Stake: The Billion-Dollar Crypto Casino Empire and Its Controversies

Written by Cecilia D’Anastasio, Olivia Solon, and Leon Yin

Compiled by: Luffy, Foresight News

Drake just needed a little thrill. After playing online slot machines for 82 minutes, the Canadian rapper’s initial Bitcoin balance of $3.5 million was reduced to just $420,000. As tens of thousands of live viewers watched, he repeatedly clicked the spin button, the atmosphere growing increasingly tense. But Drake knew that just one lucky turn could change everything.

“Eddie, join the call, brother,” he said.

Throughout the livestream, Drake kept mentioning Eddie’s name: Eddie needs to deposit more money into the account; Eddie said to play roulette; Eddie needs to get everything moving. It sounded like Drake was pleading to an all-powerful deity.

Within seconds, a new window popped up, displaying side by side with Drake and the three other influencers online that day: a man with slightly messy hair, wearing a solid black T-shirt and AirPods—Ed Craven, co-founder of the crypto online casino Stake and the streaming platform Kick, with a net worth in the billions.

Craven told everyone at his home in Melbourne that he had been watching the entire time. At this moment, he publicly cheered on the top team he had signed, all four of whom held multi-million-dollar contracts to promote Stake. “The atmosphere here isn’t great,” Craven said. He also added that the casino games Drake had chosen were “terrible.”

Following Craven’s earlier advice, Drake switched to Speed Roulette. Soon after, his luck turned. A few rounds later, he placed his chips on 12 and spun the wheel—the ball landed on 12, and he won $800,000. Craven then recharged Drake’s account with another $500,000, telling the rapper to stay calm and secure the win. Afterward, he advised Kick’s most popular American influencer, Adin Ross: “Make your livestream clips go viral—got it? Make sure the Stake logo is clearly and prominently visible in several clips.”

Drake decided to ride the momentum and play Puffer Stake, an ocean-themed slot game operated by Easygo Entertainment, the parent company of Stake. He leaned in, eyes fixed on the screen as colorful shells rolled across the reels. He won another $800,000, with an “INSANE” pop-up flashing on screen. Within the next hour, he landed two more major wins on Puffer Stake and one additional major win on another Easygo game, Rooster Returns (note: a major win refers to a payout exceeding 1,000 times the bet amount). His balance rebounded to $2.2 million. He continued spinning, but by the time he logged off, his balance had dropped to just $730,000.

Drake's balance changes during the live stream on August 10, 2025

Drake's winning streak is indeed remarkable. Within one hour of playing slot games under Easygo, he hit the jackpot four times. An analysis by Bloomberg Businessweek of 500 hours of live slot gameplay from 25 Stake players showed that this level of luck far exceeds normal expectations.

And this is not an isolated incident involving Drake. A Bloomberg Businessweek survey found that his jackpot frequency while playing Easygo slot machines was four times the average—equivalent to one jackpot every 2,500 spins, compared to one every 10,000 spins for the average player. However, on games operated by third parties, his win rate was consistent with the average. Drake is not the only influencer who has experienced unusually lucky outcomes while streaming Easygo games on Kick.

From June to August 2025, comparison of jackpot rates on games operated by Stake’s parent company versus third-party games: Drake and Adin Ross achieved higher win rates on Stake slot machines.

Stake is the world's most popular cryptocurrency casino, offering convenient slot machines, roulette, sports betting, live dealer poker, and more. It operates with minimal regulation, is headquartered in Australia, and is registered in Curaçao, a Caribbean island under Dutch jurisdiction. According to data from analytics firm Similarweb, Stake’s main site and associated domains receive at least 127 million monthly visits. The casino is estimated to process $10 billion in bets per month, accounting for approximately 4% of Bitcoin’s annual transaction volume.

Influencers on Kick further propelled its success. Since its launch in December 2022, Kick has more than quintupled Stake’s traffic. In 2024, Stake reported revenues of $4.7 billion after bonus payouts, an 80% increase from 2022. In December, Craven shared a screenshot from a third-party analytics site showing Stake’s annual deposit volume reached $18 billion.

Despite being blocked in massive potential markets such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, Stake has continued to thrive. It is also prohibited in Australia, where Craven resides and Easygo has two offices. (Easygo also has offices in Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Serbia.) According to former employees, in regions where the website is illegal, people use VPNs to bypass geographic restrictions—even Easygo’s own Australian employees do so. These former employees requested anonymity due to confidentiality agreements with the company.

