FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Winster is the cool new game site where you cooperate—instead of compete—with your friends to win prizes. It’s a great way to make new friends and win real prizes in a relaxed, stress-free environment with other nice people like you!

Start by picking a prize that you would like to win. You earn points by playing games, and when you earn enough points, you win your prize. It's that simple! Each day that you log in, you get a certain number of Spins. Click the Spin button to get tokens in games, then move the tokens around your game board to score points. But here's the cool part: You can see the other players in your room, and you can trade tokens with them to help each other score points faster! To propose a trade, drag a token that you want to give away from your game board onto a token that you want to get from another player's game board. They can accept or reject your offer!

Winster is not a gambling site. To constitute gambling, participants must wager something of value for a chance to win something of value. At Winster, all players can play for free. While you can purchase a membership which include a number of privileges including automatic additional play time and higher point values, all players can request additional play time without paying, and all rewards are available for the same number of points to all players.

Players are not entering a contest, sweepstakes, or lottery, where they have a chance to win. There is no fixed collection of prizes that are distributed to ‘winners’ based on luck or skill.

Paying members do not increase their chances of winning anything; but they are able to accumulate points more quickly and so can earn rewards more quickly, similar to other commercial point rewards programs such as those operated by airlines. The frequency with which members can earn and claim rewards has no negative impact on non-members ability to earn and claim rewards.

Since the required elements for gambling are absent, Winster does not violate any gambling laws or regulations.

Absolutely. Don't believe it? Check out the Player Comments!

No. You can play games and win prizes for free. But if you want to win faster, or play more, you can buy more spins or sign up for a monthly membership in Club Winster!

Absolutely. Don't believe it? Check out the Player Comments!

Winnie Winster—our founder and Host. Learn more About Us!

Yes, you can play if you live outside the United States, but unfortunately, many prizes can only be delivered within the United States. This is because many of our prize suppliers are able to ship prizes only to United States addresses. If you reside outside the United States but would like to join Club Winster anyway, may we suggest that you find (or make) a friend who lives in the United States, and give the prizes to them? When you sign up and are asked for an address, use theirs!

Click here for details.

Yes, the other players in the room are “real” people. Feel free to check out their profile to learn more about them, or ask them a question. Go on...don't be shy! You may find out that you have a lot in common with someone in the room! Our community is filled with friendly people who enjoy playing games and making new friends. But don't take my word for it, you can find out for yourself in the San Jose Mercury News, Record Herald, LA Times, or The Lowell Sun.

You can purchase a Day Pass for 99¢. When playing with a Day Pass you get to play as a Member for one day, which means you will receive the following benefits:

Winster Happy Hours are virtual events that take place during a specific date and time. During the designated time, all Spins are free and will not count against your daily spin allotment. On occasion, the special happy hour events are sponsored by a third party advertiser.

Yes, we have helpful game guides for each of our games. You can access them by clicking here.

To help you understand what all the icons represent in a game room, we created a helpful Newcomer Guide. Please click here to view a detailed Slot Social game room complete with legend.

Many of our players will use chat acronyms during gameplay to save time. We created a Winster Glossary to help newcomers understand some of the most popular chat acronyms used within our community. Please click here to view the glossary and feel free to let us know if we've left out any by sending an e-mail to comments@winster.com.

There are three levels of Club Winster Membership:

To upgrade or downgrade your Club Winster membership, click on My Stuff (on the menu bar), then select Membership, and click the Change Membership button at the left. Upgrades take effect immediately. When you upgrade, you will be charged the difference between your current membership level and your new membership level, pro-rated to the end of your current billing cycle. Your billing cycle is not affected. Your spin balance will immediately be increased to your new membership level. Note that if you use PayPal, you will be asked to approve a new PayPal subscription with a partial payment for the balance of your current month, then a full payment each month thereafter. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current month. If you pay by PayPal, you will be asked to approve a new PayPal subscription with no payment for the balance of your current month, then a full payment each month thereafter.

