Website Review: Winster.Com, An Online Game Site

I first learned about the website, Winster.com, through MyPoints.com. MyPoints is a website where you can earn points to redeem for different gift cards. You earn MyPoints by making your purchases for merchandise through merchants that participate with MyPoints.com, clicking on bonus emails, etc. It was one of these MyPoints Bonus E-mails that led me to Winster.com. The MyPoints Bonus E-mail offered the "opportunity" to earn 750 MyPoints if I signed up at Winster.com and earned 1,000,000 Winster points. Since it was free to do so, I went ahead and signed up with Winster.com for their free account.

Winster.com is an online gaming website where you can play different games such as Slot Social, Poker Pals, Burger Buddy, Match Maker, Doku Deluxe, Picture Magic, Chain Gang, Facets, Bing Bash, and Spell Squad. What makes their online game website a little different than other online games is that you interact with other players, helping out other players by giving them game character pieces that you don't need or can't use and they help you in the same way. This is the premise behind the entire Winster.com website, online social interaction.

You can play on Winster.com for free and I mean for absolutely no money at all. With your free account, you get 200 spins each and every day that you sign on and you can play any of their games. If you do not use all of your 200 spins, they do not carry over to the next day. It's 200 spins per day, period. You earn points for playing the different games and achieving the different goals of whatever game you are playing. For example, if you play Slot Social, you spin the wheel to get all cherries, bananas, grapes, single bars, double bars, triple bars, diamonds, sevens or winnies (round circles with a 'W' on it which is also the Winster.com logo). You can also get wild cards. The more of each item you get (up to five), the more points you get. You can also spin 'points (twenty)' or 'three free spins.' There is also a 'Jackpot' you can spin to collect the necessary game pieces. Jackpot gives you the most points you can earn at one time on the site.

If you find that 200 spins per day is not enough, you can purchase a Day Pass for 99 cents which gives you an additional 300 spins (on top of your free 200 spins) for a total of 500 spins for that 24 hour period. One of the advantages to buying a Day Pass is that the 'points' that you can spin on the wheel are higher, eighty instead of twenty and higher points for game pieces.

If you find that that is still not enough spins, you can join Club Winster and purchase a Club membership Plan. The three Club membership Plans or levels are Basic which gives you 300 spins each day of the month for $4.99 per month. The second level of membership is Silver which gives you 500 spins each day of the month for $7.49 per month.

The highest level of membership is Gold which gives you 800 spins each day of the month for $9.99 per month. If 800 spins per day is still not enough spins, you can purchase 'spin packs' that give you an additional 200 daily spins each day for an additional $2.50. These 'spin packs' can be added to the Gold membership only. You can get 1000 spins per day for $12.49 per month or 1200 spins per day for $14.99 per month and up.

When you have a Gold membership, each day that you log in to the website and 'get' your 800 spins, any spins left over WILL roll over to the next day and the next and the next etc. with a total cap of 8000 spins (which is the highest and you can't go over).

Whatever level of membership you choose; Free, Basic, Silver or Gold will be reflected by a symbol next to your icon on the website. There is no symbol next to the icon of a person with a FREE account. There is a 'B' next to the icon of a person with Basic membership; an 'S' next to the icon of a person with a Silver membership; and a 'G' next to the icon of a person with a Gold membership. This means that everyone knows what level of membership that you may or may not have purchased.

You can also apply to be a Winster.com HOST. I have not done this nor have I talked to anyone who has done it but the advertisements on the Winster.com web pages say you get extra points by being a HOST and helping new players out.

When you sign up and then log in to the Winster.com website, you choose the game you want to play, for example, Slot Social, and you are then put into a room with other players who are playing that game. There may be one or two players in the room or the room may be full. A full room is you and four other players for a total of five players in one room at a time. There are private rooms that can be created too but you must be a member to create and play in one. There are no free gamesters allowed in private rooms.

While you are in a room playing whichever game you have chosen, you can interact with other players verbally with 'thought bubbles.' You type your short message into the right side of the game board under player chat and then click the 'send' button and a 'thought bubble' of what you've typed in will appear above the head of your icon.

When you have started using your spins, a character will appear in one of five different slots above the spinning wheel and the word 'Cash In.' As you spin, the character spun automatically goes to the next open and empty slot. If all slots are full, then the character that you highlight with your mouse (outlined in yellow) is where the next game piece character you spin will go. If you are not careful, you can accidentally spin away game piece characters that you WANT to keep so always make sure that you have the small square highlighted.

If you have not spun any characters that match, then you will need to decide which character you want to spin away (I would choose the cherries because they have the lowest point value) and spin again to see if you get a new character that may match one of your other current game piece characters. You do this until you have all the game piece characters you need and the points you have earned will be displayed at the top of the characters under your name and icon. Once you have a point value that you are happy with, then you click on the 'cash in' button and start over. The points go to your accumulating score total which you can see near the bottom of the screen, at the middle under the 'spin' button, 'spins left' and it says 'Your Score.'