Stake still operates a "sweepstakes" website in the U.S., allowing users to play games using virtual coins and so-called Stake Cash, which can be redeemed for cryptocurrency.

Stake stated that it verifies the identity of each user and uses blockchain analysis to identify suspicious activity. The company said it does not serve customers in "restricted jurisdictions" and "actively blocks access through geolocation shielding," suspending accounts of users found to be using VPNs. "Compliance risks are an evolving challenge faced by large global platforms, not just Stake."

Compared to traditional online gambling sites, gamblers are drawn to cryptocurrency casinos by lower fees, better rewards, and minimal KYC procedures. Stake also allows for much higher betting limits than conventional online casinos, with some players placing single bets of up to 100 bitcoins. For those familiar with cryptocurrency, the process is relatively smooth: create an account, deposit using one of the 21 supported cryptocurrencies into a digital wallet, choose a game, place a bet, and withdraw winnings via the blockchain.

Records seen by Bloomberg Businessweek show that some users wager hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency on Stake each year. Drake and other VIP users gambled under the encouragement and intervention of Craven himself. Text messages and chat logs seen by the magazine reveal that he maintained ongoing communication with high-stakes clients.

These clients include streamers who have entered into stake marketing agreements with Kick streamers, receiving cryptocurrency wallet deposits and other VIP services such as higher betting limits. These agreements can be extremely profitable, although the funds received are typically used for gambling. Influencer Tyler Niknam (known online as Trainwreckstv) told his followers that, over the 16 months leading up to October 2022, he received $360 million. By 2024, according to screenshots posted on X (which Niknam displayed during a live stream showing his account details), he had wagered $18 billion in cryptocurrency. Niknam did not respond to requests for comment.

The big wins by Kick streamers playing slot machines were equally astronomical. In July, Niknam bet $6,000 on a game operated by Easygo and won a record-breaking $375 million in cryptocurrency. A week later, another Kick streamer, Ishmael Swartz (known as Roshtein), bet $10,000 on a different Easygo game and won $454 million, breaking the record.

Stake hired thousands of "editors" to spread videos of influencers celebrating wins, attracting everyone drawn by the potential jackpot. According to insiders, editors were paid $500 per million views, and until December, Stake increased the bounty to $800.

Affiliate streamers often post Stake registration links and promo codes on their Kick pages, but they rarely disclose that they are being paid to promote the site.

The seemingly unlimited balances, massive jackpots, and viral social media posts by streamers have led some viewers to question the legitimacy of their wins. Craven has repeatedly denied that Stake influencers receive better odds, stating in a blog post: “Despite widespread suspicions of manipulated odds and non-real money, we do not have direct control over the odds of any game.”

Stake gameplay screenshot, with Ross and Drake watching on the side. Source: YouTube

What about Drake’s case? To verify Craven’s claims, Businessweek developed a method to count spins and determine the frequency of jackpots. The overall analysis covered 1,500 hours of live streams on Kick from 25 players, including five top influencers: Drake, Ross, Niknam, Swartz, and Félix Lengyel (known online as xQc). Journalists used Anthropic’s Claude large language model to analyze the footage frame by frame, identifying balances, bet amounts, and game types during the streams. Businessweek then manually verified over 600 jackpots identified by the software and calculated the frequency based on each player’s total number of spins.

Drake has unparalleled luck when playing Easygo. His frequency of winning major prizes is twice that of the second luckiest player analyzed by Business Week. Four players with a similar number of spins have never won a single major prize.

When asked to comment on Business Week’s findings, Stake called them “completely wrong,” stating that the “prize” is an arbitrary metric and that comparing win rates across games “ignores the mathematics of the games.” Stake refused to share player win rates or payout data, and did not respond to detailed questions regarding influencer odds or the use of platform funds.

The company also disputes Business Week’s methodology for counting “bonus rounds” (additional rounds that players pay for or win), citing “different game mechanics” and win rates. These bonus rounds are sometimes sold on the Stake platform in equivalent quantities of regular spins—for example, a bonus round equivalent to 100 regular spins costs $1,000 in cryptocurrency at a base bet of $10—meaning Business Week’s approach takes these figures at face value. Even when Business Week separately analyzed Easygo slot machine bonus round data, Drake and Ross still had the highest win rates.