To cancel your Club Winster membership, click on My Stuff (on the menu bar), then Membership, and click the Cancel Membership button at the left. Please note that cancellations take effect immediately. Winnie does not refund or pro-rate your last payment, so it is best to cancel just before your next membership billing date.

Club Winster membership spins are added to your account the first time you log in each day. So to collect all your spins, you must visit at least once a day. Note that your spins are added after midnight, Pacific Standard Time (PST). If you are logged in at midnight PST, you will have to log out and back in to get your spins. Also, you can only accumulate up to ten times as many spins as your daily membership alottment. For example, if you are a Silver member, and so get 500 spins each day, you can collect daily spins only if you have less than 5000 available spins.

You can purchase a Day Pass for 99¢. When playing with a Day Pass you get to play as a Member for one day, which means you will receive the following benefits:

There are three ways to add someone as a friend. To invite others to become your friend:

Go to your Friends List, and find the Friend(s) you wish to delete. To the right of the Friends List, you will find a box under Remove. Select the box next to the Friend(s) you want to delete, and click on Remove Selected Friends.

Unfortunately, every once in a while you may end up in a room with an unfriendly player, and we sincerely apologize for these few bad apples. You can block a player from chatting, trading, adding you to their Friend’s List, searching or viewing your profile, sending conversation messages, Quick Notes and eCards. To block a player, you can either 1) hover over the player’s Smiley in a game room and click on Block after the profile preview appears; 2) go to your Friend’s List and select Block; or 3) select Block from the player’s Profile Page. The player will remain blocked permanently, unless you decide to unblock them. To view players that you have blocked, go to your My Stuff page and select Privacy.

To unblock a player, hover your mouse to My Stuff and select Privacy from the drop down menu. You will see a list of players that you have selected to Block. Select Unblock next to the player that you wish to Block.

When profanity or inappropriate language is used in a game room, please report a player by clicking on the Report Abuse button located above the chat box. This new feature will allow you to report someone for bad language, harassment, and cheating. After clicking on the link, select the reason for reporting the player from the drop down menu, and provide more information about the abuse in the space provided. Select OK after you are done, and the report will be sent to Customer Support along with a clip of the Chat Window. Due to the volume of emails, please do not expect a direct response from our Support team regarding your report. Our team will review all incidents and will take the necessary actions. You can also click on the Comments link located at the top of page, and fill out the right side of the form under Customer Support. Under Topic, select Report a Player and include as much detail about the player and his/her behavior. We also suggest you use the Block feature or if you are a paying member you can create a private room and play with other members. You also have the option to change rooms.

Winster eCards are FREE and you can send them to your Winster friends and non-Winster friends. You can choose from an assortment of themes, including Halloween, Thank You, Happy Birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Winster, and much more!

To send an eCard to a friend on Winster, login to Winster.com, go to your Friend’s List and click on View Profile of the friend you’d like to send an eCard to. From their Profile Page, click on the Send eCards button located underneath their Profile Picture. Select the eCard theme you’d like, include a personal message (optional), and click Send eCard.

If you’d like to send a Winster eCard to a friend who hasn’t registered for Winster.com, login to your account and move your mouse to Inbox and select Send eCards from the drop-down menu. Select the theme you’d like and enter your friend’s first name and email address in the To field and click Send eCard after you have written a personal message (optional).

The best way to contact us is to send email to:
support@winster-inc.com

Our address is:
Winster, Inc.
155 Bovet Road, Suite 303
San Mateo, California 94402

When blocking a player, you will no longer see the player’s chats or trade requests in the room. Also, a red circle with a slash though it appears over the player’s Smiley to identify which player is blocked. Blocks will only last for the duration of that login period.

After downloading the software, the Winster toolbar should appear on your top menu bar. If you access the game site from the Winster icon on your new toolbar, you will receive 500 daily points. After you login from the toolbar, you will see an update in your Personal Messages on your My Stuff page that reads “You logged in from the Winster Toolbar and received 500 points!” Please make sure you logout each day after play to ensure that you receive your daily points for logging in from the toolbar.

