STS Review - No UK Customers

STS were impressive when they came to the UK in 2019.  Being Poland’s biggest gambling brand and an established operator they brought something genuinely new to the market that could compete with big names like bet365, Coral, Ladbrokes, etc.

Despite being successful and making profit in the UK the group decided they would leave after just over 3 years in early 2023.  The reasons for this are simply other markets were better than the UK and so they have decided to focus on those instead.  With more rules to comply with in the UK STS clearly felt it was better to invest elsewhere.

Customers were not allowed to sign up and register in the UK from 16th January 2023.  Bets will be taken from existing customers until 14th February. STS remains active in other markets.

STS screenshot

STS might be a relatively new brand to us in the UK, but they are a market leader in their native Poland, enjoying roughly 45% of the market share there. This makes them the equivalent of William Hill or Betfred to Polish folk.

They hit the UK more than ready to face the competition in 2019, with pre-existing experience of working in 12 other countries already.

Better known as a sportsbook than a casino, this gambling site is nonetheless a well rounded product which is capable of serving both bettors and casino players equally well.

Excellent for Eastern European markets for obvious reasons, with free live streaming and boasting a game catalogue of over 1500 titles, there are many reasons to give STS a try.

Using the Desktop Website

STS LogoThe colour scheme makes STS’s site feel vibrant and fun without having to try too hard, and beyond the paint job you are dealing with a sturdy and well designed site with a user friendly platform that makes navigation not only easy but enjoyable.

It’s a pretty standard layout featuring a top bar with the main options such as sports, in-play, casino etc, and beyond that navigation is left to the sports list or the search function.

Scrolling is kept to a minimum in most cases thanks to the heavy use of drop down menus, especially on the sportsbook, and for a site that has to contain so much information this is impressive. What’s more, you can get to a new destination from anywhere on the site without constantly having to click ‘back’, so the design is to be applauded.

Favouriting will save you even more time if you bet on the same things often. Quick tip for you there.

The promotions are fairly dominant on the home page taking up a good 25% of the screen real estate, which in our view is a double edged sword; it means you won’t ever miss out on a promotion, but it isn’t the best use of the space. The scrolling board would be enough in our opinion, although the promotions shown underneath the empty bet slip do at least fill the dead space that is often left empty.

It really is plain sailing most of the time though, with account details and deposit options ever present in the top right hand corner of the screen for easy management.

Using the Mobile Website

STS MobilePlaying casino games on mobile with STS is a real treat. It’s quick, it looks great, and its super easy to use.

The footer bar contains a favourites button which you can use to create a quick list of your all time favourite games, meaning you can get online and start playing in no time – making the most of those 15 minute tea breaks.

Now, there are well over 1,200 games on this site so browsing is always going to be a bit of a tricky problem to solve, but STS have them broken down into categories as well as being searchable.

The categories are genuinely helpful too, not like on some sites. Here you can view games by provider, theme, game mechanics like Megaways – it makes gaming on the smaller screen much easier.

On the sportsbook side of things the betslip stays hidden unless it is in use, while a scrolling menu of symbols makes it easy to quickly take stock of your live betting options as soon as you log in.

Betting pre-match essentially turns the whole screen into the A-Z sports list which you can filter very effectively before showing all betting markets for the fixture you have chosen.

All screens have plenty of opportunities to minimise options that aren’t of interest too, so you can quickly organise the interface to suit your needs.

There’s nothing missing on the mobile site either; you can open the stats tool, view the in-play match graphic, even view live feeds. It’s the whole package just in a smaller box.

Banking

Banking Method Max/Min Deposit Max/Min Withdrawal Notes
Debit Card £10 £10 Up to 3 Working Days
PayPal £10 £10 Around 30 mins
Skrill £10 £10 Around 30 mins
Bank Transfer £10 £10 1-3 Working Days

There is very little to complain about here in terms of the options available, but be warned that STS has the lowest level of deposit protection.

This means that if they were to go insolvent then money in your account would not be guaranteed, so it’s always best to withdraw large amounts and not let funds rest in your account for longer than necessary.

They do allow deposits and withdrawals by some of the lesser known providers though, such as MuchBetter, ecoPayz, and Trustly.