Four users who began gambling on Stake during their teenage years, along with legal complaints reviewed by Business Week, show that Stake’s win-oriented social media strategy attracted large numbers of both adults and minors, sometimes even in regions where the site is illegal. Some users reported that after watching their favorite streamers gamble live, they ended up spending significant amounts of money on Stake.

A class-action lawsuit against Stake, Drake, and Ross alleges that their livestreams made enormous, statistically improbable wins appear normal, potentially misleading viewers about the risks and rewards of online gambling. One of the lawsuits, filed in October in Missouri, claims that Stake “heavily promoted these extremely rare outcomes, exploiting players’ cognitive biases,” in violation of the state’s laws prohibiting deceptive trade practices.

There is no international law enforcement agency to ensure the fairness of Stake’s odds. The website’s business license is registered in a small office in a shopping center across from a cemetery on Curaçao, an island that did not impose its first fines or license revocations against casino operators until last year. Complainants against Stake—whether alleging unfair business practices, targeting minors, or exploiting addicted players—have virtually no recourse on the island.

This forced officials in other countries to take action on their own. Regulatory agencies, including those in the UK, France, and Ukraine, have ordered internet service providers to block access to the Stake website. In the United States, lawyers representing players have filed at least ten class-action lawsuits against Stake, in addition to the case in Missouri, labeling its lottery operations as illegal casinos. A lawsuit filed in California in August also named Ross and Drake as defendants, accusing them of “orchestrating one of the largest and most profitable illegal gambling operations in California’s history.”

Stake did not respond to the allegations in the lawsuit but denied the claims related to the California litigation and considered the allegations in other class actions to be without merit. Drake’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment. Ross’s representatives told Businessweek in an email: “We believe that when the court applies the relevant law to the facts of this case, Mr. Ross will be dismissed from these lawsuits.”

The decade-long advertising campaign mentioned in the lawsuit made Stake a highly profitable yet controversial business. At the heart of this campaign was the fantasy of superstar influencers—unlimited money and incredible wins with seemingly no consequences. But in the real world, consequences always exist.

Before Stake, a teenage Craven earned virtual gold in the online role-playing game RuneScape by betting on the outcomes of his battles in sandpits. This activity, known as "gambling," could be converted into real money for him and his team, the Australian Army, in the early 2010s. RuneScape gold could be exchanged for U.S. dollars via PayPal on third-party websites, despite violating the game’s terms of service.

At one point, gamblers found a more reliable business: helping other players place bets by rolling a 100-sided die (the house wins on 55 and above). These games were in high demand, especially among minors, who had difficulty gambling elsewhere. But soon, PayPal began flagging the gamblers’ accounts for “suspicious activity.” This prompted many to turn to Bitcoin, which had no such restrictions.

One of the early converts to cryptocurrency was Bijan Tehrani, a quiet teenager from Connecticut. Along with his childhood friend Christopher Freeman, he decided to step away from RuneScape and launch a competitor to the Bitcoin gambling game Satoshi Dice. Craven, who had been Tehrani’s gambling partner in RuneScape, joined in, taking on light coding duties and investing a portion of the profits. Freeman later stated in a legal complaint that Craven received a 40% stake, equal to Tehrani’s.

Craven, Tehrani 2022 in Melbourne

In May 2013, the new website Primedice launched. “Wow, I’m officially hooked on gambling,” wrote a user on the Bitcoin forum BitcoinTalk after trying it, “my money doubled.”

News of unbelievable cash prizes and Bitcoin giveaways spread rapidly, drawing thousands of visitors to the website. Just one week later, Tehrani posted on a forum that Primedice was already profitable. Freeman, thrilled, dropped out of university to devote himself fully to the project.

In later filings, Freeman stated that months later, Craven began gradually increasing his stake in Primedice by reallocating portions of Freeman’s shares to himself and others. Documents show that at the time, Freeman had a broader vision: he was developing plans for a fully-fledged Bitcoin casino offering slot machines and poker.

U.S. regulators have been slow to focus on cryptocurrency gambling, as cryptocurrencies have had more obvious harmful uses, such as purchasing drugs or unregistered firearms. But Primedice is clearly pushing the boundaries: according to a complaint filed by Freeman, in 2014, Tehrani consulted a lawyer in New York, who advised him to shut down the website. Tehrani did not respond to requests for comment.