If you are not receiving points for the toolbar you may need to uninstall and reinstall the toolbar.

Here's how to uninstall the toolbar:

IE Toolbar Go to Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Select Winster Toolbar from the list and click on the Change/Remove button

Firefox Toolbar: Go to Tools -> Extensions -> Select Winster Toolbar from the list and click on the Uninstall button

The latest version of our games requires that you have the most recent version of Flash on your computer. It is supposed to upgrade automatically, but a few of our players have reported problems that indicate that this may not always happen correctly. If you have an older version of Flash, our games may seem sluggish, or may not load at all.

If this is happening to you, could you please try the following? Open a browser window, and go to the following page:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/

This should tell you if you have Flash properly installed, and which version you have. If the box at the right does not say “You have version 10.2.152.26” (or later), please do the following:

1. Click on the blue lettered Player Download Center. This will take you to download the latest version of Flashplayer. This first download is for Windows Internet Explorer. If you are using Mozzilla Firefox, please select different browser and select downloads appropriately.

2. Free Google Tool Bar is Checked. If you do not want any extra too bars on your browsing window, make sure that this box is unchecked.

3. Click on the yellow agree and install now button. Follow directions to continue and finish installation.

4. Please go back to http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/ and verify that you have properly installed the latest version.

When creating a profile on Winster, the default gender is Female. To update your gender, please log into your Winster account. Go to My Stuff->View My Profile->Edit My Profile (found on the left side of the screen), and change your gender there.

If you only want to be able to Spin by clicking on your mouse, and not the Enter key, you can disable this feature. Log on to winster.com and go to your My Stuff page. From there, select My Info and you will see your User Preferences located at the bottom of the page.

Check the box that reads, Turn off pressing Enter key to Spin.

Click on Save.

If you no longer wish to be notified about friend's birthday, log on to winster.com and go to your My Stuff page. From there, select My Info and you will see your User Preferences located at the bottom of the page.

Check the box that reads, Don't email friend birthday notices to me.

Click on Save.

To update your email address, please log in to your Winster account. Go to My Stuff, and select My Info and change your email address, and click on Save.

To change your password, please log in to your Winster account. Go to My Stuff, and select My Info and click on the link Change Password. This will prompt you to type in your Current Password and your New Password. After you finish entering these fields, make sure you click on Save located at the bottom of the page.

To upload a photo to your profile, follow the directions below:

Go to My Stuff and select View My Profile. On the left side of the screen there is an option to upload a photo. Click on this option and a dialog box will appear labeled upload profile picture. The picture must be a .JPG file that is no larger than 1000kb in size. Click Browse and locate the picture file that you want. Once you have selected your file, click on upload.

By clicking upload you certify that you have the right to distribute this picture and that it does not violate the Terms and Conditions.

To copy and paste a conversation:

1. Left click on the mouse in front of the first word of the conversation.
2. Keeping the left click down, drag your cursor to the end of the conversation. All words should be highlighted.
3. Let go of the left click and click the right side of the mouse. This should give you some menu options.
4. Click on the copy option.
5. Open an email. Click your cursor into the body section of the email and right click the mouse again.
6. Click on the poste option. All text should appear in the body section of the email. If not, then repeat the above steps again making sure that the conversation is highlighted before you click the copy option.

If you are having trouble seeing parts of our games that are off the bottom of your screen, please try using the Full Screen mode in your browser.

In Internet Explorer or Firefox, you can press the F11 key (that’s a function key that is usually at the top of your keyboard) to make the game full screen, and press it again to return to normal.

Or, you can click on the ‘View’ menu in your browser, then click on Full Screen.

To turn off Room Intros, log on to winster.com and go to your My Stuff page. From there, select My Info and you will see your User Preferences located at the bottom of the page.

Check the box that reads Don’t have Winnie introduce other players when you enter a room.

Click on Save.

To stop receiving email notifications regarding Conversation Messages, log on to winster.com and go to your My Stuff page. From there, select My Info and you will see your User Preferences located at the bottom of the page.