About STS

STS OfficeOpening for business in 1997 when the internet was only just learning to walk, STS began life as a high street betting brand in Poland.

They managed to build a portfolio of over 440 shops in the years that followed, grabbing more than 45% of the market share in their home country and employing an army of around 1500 staff in their shops and offices.

They now work out of four different offices in Katowice, Warsaw, Malta, and Prague, and hold licenses in the UK and Malta amongst others. This allows them to expand through Europe and explains why 80% of their revenue now comes from online channels.

They have their own odds makers which sets them apart from many other online gambling sites, and also emphasises their size and power, which may not be apparent to UK gamblers who still see them as ‘new’.

In fact, STS ranked 27th in the EGR Power 50 list in 2020, the same list Bet365 topped for 10 years.

STS the brand is actually owned by a similarly named parent company, STS Gaming Group, who offer B2B to other online gambling businesses through their sister company, Betsys Poland. Again, this just highlights the size and capabilities of the company – any gambling site with their own platform is doing ok.

The group have big plans too, expanding aggressively after becoming vocally frustrated with Poland’s tightening regulation and taxes. It’s likely that STS will be popping up a lot more often in the future, as well as opening for business in many more regulated markets across Europe in the near future.

They are unlikely to be another on of those ‘here today gone tomorrow’ brands.

Sportsbook Odds and Markets

STS Sportsbook

They have an interesting sportsbook at STS, because their market selection is a little different than normal thanks to their European base.

Sports more popular in some Eastern European countries like floorball and volleyball have better market depth than normal, and there are a few other surprises in there such as archery.

Even in the most popular sports though, their Eastern European flavour shines through with markets available 3 tiers deep in Polish football, for example. Only English football has better market depth, going down to the National League here.

More good news comes in the form of strong odds, which can be viewed as fractions, decimal, or American. STS have the benefit of being well established enough to go toe to toe with the big name bookies, despite technically being ‘new’ to UK punters.

The sportsbook tends to get the lions share of the promotions, and although the ongoing offers are mostly football related they do run promotions on other sports as varied as golf and skiing when big events are happening.

The only obvious omission was horse racing, but luckily they added that in 2022 and now offer all the major and plenty of minor sports markets.

Esports

STS Esports Live Stream

STS give Esports a high billing on the website, which certainly speaks for their commitment to the fast growing betting market.

A calendar shows every single fixture the company are taking bets on across all of the games they offer as markets, which include Counter Strike (CSGO), Defence of the Ancients (DOTA), League of Legends (LOL), Starcraft (SC), Starcraft 2 (SC2), Rocket League (Rocket L), King of Glory (KOG), and Rainbow 6 (R6).

This is way more than most gambling sites can manage, and makes STS a destination for anyone serious about betting on esports.

What’s more, most of these fixtures are live streamed via twitch so you can watch them at the same time as betting on them.

Markets available include things like over/unders on kills in each game, first blood, match winner, first X number of kills, etc. You can bet on outrights too.

Live Betting

STS Live Betting

Over 50,000 live betting events each month should tell you all you need to know about STS’s live betting capabilities.

The great thing about their offering in this department is that the selection isn’t restricted to the most popular sports either. You can bet live on pretty much every sport on their list, and with loads of new in-play markets too.

Just as important as what’s available though is how it is all displayed – a bad in-play set up can kill the experience.

Thankfully, that isn’t a problem here. Quite the opposite in fact, as the TG Lab platform provides everything needed for a thoroughly entertaining live betting session, including stats, results, a calendar, and even a multi view option that lets the punter track several events from the same screen.

There is live streaming too, although not on every event, but we watched the archery, snooker, badminton, esports, and table tennis on a Friday morning and for free too. Where a stream isn’t available the live match tracker graphic is good enough to hold the attention, and even comes with stats and info on the game so far.

Casino and Gaming

STS Casino

It’s certainly not all about sports betting at STS, even though that is what they started life as.

The online casino is powered by 13 different game developers like Wazdan, Yggdrasil, Microgaming, NetEnt, and ELK – a really nice selection of old hands and newer more innovative providers. Together, they supply STS with more than 1600 games all told.