This frightened Freeman. In the following months, he blocked U.S. access to Primedice. Freeman said the business lost half its daily revenue within 24 hours. As revenue plummeted, Craven and Tehrani told Freeman they wanted to pivot and open a traditional fiat online casino in Australia. Tehrani moved to Australia, while Freeman stayed behind, continuing to focus on developing his crypto casino concept.

However, instead of opening a traditional fiat casino in Australia, Tehrani and Craven launched Stake. In the lawsuit, Freeman claimed he was sidelined and deceived. He sought hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, alleging fraud and misappropriation of ideas. In a 2022 interview with The Guardian, a Stake spokesperson described the claims in Freeman’s lawsuit as “internally inconsistent, intentionally misleading, and demonstrably false.” One lawsuit was dismissed in 2024 over jurisdictional issues, and another was terminated the same year. Freeman’s lawyers declined to comment.

Stake.com launched in August 2017, offering Bitcoin-based games such as blackjack, roulette, and dice. Tehrani announced it on BitcoinTalk, calling it "the future of gambling." The website features a clean, light blue layout with a golden temple image floating in the sky at the top. Above the "Sign Up Now" button, it states "Completely No KYC." Stake claims its games are "provably fair" and promises "fast withdrawals."

Craven began posting links to Stake giveaways, contests, and his own Twitch channel, where he streamed himself gambling. Soon after, he started publishing paid ads encouraging others to do the same. More than a year after Stake launched, Tehrani posted on Reddit that the site had over 100,000 monthly players. Good times seemed to be on the horizon.

This is the world that 15-year-old Chris entered. The Swedish teenager requested partial anonymity to protect his privacy and created a Stake account shortly after the site launched. He recalls that no identification or age verification was required during registration, in line with Stake’s promise of “no personal information needed.”

He had money to spend. Starting at age 13, he accumulated a small fortune by trading virtual weapons and other in-game items in the video game Counter-Strike, which he converted into cryptocurrency. He initially played Stake only occasionally, but in early 2020, after another gambler offered him generous bonuses and a 25% cashback on losses, he returned to playing seriously.

Chris was surprised to find that Craven had been assigned as his VIP manager. They began communicating on Telegram, with Chris saying they talked almost every day. During the global COVID-19 pandemic, when he was only 17, he secretly spent between $10,000 and $40,000 worth of Bitcoin per week on his phone at school and at home. According to a transaction reviewed by Business Week, he deposited 14 bitcoins into his Stake account, worth approximately $100,000 at the time and now valued at nearly $1 million. Chris said that when he deposited such large sums, no company representative contacted him for KYC.

He recalls frequently gambling late into the night and often redepositing his recently withdrawn winnings—clear signs of gambling addiction. He says he didn’t view the cryptocurrencies he played with as “real money,” partly because it was difficult for minors to cash out. It felt like mere digital fluctuations, similar to a video game.

Once, after losing too much money on blackjack and another game, Chris emailed customer support to request a “self-exclusion.” Some countries have self-exclusion programs that allow individuals to ban themselves from all licensed gambling sites, but Chris couldn’t join Sweden’s self-exclusion program until he turned 18, and anyway, it wouldn’t apply to Stake since the company doesn’t hold a license there. His request to the site would be honored only at the site’s discretion. “You get upset, then keep playing and playing until it’s all over,” Chris said of his gambling process. “Then you get a little angry and just want to ban yourself.”

Before carrying out his request, Stake gave him a 24-hour “cooling-off period” to confirm he truly wanted to exit. He did not. Usually, Chris would message Craven, begging for rewards or cashback, and Craven would typically oblige. In October 2020, Chris mentioned he had lost 110 bitcoins in two hours at another online casino due to “stupidly high betting limits.” Craven offered to increase Chris’s betting limit at Stake as well. “We can do $100,000 per hand,” he said. “I can set it for one or two hours.”

In most European markets, regulators require operators to limit customer deposit amounts and conduct financial risk assessments for individuals whose monthly spending exceeds a certain threshold, ranging from a few hundred to $1,000. (In markets such as the U.S. and Australia, such restrictions are typically voluntary.) European authorities also commonly require companies to regularly send players information on responsible gambling practices. Chris says Stake has never done this.

Email records show that after turning 18, he repeatedly requested self-exclusion from the website, submitting over ten requests between 2021 and 2024. Each time, Stake enforced a 24-hour cooling-off period. In one instance in 2021, he endured the 24-hour period, and a six-month exclusion took effect. However, five months later, he succumbed to impulse, created another account, logged in using the same IP address, and deposited funds using the same crypto wallet—without being flagged.

