Trust and Safety
Is Skip The Games Legit?
This is the single most-searched question about the site, so we are answering it in full: what "legit" actually means for a classifieds platform, what our moderation team does before an ad goes live, and what the honest limits of that process are.
Short answer
Skip The Games .io is a real, US-based, actively moderated classifieds platform. Every listing is reviewed by a person before publication, providers submit government ID, and photos are reverse-image-checked. The site is not a scam and it is not, in itself, a police sting. Bad actors do exist on every adult classifieds site, so the rest of this page walks through what we actually do, what we do not, and how to protect yourself.
Is Skip The Games legit?
Skip The Games .io is a legitimate US-based classifieds platform. Every listing we accept goes through ID verification, a reverse image search on submitted photos, and a copy review before it goes live. That does not guarantee every meetup will be perfect, no classifieds site can, but it does mean the ad you are looking at was reviewed by an actual person on our moderation team. If you are asking about Skip The Games .com, that is a separate operator with its own moderation process, which is why the reputations you see online differ so widely.
Is Skip The Games a scam?
The platform itself is not a scam, but bad actors do try to use classifieds sites the same way they try to use dating apps, Instagram DMs, or Snapchat. The most common scam pattern is a request for a deposit, a gift card, or a crypto transfer before the meetup. That is always a scam, on any platform. Never pay before you meet, never send Amazon or Google Play cards, and if a profile refuses a short verification video call, walk away. Report scam profiles to us and we ban them, usually within a few hours.
Is Skip The Games a police sting?
This question shows up on Reddit constantly and the honest answer is: law enforcement can and does monitor every adult classifieds site, including this one, .com, Eros, Tryst, Listcrawler, everywhere. What varies is what activity actually gets prosecuted. Sting operations in the US almost always target explicit solicitation for sex acts in exchange for money, not the general act of using a classifieds site. Our terms of service prohibit ads that solicit illegal activity, and any ad that explicitly does so is removed on review. The safest posture is to assume every message you send is on the record, and to keep your communication and your intent within what is legal in your state.
Why does Skip The Games sometimes not load?
Three things cause the vast majority of load issues. First, some corporate and hotel networks block adult classifieds at the DNS or firewall level, which makes the site unreachable on that specific network but fine on cellular data. Second, aggressive browser extensions and some VPNs will strip cookies our session code depends on. Third, a small number of ISPs have historically added adult content filters at the network level that can intermittently block the domain. If the site loads on your phone but not your work laptop, that is almost always a corporate filter, not a site outage.
How is Skip The Games .io different from Skip The Games .com?
They are two separate operators sharing a brand name. Skip The Games .com is the older, global site that lists cities across Europe, Asia, and Latin America and operates on a lighter moderation model. Skip The Games .io is US-focused, runs manual ID and photo verification on every provider, and does not accept ads from outside the United States. We wrote a full breakdown of the differences on the .io vs .com comparison page.
Do you verify providers?
Every provider account submits a government ID and at least one recent photo, and both are checked before the account can post. Photos are run through a reverse image search to catch stolen images from other sites, and ID names are cross-checked against known scam and ban lists shared across US moderation teams. This is the same intake process used by higher-tier competitors like Tryst and Slixa. It does not remove risk, but it removes the majority of bots, stolen-photo listings, and repeat scammers.
Is Skip The Games safe to use?
Safer than an unmoderated site, less safe than meeting someone you already know. The verification workflow removes the worst of the bot and stolen-photo problem. Beyond that, safety depends on you: video verify before you meet, share your location with a trusted contact, meet in a public place first if possible, never pay before you meet, and read our safety rules guide before your first booking. Providers should screen clients the same way, and we do not treat provider screening requests as suspicious.
How does Skip The Games compare to Backpage?
Backpage was seized by the FBI in April 2018 and no longer exists. Skip The Games and its peer sites filled the classifieds vacuum that seizure created. The important difference is what happened after FOSTA-SESTA passed in the same year: any US operator today has to actively moderate for illegal solicitation or face legal liability the way Backpage did. That is why our ad-review process exists and why we remove ads that explicitly solicit illegal activity. It is not optional for any US-based classifieds site that wants to stay online.
Does Skip The Games cost money to use?
Browsing the site and reading ads is free. Providers pay a small fee to post, which is one of the reasons the site is able to fund manual moderation. Free-to-post classifieds sites cannot afford the review overhead that catches scam ads and stolen photos, which is why the free tier of the industry has a much worse safety reputation.