They stick to the main categories but options like video poker and sic bo are hidden amongst the table games. The selection available is vast and ever changing.

  • Video Slots – Of the 1400 titles here there are classics like Great Rhino and new favourites like Extra Chilli and Hotline 2, plus plenty of Megaways and branded titles.
  • Table Games – STS are great for those who enjoy RNG based table games, there are over 110 of them.
  • Jackpots – With 30+ life changing jackpots available you will always be able to find something that is due to drop.
  • Video Poker – A solid handful of poker titles are nestled under ‘table games’, with Jacks or Better, Aces and Eights, and Joker Wild.
  • Live Casino – Surprise surprise, it’s Evolution Gaming who power the live casino. If you know anything about online gambling you will know that this means loads of roulette and blackjack plus interesting game show style games.

Offers and promotions aren’t abounding in the casino but keep an eye out around seasonal holidays and the like, as they can outdo themselves with bonuses at these times. They also run prize drops on specific slots sometimes.

It’s as easy to navigate the casino site as anywhere else, and there is very little to tick you off about the design.

Betting Features

Statistics

STS Statistic

You can access statistics specific to any fixture you are interested in by clicking the bar chart symbol next to the odds. There is a wealth of information contained within that is perfect for number crunchers who treat their betting like a science.

The stats tool is also searchable though, so you can get lost down a rabbit hole of leagues, teams, and competitions, and their performances across a season or against a specific team historically etc.

This exists for every sport on the list too, so it really is encyclopaedic in its content.

Blog

STS BlogThis is a living blog that is regularly updated rather than one of those that only sees a new post every couple of months, and the content is both concise and engaging – great for a quick yet informative read.

It’s broken into sport, casino, and news sections so that you can filter whatever interests you, and includes things like betting tips on big fixtures, betting guides for casino games that you might not have tried before, plus news about STS itself.

This can actually be quite helpful if you use the site regularly, as it means you won’t miss out on updates and new features, such as when they introduced Paypal as a payment method in 2020.

This lively site is ideal for Polish ex pats, as well as anyone who follows Eastern European football or other sports popular in that part of the world.

Also, since they run a lesser used sports betting platform the site is a breath of fresh air for anyone bored of seeing the same old designs with different branding over the top.

STS doesn’t have an obvious USP aside from that, but with strong odds and excellent live betting capabilities it provides a strong alternative to the big 5 without compromising on much. It even has free and extensive live streaming which not many sites new to the UK market can boast.

Bettors and gamers of all types will find that STS suits their needs; newbies shouldn’t be intimidated by it and old pros won’t find it too basic.

It’s probably best described as a reliable gambling site with depth and plenty of products; a realistic option for anyone wanting to jump ship from the big name bookies but still wanting a big name bookie experience.

Support

STS SupportIt’s not that support is lacking at STS, they aren’t difficult to get hold of, but there aren’t as many options here as we would ideally like to see.

Basically you’ve got email or live chat, so support is online only – unless you happen to be in Poland, speak Polish, and can wander into one of their betting offices.

Snail mail is also an option but come on, who communicates via letter anymore?

It’s not a 24 hour service either, although it is open every day and work starts bright and early too, with opening hours from 6:00am to 10:45pm.

We have always found the live chat to be the best option, it’s a good service not one of these early 2000’s hangovers, and the staff answer quickly and are helpful and friendly.

There’s room for improvement sure, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the way they currently do things.

Contact & License

UK Gambling Licence: 54498

  • Live Chat – Available in English and Polish, the live chat is available via the speech bubble icon in the bottom left corner.
  • Email – You can start an email conversation using [email protected] and a timely reply will wing its way back to you.
  • Phone – Their number isn’t made public, but since they are based in Poland it would cost you an arm and a leg to ring them anyway.
  • Social Media – STS have removed themselves from social media. They were probably spending too much time mindlessly scrolling and not getting any work done…
  • Address – Their official residence is STS Gaming Group, Skyways Offices, block C, 3rd floor (C5), 177/179 Triq Marina, Pieta, PTA 9042, Malta. Drop them a postcard.