That December, after another massive loss, Chris rode out the cooling-off period and permanently self-excluded from Stake. Shortly after, Craven reached out to him via Telegram: “Hey bro, want to deposit some more money into Stake?” Chris asked Craven if he could unlock his account. Upon realizing Chris had applied for permanent exclusion, Craven replied: “No, bro. We’d love to, but it’s really strict now.”

Chris also had a motive to reactivate his account: his referral income—earnings from a share of bets placed by people who registered on Stake using his referral code—was held in that account. According to materials reviewed by Business Week, in June 2022, Chris again inquired about unlocking his account, and Craven changed the account status from banned to suspended, allowing Chris to withdraw his funds. Two weeks later, Chris created another account and requested that Craven transfer his VIP benefits—such as a 25% cashback for high rollers—from the old account. Craven agreed and subsequently continued to process deposit and reward requests for the new account, effectively circumventing the permanent ban.

Today, Stake stated in an email: “Self-exclusion and game suspension on Stake take effect immediately, with no cooling-off period. Stake is committed to responsible gambling and provides tools to support this commitment. These include self-assessment tools that allow users to contact Stake customer support. With Stake’s assistance or on their own, users can set deposit and betting limits. Users may also choose to self-exclude from Stake for a specified period or indefinitely. We also direct users to online support organizations that can provide assistance.”

During his time on the Stake platform, Chris spent hours watching live gambling streams. Initially on Twitch and YouTube, he occasionally streamed his own gameplay before moving to Kick. He noticed that some streamers who had previously focused on video games shifted to gambling as crypto casinos like Stake began issuing large payouts. He said that clips of their big wins flooded his social media feed, triggering cravings to gamble. Chris suspected that some of them were using platform funds—or even favorable odds—but he recalled only one streamer being honest about how much of their own money they were betting. “They weren’t transparent with their audiences,” Chris said.

During the pandemic, Stake rose rapidly as gamblers like Chris flooded in. Social media brought them together into a new online subculture: "degens," who proudly identify as losers and celebrate a hedonistic lifestyle and the art of losing money.

The degenerate society knows no class. Unlike Las Vegas, where high-stakes poker players gamble in separate rooms from slot machine enthusiasts with glazed eyes, on Stake, million-dollar influencer gamblers with seemingly endless funds bet alongside players in remote trailer parks, placing tiny Bitcoin bets on digital slot machines. Everyone bets their own money against the same unfavorable odds—at least, that’s how it appears.

A shift began in 2021, when influencers with millions of underage followers on platforms like Twitch, owned by Amazon, suddenly secured seven-figure contracts to promote Stake. By that summer, 64 of the top 1,000 most popular streamers on Twitch were playing crypto slot machines during their live broadcasts. Some admitted to having sponsorship agreements with Stake or similar platforms; others simply played for fun. In a July 2022 blog post, Craven attributed Stake’s success to “a large number of influencers who use our product extensively and for long periods.”

However, that summer, reports and social media posts began circulating about young people developing gambling addictions after spending all day watching their favorite streamers play slot machines. Twitch subsequently banned cryptocurrency gambling streams. Two months later, Craven founded Kick, saying he wanted a Twitch competitor that embraced a free-speech mindset. Clearly, to uphold this philosophy, Kick’s early streamers included Anthime Gionet (known online as Baked Alaska), a prominent figure from the January 6 events, and Andrew Tate, who has been accused of sex trafficking and had previously appeared as a guest on Ross’s streams.

Kick’s employees built Stake’s army of influencers through one contract after another. Some streamers moved to Mexico or Canada, where playing Stake’s slot machines is legal. Some stream live for up to 15 hours a day, earning five-figure incomes per hour. When they win, they lean back in their chairs and cheer loudly; when they lose, some simply shrug it off.

Many major Twitch stars have moved to Kick, including former esports personalities Lengyel (xQc) and Niknam (Trainwreckstv); according to insiders, Niknam earns eight figures monthly. Ross’s contract amount as Kick’s most popular American streamer is unknown, but from November 2021 to March 2025, he received at least 26,000 ETH from Stake, totaling $78 million based on exchange rates at the time of each transaction.

According to a former Easygo employee familiar with the account details, Drake’s wallet receives between $45 million and $50 million worth of cryptocurrency weekly. In one week, Drake’s wallet received $190 million.