If you have a game piece character that you do not need or want, you can share it with other players in the room you are in. All you need to do is click on the game piece character with your mouse and carry it over to one of the other players game boards. A green arrow will show up if you have done this correctly. The other player will see that you are offering them a game piece character and will see the word 'Yes' or 'No.' The player can click on either word or just ignore the arrow because it goes away after a few seconds. You will see the same thing when a player offers you a game character. There are times the game can become quite hectic when you have more than one player offering you game piece characters all at the same time! All those green arrows coming at you can get very confusing! This can make the game a lot of fun though as you share game character pieces with other friendly players and they share with you and its even more fun when you share funny 'thought bubbles.'

The Winster.com points earned when you are playing Slot Social and when you have a Basic; Silver; or Gold Membership Plan or if you purchase a Day Pass is as follows: Cherries = 5X = 280 points; Grapes = 5X = 400 points; Bananas = 5X = 340 points; Single bar = 5X = 540 points; Double bar = 5X = 660 points; Triple bar = 5X = 1000 points; Diamonds = 5X = 1260 points; Sevens = 5X = 2,000 points; Jackpot = 5X Combination of Winnies and Wild Cards = 6600 points.

These point totals are NOT those earned by FREE members of Winster.com. FREE members earn significantly less, in fact it is four times fewer the points.

The Winster.com system keeps track of 'Your Score' and your points earned. At the bottom middle of the screen is the prize you are working towards. You get to choose the prize you want to work towards from the Winster.com website. Some of the prizes available and the points total needed to earn them are $10.00 Omaha Steaks Gift Certificate for 1,500,000 points; $25.00 Restaurants Certificate for 2,700,000 points; $8.00 See's Candy ONLINE gift card for 1,200,000 points; $5.00 Amazon.com gift certificate for 1,100,000 points and several others. Once you have reached the points total needed for the prize you have chosen, the Winster.com system comes up with the prize you've earned and what you need to do to complete and confirm the win and have it sent to you. You will need to follow their instructions carefully to receive your prize.

Sometimes a room full of players will work together and play 'Jackpot.' A Jackpot is the highest point total that can be earned on the game you are playing. In Slot Social, a Jackpot consists of five Winnies i.e. 'W' character game pieces or one Winnie and four wild cards or any combination of Winnies with wild cards. That's 6,600 points (except for FREE players, then it is only 1,260 points). When you work together with other players in the room, generally you go alphabetically by name and all players work together to spin the combination of game piece characters needed for each player in the room to get a Jackpot. It can be a lot of fun working together and sharing game pieces when you have a room full of great people.

On the flip side though, there are people who play Winster.com games who are NOT good players. They don't share good character game pieces with you, they will pretend to help you and then "steal" your game pieces when you've asked if they will hold a game piece character for you until you cash in or they just say mean things. Some paid members won't even play games with the Free players.

I have met both types of players, both good and bad, and Winster.com is a lot more fun when you are in a good room which is full of friendly, helpful people. It helps if you are that type of person as well. This is why it is a good idea to invite the good players to be your friend so you can find them again and play with them again at other times. There is also a Winster.com rating system where you can give a player a 'thumbs up' or a 'thumbs down' symbol.

After playing Slot Social off and on at the Winster.com website for about six months with my free account, I decided to buy a Club Winster membership. I reached this decision after I received an email from Winster.com offering me a FREE Day Pass as a Christmas gift in December 2008. After using the Day Pass and seeing how much faster the points could be earned, I thought buying a membership was the best way to go. After all, it was much cheaper to buy a Gold Membership Plan than to buy a Day Pass for 99 cents each day. Plus I wanted the 100,000 Point Sign Up Bonus and FREE Winster mouse pad that you get when you sign up for the Gold Membership!

At this point though, I am unsure that I will be receiving either one of those extra incentives because there was a tiny asterik next to each thing which says "First time members only." Since it was my first time buying a membership, I believe I qualify for both the point bonus and mouse pad but I have not received either one so I will have to email them to find out what's going on.

I have enjoyed some of my experiences playing games at Winster.com. I did eventually win my 750 MyPoints prize from Winster.com but have not received it at MyPoints as of the date of the writing of this article. I have met some very nice people and a few not-nice people but overall I've met more nice ones than bad ones.

The only problem that I have with Winster.com is that online games get a little boring after playing for hours each day so I have not played for some time now. Yes, it is great to interact with the nice people AND work towards earning prizes BUT.... You don't always get to meet the nice people and it takes a whole lot of points to win any of the Winster prizes.

If you are interested in playing online games, Winster.com can be fun but I think you can have just as much fun being a FREE member as you can being a paid member and for a lot less money.