Check the box that reads, Don’t email Conversation Messages to me.

Click on Save.

To turn off the Smart Cursor, log on to Winster.com and go to your My Stuff page. From there, select My Info and you will see your User Preferences located at the bottom of the page.

Uncheck the box that reads, Allow smart move of highlighted board slot in Slot Social.

Click on Save.

If you would like to nominate an exceptional player to be recognized in Winnie’s newsletter, please send an email to comments@winster.com and include the player’s Screen Name and why you feel they should be honored as Winster’s Player of the Week.

Winnie loves receiving messages from her beloved community. If you would like to share a story about a positive experience you had while playing on Winster, please send a message to her Inbox. Winnie is everyone’s friend and her profile appears on your Friend’s List (unless you remove/hide her), and you easily send her a Conversation Message by clicking on her profile. Below her photo, click on Start a Conversation and submit your comment and hit Send. Due to the volume of e-mails, Winnie is unable to respond to all messages. For urgent questions/concerns related to customer service issues that require a speedy response, please e-mail support@winster.com and our Support Team will respond to your inquiry in a timely manner. Thank you for understanding and have a nice day!

No. You can play games and win prizes for free. But if you want to win faster, or play more, you can buy more spins or sign up for a monthly membership in Club Winster!

To change your prize, log on to your Winster account and hover your mouse to the My Stuff tab and select Prizes from the drop down menu. Once on your Prizes page, click on the Change Prize button located on the left of your screen. You will then see our list of available prizes. Click on the prize you’d like, then review the Selected Prize Details of your chosen prize. If this is the prize you are planning to work towards or keep, you will then click on the Change Prize button. To ensure that your newly selected prize has been chosen, click on the My Prize button to the left of your screen. You will then see your prize displayed on your screen.

In order to claim your prize, there are two sets of codes you will need, a Claim Code and a Serial Number. After you have clicked on the Claim Prize button, you will receive your Claim Code via email within seven business days, which then needs to be entered into the Prizes Won section. After entering your 6-Digit Claim Code and hitting Enter, your prize will be listed in Prizes Won box. Click on the Details button and a pop-up screen will appear immediately with your Serial Number along with final instructions on how to redeem your prize. For more detailed step-by-step instructions, please see below:

1. Log on to your Winster account and once directed to your My Stuff page, click on the Prizes button to the left of your screen.

2. Once on your Prizes page, click on the My Prize button also to the left of your screen. You will then see your Current Prize choice that you are working towards. If this is the prize you are planning to keep, click on the Claim Prize button below. It may take up to seven days for Winnie to email you a claim code. Prize claim codes will be withheld for members who are not in good standing (due to non-payment or other factors).

3. Once you have received a Prize Claim Confirmation e-mail, you will find your 6-Digit Claim (ex. VUT9s3).

4. Go to your My Stuff page, click on the Prizes button to the left of your screen.

5. Once on your Prizes page, click on the Prizes Won button also to the left of your screen. You will enter your 6-Digit Claim Code in the white box, then click the Enter button.

6. You will then see your prize listed in the box, then click on the Details button to the right of your prize. A pop-up screen will appear with your Serial Number and instructions on how to redeem your prize.

7. Please note that it is the Serial Number that you will use to redeem your prize.

After you claim a Prize, it may take up to seven days for Winnie to email you a claim code. Prize claim codes will be withheld for members who are not in good standing (due to non-payment or other factors). Within the seven days, you should receive an email containing your prize claim code, however, sometimes these emails have the tendency to go to your junk mail folder. Please make sure you add support@winster-inc.com to your safe list to ensure that this does not happen.

You earn Trophies for completing various actions. Here's a complete list for your convenience:

Absolutely. Don't believe it? Check out the Player Comments!