To the public, the seemingly endless funding sources of influencers are not always clear. Some, like Swartz (Roshtein), began streaming on Kick with their Stake accounts pre-loaded with hundreds of thousands of dollars, gambling for hours each day. Swartz claimed to have won numerous large jackpots on Stake, and clips of him screaming in celebration over million-dollar wins went viral online.

Three former Easygo employees and three individuals associated with Stake contracts stated that some streamers used platform funds. Niknam admitted this on his own channel, criticizing influencers who "pretend to use real money, but I know they don’t, and Eddie knows they don’t." He said they opted for the "deposit" agreement, meaning their balances were provided by Stake, and even if they won, they couldn’t withdraw all of it. This essentially served as motivational advertising for gamblers.

Top gambling streamers don’t just look incredibly wealthy—many also have absurdly good luck. In July last year, Ross benefited from luck similar to Drake’s during a three-day marathon slot machine livestream on Stake US’s “raffle” site, which earned him a substantial payout from the event titled “NO-Zempic.”

On the third day, Ross performed reasonably well but occasionally seemed erratic, repeatedly pleading with Craven, who was cheering him on in the chat, whenever a row of slot machine symbols looked promising. “Eddie, please,” Ross said over and over. Shortly after his balance surpassed $100,000 in Stake Cash (in-game tokens used by U.S. players), he called out again: “Eddie, give me another call.”

Amid a flood of emojis and insults in the chat, Craven posted "Hex Appeal," a game by Easygo. Ross switched over and cautiously placed a $5 bet using $5,000 in Stake Cash during the bonus round, then spun the wheel. This was the only time among the 15 Ross livestreams evaluated by Businessweek that he played an Easygo-owned game.

“I think you just won $40 million,” Craven said in chat, referring to Niknam’s recent big win on another Easygo game. Instantly, Hex Appeal icons began lining up on the screen. Ross rubbed his forehead in disbelief. “What just happened?” he asked. Viewers in chat flooded the screen with “What the heck?” Ross began shouting. “Eddie, you just did that in my chat room!” The icons froze, and Ross leapt out of his chair. The words “Massive Prize” appeared above the number $52,000.

Ross attended the 2025 London Wireless Music Festival

It’s no exaggeration to say he was lucky. According to Business Week’s analysis, only one in every 170,000 rounds wins more than 10,000 times the initial bet. But Craven wasn’t satisfied. He wrote in the chat that if Ross had bet $500, “it would have been $5 million.”

This was the only major win Ross achieved while playing games from Easygo, as evaluated by Business Week. Although winning once in 2,000 spins does not indicate any anomaly, the host in Business Week’s analysis required more than five times as many spins on average to achieve a similar result. Whenever Ross played slot machines not operated by Easygo, his major win rate was approximately average. The three-day livestream during which Ross won the Hex Appeal jackpot averaged over 55,000 viewers.

Typically, gambling advertisements are strictly regulated in the United States and other jurisdictions. Existing laws cover marketing activities using billboards, television ads, and online banner ads. Live streams by influencers are difficult to classify and review, and largely evade regulatory scrutiny. Because of this, and because Kick positions itself as a platform rather than a marketing department, it is not subject to the same rules and regulations that apply to advertisers. Therefore, what Stake does not permit, Kick may allow.

Craven has repeatedly stated that the two are independent platforms, a claim that theoretically shields the livestreaming platform from allegations of illegally promoting offshore crypto casinos to young gamers. “Kick is highly independent,” he said in July, “the ownership boundaries are very clear.” After Stake was forced to shut down in the UK last year following controversy over a branded social media video featuring a porn star, a Kick representative told Bloomberg News that Kick would continue operating in the UK, including allowing streamers to promote Stake, because “Kick and Stake are independent entities.”

However, the two companies do appear to have significant business overlap. Both are owned by Easygo, with Craven as the head. There is overlap among other executives, including Tehrani, Easygo’s Chief Marketing Officer, and the Head of Marketing Operations, whose LinkedIn profile previously indicated he was responsible for marketing at both Stake and Kick. Data scientists, strategy experts, HR personnel, and other employees have also mentioned working for both companies on their LinkedIn profiles. These profiles further show that Easygo employees frequently rotate between roles at Stake and Kick, and both companies are headquartered in the same well-appointed office at 287 Collins Street, Melbourne.

