PayNearMe
• Vanilla Direct
• Cash at Casino Cage

Withdrawals

• Bank Transfer
• PayPal
• Skrill
• Cash at Casino Cage

We’re very happy with the banking experience at Stars, and that’s reflected in the score our experts have given the casino. It’s worth mentioning that there are sometimes minor variations in the supported payment methods depending on which state you’re playing in, and our info for this review is coming from the Pennsylvania platform.

All deposit methods come with a $10 minimum, and customizable maximum limits. The range of methods – which you can see below – includes a good mix of e-wallets, bank cards, bank transfers, and cash deposit options.

Withdrawal Speed

Now for the best part: Stars allows for (more or less) instant withdrawals if you’re using PayPal. The site advertises up to one hour for PayPal withdrawals to appear in your account, but it was much quicker in our experience.

This is considerably faster than most online casinos in PA, NJ, or MI.

ACH Transfer withdrawals can take between 3-10 business days to hit your account, while bank transfers and wire transfers take 3-5 days.

How Reputable Is PokerStars as an Online Casino?

Stars Casino is part of an illustrious group of gambling sites under the Flutter Entertainment umbrella. Some of the biggest sportsbooks and casinos around the world are part of Flutter’s portfolio, and playing on a site like Stars Casino comes with a certain peace of mind that this is not some shady platform that’s going to disappear any time soon.

According to Stars’ Privacy Policy, the company uses “technical, administrative and physical safeguards” to protect players’ private data. It also shares data with certain third parties, however, including other platforms in the wider Flutter group. This is all pretty standard for any online casino, and it doesn’t really give us any undue cause for concern.

Stars Casino License & Security

Stars Casino is in operation in three US states so far, and therefore has received separate licenses and is subject to regulation from the following:

• New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement
• Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board
• Michigan Gaming Control Board

Stars Casino Customer Service

Stars Casino covers most of the bases from a customer support perspective. There is a How To section at the bottom of the page, with detailed articles explaining banking, mobile play, and other parts of the site.

There’s also a help section with FAQs, where the PokerStars virtual assistant bot will appear, although we had some issues with this. It didn’t recognize many of our pretty standard questions, so we’d like to see those kinks ironed out.

Our other criticism here is that you need to be logged in to access all the support options. It’s not a huge deal, but it excludes anyone doing some exploring before deciding whether to sign up. Then you need to fill out a contact form before you can actually get in contact with anyone.

We’d much prefer instant live chat support, which casinos like Virgin and Scores have.

Stars Casino Overall Conclusion – Pros & Cons

For every review, we always ask our experts to include any criticisms they have of the platform, or areas they think could be improved. Here’s what they came up with for Stars Casino.

Room to improve:

• There’s no getting around the fact the number of games available is smaller than average. Take Resort for example with 700 games, or Harrahs which has 800. Lots of people are perfectly happy with 150 high-quality games, but if you subscribe to the mindset of “the-more-the-better”, you’ll find more games on other platforms.
• The customer support could be improved a little. There are some gremlins in the mechanics of the automated support bot, and we’d like an easily accessible 24/7 live chat box.
• The $50 welcome bonus for just a $1 bet is good, but again you can find offers with much larger sums of bonus cash available elsewhere.

However, our overall feelings about Stars Casino are certainly more positive than negative. Once you accept the fact that the gaming menu is smaller than average, it’s clear that Star is leading the way in a lot of other areas.

More or less instant withdrawals are a huge deal and something that is increasingly rare these days. In fact, the banking experience, in general, is great.

We can safely say that, if you’re equally into online poker as casino games and want a platform that offers both, you won’t find a better one than Stars / PokerStars. And FOXbet is great for sports betting too – it’s like a three-in-one for online gambling.

We also love the regular bonuses and the imaginative VIP Rewards program.

As we said, Stars Casino is really doing a lot of things very well. To try it out for yourself, and get set up with your $50 free bonus, hit our sign-up links above.

Stars Casino FAQ