Winnie sometimes invites friendly players to become Hosts. Hosts help other players to learn the games and make new players feel welcome. As a Host, you get a Host badge, and when someone puts their cursor over your name, it will say that you are a Host. You will also be designated as a Host in the Change Room window and in chats. Everything else about your membership should remain the same. As you know, lots of new players visit Winster every day, and many of them could use a helping hand in learning how to play the games and cooperate with the other players. As a Host, we ask you to look out for these new visitors (we call them Newcomers), and make them feel welcome. See how they are playing, offer explanations when appropriate, etc. To reward your efforts, we've put together a Host Program where you can earn bonus points for helping first-time players! When Newcomers arrive at the site, they will be available to be Adopted by a Host. Once you have Adopted a Newcomer, you will get:

To become a Host, you must fulfill the following requirements:

If you fulfill these criteria and wish to apply, login to Winster.com and go to your MY STUFF page and click on the "Apply to be a Host" button located to the left of the page.

Hosts can Adopt a Newcomer in three ways:

If there are two hosts in the same room and a Newcomer arrives, one of the Hosts will be assigned to them at random. When you accept a call for help and are moved to the Newcomers room, an explanatory message will appear in the chat window for your current room explaining that you have left suddenly to help a Newcomer, so your room mates won't think you abandoned them. This way, you can accept calls quickly without typing a goodbye message. When you decline a request for help, you have the option of saying you don’t want to be asked again for one hour, so you don’t have to be bothered again if you just want to play. But please be aware that Hosts who decline requests don’t get asked first the next time! Note: All Newcomers are placed into Slot Social, because they find this game easiest to learn and understand.

We recommend Hosts introduce themselves to Newcomers and let them know that they are there to help them learn how to play. Please bear in mind that not everyone may want or appreciate your help, particularly if they didn't ask for it explicitly. Also, they may not realize what your H badge means, or even understand that there are other real people in the room with them. You will have to feel each Newcomer out and adapt to their specific needs in order to earn the most bonus points. The most common Newcomer question is whether Winster is for real that is, will they really get their prize. Hopefully, you can reassure them in a nice way, and at the same time show them how friendly Winster Hosts can be. Remember, they don't have to claim a prize or become a member right away for you to earn your points, so be patient with them! We were all once Newcomers at some point, so please keep in mind that it’s all new to them, and you can make a positive impact if you just remember that everyone learns at a different pace and do your best to help learn the ropes.

To change your payment method you will need to cancel the present membership. You do not lose points, spins or prizes when you do this. Then go to your membership page. Select the membership that you would like and click on the payment method you want to be billed with. If it is PayPal, you would get a pop up to put the information in for PayPal to bill you. If you don't get the pop up you would need to disable your pop up blocker.

At this time, we accept a credit or debit card with the Mastercard, prepaid gift cards or Visa logo, or a PayPal payment.

If you don't have a credit or debit card, may I respectfully suggest you sign up for a PayPal Account? This is a great way to make payments over the internet directly from a bank account. You can sign up easily at Paypal.com. We are not set-up to send invoices or to accept checks or money orders.

To change your payment date you would need to cancel your membership and then re-signup on the date that you want to be billed on.

In our terms and conditions it states: Your membership fee will be charged automatically each month according to the method of payment you select, until you change or cancel your membership. Therefore your membership is billed automatically each month.

To avoid being charged automatically, you will need to make sure you cancel before the billing date begins for the following month. To do this, go to “My Stuff” and select “Membership”. To the left you will see the option to “Cancel Membership”. Click on this option.

Making new friends is fun and easy on Winster. If you receive a friend request and decide to accept the request, they will be added to your Friends List. Your Friends List helps you find friends when you’re logged on. You can easily send them conversation letters when they are offline, join them in a room when they're playing, or send them a Quick Note when they’re online. On your Friends List, if you click online, it will show which Friends are logged on. If they are currently playing in a Room and you would like to join them, click on their Profile and you will see which Room Number they are playing in and you can join them if there’s room. If you know you have accepted a friend and they should be on your list, please scroll to the bottom and click on hidden. They should then appear.

When blocking a player, you will no longer see the player’s chats or trade requests in the room. Also, a red circle with a slash though it appears over the player’s Smiley to identify which player is blocked. Blocks will only last for the duration of that login period.