Online, the brands are also intertwined. In addition to clips of Stake players winning large jackpots, quirky videos from Kick influencers frequently go viral on short-form video apps or are re-edited into gambling compilations uploaded to YouTube, with the Stake logo clearly visible. According to contracts reviewed by Businessweek, some influencers partnering with Stake can earn up to $10,000 for each Instagram short video featuring gameplay footage and branding from Kick. One contract states that the goal is to generate “viral” short videos on Instagram, “pushing referral links and promo codes as much as possible.”

Stake also has an affiliate marketing program that allows meme account operators to place the company logo on unrelated social media posts—ranging from South Park clips to motivational quotes. Since the platform treats these posts as organic content, they are typically not considered violations.

The offline marketing strategies of the two companies also overlap. Stake’s advertising channels include sponsorship agreements with Premier League team Everton and UFC fighter Israel Adesanya, as well as a Formula One racing team that competes under the Stake brand in countries where gambling advertising is legal, and under the Kick brand in countries where it is not.

The authorities have begun paying attention to this issue, particularly in several lawsuits in the United States that have named influencers and traced their promotion of rare outcomes to gambling addiction. Some lawsuits also allege that influencers such as Drake and Ross used platform funds for gambling. Representatives for Drake and Ross did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission did strengthen its influencer marketing guidelines. Whitney Fore, a lawyer specializing in gambling law, stated, “Any material connection—whether involving cash, free games, or ‘winnings’—must be disclosed in a clear and conspicuous manner.” Fore added that for live streams, this goes far beyond just a hashtag or mention. Failure to disclose or misleading partnerships can result in fines of up to $43,000 per violation.

Research shows that the fast-paced online slot machines favored by Stake are among the most addictive and harmful forms of gambling. “The most addictive products, promoted in the most insidious ways to the most vulnerable populations,” says Will Prochaska, Director of the UK’s Coalition to End Gambling Ads. “It’s a toxic cocktail.”

In fact, two former Stake employees said the company’s social media inbox was flooded with suicide threats from problem gamblers. Stake did not respond to questions regarding such threats.

Some players who claimed to have been scammed by Stake reached out to Nardy Cramm. This Dutch activist and journalist, living in self-imposed exile in a coastal town along the Mediterranean, has long fought against the company and other similar operators licensed in Curaçao, which are accused of harming minors and problem gamblers. Tens of thousands of gambling websites have flooded the small island—Curaçao is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands but has its own government—to take advantage of its fast and low-cost licensing process.

Cramm lived there for many years and became intimately familiar with local regulations, assembling a team of lawyers to help desperate gamblers recover funds from unscrupulous operators. “Stake has many victims. So many minors somehow ended up there, and they’re usually addicted,” Cramm said.

Challenging the status quo in Curaçao can be dangerous: In 2013, Helmin Wiels, a local politician who threatened to expose corruption in the online gambling licensing system, was shot dead by masked gunmen on a busy beach in broad daylight. Cramm himself left over a decade ago after receiving a veiled death threat from a notorious island kingpin.

Since 2019, her organization (Dutch name: Foundation for the Representation of Victims of Online Gambling) has handled complaints from hundreds of individuals claiming to be victims of online casinos registered in Curaçao. Although Curaçao does have certain security requirements for issuing licenses, the foundation seeks to identify ways in which operators have failed to comply with these requirements. It then drafts claim letters, files lawsuits against these companies, and takes a percentage of any awarded compensation as its fee.

Swedish young gambler Chris is one of those seeking compensation. His years of trading records and chat logs with Craven provided compelling evidence to Cramm’s foundation that the company allowed minors to register and enabled addicts to continue gambling. A law firm in Curaçao representing Stake responded to his complaint with a letter claiming that Chris deliberately used “false” information to register from Sweden, violating Stake’s terms, and was using “gambling addiction” as an excuse to recover his losses.

Tracking Stake is no easy task, as its corporate structure is complex and spread across multiple jurisdictions. The main gambling licensee, Medium Rare NV, is based in Curaçao. The company’s headquarters, including Stake Gaming, Kick, Easygo, and a series of affiliated companies, are located in Australia. Payment processing is handled by Medium Rare Ltd in Cyprus. Game developers are based in the UK, a call center operates in Serbia, and Stake has subsidiaries in Brazil, Italy, and Canada.

