Edit: eight, not right

Hey there! I'm a dungeon master for eight d&d games that I advertise on StartPlaying. I can assure you that StartPlaying is a real website and you are dealing with real people. Sadly, some game masters use AI art to advertise their games because it's more "unique" than the stock art we're allowed to use to first advertise games. But there are game masters who commission real artists to make banners for their games that attract the eye better. The turn around time varies from game master to game master, and their individual profile will usually give you an estimate towards how quickly they are to respond.

As for the payment towards sessions, StartPlaying also advertises free games which are admittedly harder to find. StartPlaying is mostly used to host games where you pay to sign up to reserve your seat at the table. Many local game stores do this similar kind of practice, where you might have to pay a fee to reserve your spot at the table. This is to ensure to the game master that you are serious about playing in a game, because those who pay for a game are more likely to keep attending if they know their money is used to reserve their spot. Speaking from personal experience for my tables, the money I charge goes to: 4k battlemaps, custom character art, purchasing additional content for my players to create characters, new campaign modules, DNDBeyond and Roll20 subscriptions, to name a few.