If an account is inactive for 60 days, the points are reset to 700,000. This is the starting value of points for Newcomers only. To keep your account active, just login at least once every 59 days.

Ads will block the player farthest to the right if your zoom is set below 100%. To change your zoom setting on, follow the instructions below: For Internet Explorer, go to the menu bar at the top of your screen and select Page. When the scroll down menu appears, click on Zoom and select 100%. For Firefox, press and hold the Ctrl key while pressing ‘+’. For using Safari, press and hold the Command key while pressing ‘+’ (The Command key on a Macintosh is indicated by an Apple or cloverleaf symbol)

Click here for details.

If you see a large red spin botton covering your screen each time you enter a game room, this will happen if you have your Flash Cookies disabled.

Flash Cookies are different than normal browser cookies. To be sure they are enabled on your computer, please:

1. Go to http://www.winster.com.
2. Put your mouse cursor in the big blue graphic area at the middle part of the page.
3. Right click your mouse.
4. Select Settings.
5. Click on the little folder icon at the bottom of the pop up.
6. Make sure that the slider in the pop up is not at the left of the scale. If so, please move it to the right.
7. Click the Close button.

This will enable the Flash Cookie, and the big red spin button should not appear any more.

Yes, you can find Winnie on Facebook and Winster on Facebook.

You can also follow Winnie on Twitter!

Please keep in mind that all customer-specific service related issues should be addressed to support@winster-inc.com because we are unable to link your Winster account information via Twitter and Facebook. Thank you!

You can earn extra points by downloading the Winster toolbar. Every day that you launch one of our games from the toolbar, we’ll add 500 points to your score instantly. Click here to download the toolbar: (http://www.winster.com/games/console) After downloading the Winster toolbar, it should appear on your top menu bar. If you access the game site from the Winster icon on your new toolbar, you will receive 500 daily points. After you login from the toolbar, you will see an update in your Personal Messages on your My Stuff page that reads You logged in from the Winster Toolbar and received 500 points! Please make sure you logout each day after play to ensure that you receive your daily points for logging in from the toolbar.

The most current software updates needed for our site are as follows:

Mozilla Firefox: Version 3.6.8
Internet Explorer: Version 8
Java: Version 6 Update 20 or latest
Adobe Flash Player: Version 10.1.53 or latest

From your My Stuff page, hover your mouse to Friends and select Invite More Friends and you should see a personal link that you can cut and paste on the bottom or add at the referral section!

There is a difference between Current points and Lifetime points.

Current points are the points that you currently have available to use for prizes. Once you claim a prize the points will be deducted from your current points. If you have a prize cancelled then the points will get added back to your current point balance. The Current points balance can go up and down based on the activity on the account.

Lifetime points are the amount of points that are earned over the lifetime of an account. These will never go down. If you cancel a prize and get refunded the points, then they are added onto the top of your lifetime points as well as adding them back into your current points.

This happens when we can't establish a proper connection to your computer.

Try rebooting first—then check out:
http://www.winster.com/games/console

The problem will most likely clear up on its own.

The Wheel of Winster is a fun game we implemented for Members after we implemented the synchronized ads for non-members. We realized that if a Member was playing in a room full of non-members, they were stuck playing by themselves while the non-members watched the synchronized ads.

As a result, we decided to add the Wheel of Winster to offer Members a fun activity they can do while waiting for non-members to return from ads. The Wheel of Winster appears to the right of the screen during the non-members’ commercial breaks. To play, Members just click to Spin, and they can earn up to 2000 extra Bonus Points!

Please make sure your Zoom is set to 100% to ensure that you see the Wheel of Winster when it appears on the right!

And to be fair, we wanted to make the Wheel of Winster available to our non-members too, so we decided to replace the Surveys with a special Silver version of the Wheel of Winster. Non-members can earn up to 50 points each time they spin the Wheel! It will appear approximately every 90 seconds...so keep an eye out for it!

Hint to Members: If you also want to play the silver non-member version of the Wheel, click on Show Wheel of Winster at the upper right.