To date, Cramm’s foundation has secured over €15 million ($17.7 million) in settlements and court-ordered compensation for more than 100 players from over ten countries who lost substantial sums on gambling websites registered in Curaçao. Cramm says that, despite receiving dozens of complaints from Stake gamblers, only a small portion of this amount came from Stake. Based on her experience, even when the foundation possesses what she believes is substantial evidence, Stake denies allegations of misconduct and files counterclaims or otherwise delays legal proceedings. “They are extremely ruthless,” she says.

Cramm also launched broader reform efforts with some success. As early as 2020, she filed complaints against more than ten casino operators, including Stake, submitting a dossier to the Curaçao prosecutor’s office highlighting alleged failures to verify player identities. In July 2025, the prosecutor’s office issued a press release stating, “This is the first time the Curaçao online gambling industry has been held accountable.”

However, rather than announcing arrests or license revocations, the office stated it had reached settlements with 12 unnamed entities, each fined the equivalent of $12,500. According to two individuals with direct knowledge, Stake was one of these 12, with the fine amounting to roughly just a minute and a half of gambling revenue. “This is what we call a very, very favorable investment and regulatory environment,” Cramm said with a bitter laugh.

She also successfully drove a comprehensive reform of the Curaçao licensing system by the end of 2024. The Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the previous system, which allowed a small number of companies holding "master licenses" to sell sub-licenses to dozens of online casinos, was illegal. This forced Stake and other providers to apply directly for licenses from regulators, rather than obtaining them through a few private companies. However, in Cramm’s view, much work remains to be done.

Beyond Curaçao, regulators have largely struggled to curb the offshore casino industry, outmaneuvered by agile operators exploiting gaps between national laws and enforcement. However, Stake’s prominence and unusual behavior have drawn the attention of officials. In February last year, the UK Gambling Commission stated that Stake had “closed” in the UK, following an investigation into whether its advertising strongly appealed to young people and linked gambling with temptation, in violation of its licensing conditions.

Stake’s sweepstakes model in the U.S.—a workaround that allows users to play with virtual coins or Stake Cash instead of dollar-denominated cryptocurrencies—has not prevented a growing wave of lawsuits. In September, Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto announced her office’s lawsuit against Stake.us and related entities, calling the sweepstakes operation “a gambling scam with destructive impacts on players.”

Craven continues to live a luxurious life in Australia, owning a fleet of Land Rovers parked at an expensive mansion in Melbourne, purchased in 2022 for AUD 80,000,088 (USD 56.8 million).

Despite the lawsuits, most of his top influencers stayed, with one notable exception: after being named a defendant in the California lawsuit, Ross signed with Rainbet for a $100 million deal. Drake briefly paused streaming last fall after strongly criticizing Stake for refusing to let him withdraw funds, but he returned over the holidays and announced on Instagram that he would share 10% of his winnings with viewers during his streams. His Kick channel description still reads: “Been roasted by Eddie since 2022.”

Swedish young man Chris recently succeeded in distancing himself from Stake. After bypassing a permanent ban in 2022, his cycle of deposits, losses, self-exclusion requests, and new account creation continued for another two years until November 2024, when he became more determined than ever to quit gambling. Over the seven years since creating his first account, he lost approximately $1.5 million in cryptocurrency on Stake.

For a while, Chris searched online for support groups and spent time playing with his Chihuahua, Ice, reflecting on where his life should go. Unlike many addicts, thanks to the cryptocurrency he acquired during his Counter-Strike days, he never accumulated debt from gambling. He also wisely purchased some Rolexes as assets. Even so, he was acutely aware of the opportunity cost. “If I hadn’t lost those cryptocurrencies to gambling,” Chris said, “they’d now be worth between $15 million and $20 million.”

He successfully stayed away from gambling for about a year, but found it nearly impossible to avoid clips from streamers on social media while browsing online. Even a popular meme account he followed on X posted viral content featuring Stake’s logo watermark. Then, in September, his Chihuahua, Ice, contracted leptospirosis and had to be euthanized. Once again, Chris turned to crypto gambling—this time on another site. After losing thousands of dollars within days, he stopped. “It felt bad,” he said. He installed apps on his devices to block gambling content. Still, he said, it’s hard to fully escape Stake. His legal case in Curaçao remains unresolved, and he continues to earn hundreds of dollars monthly in referral income—reminding him daily of the losses suffered by gamblers he once encouraged to sign up.