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Industry | Gambling |
---|---|
Founded | 2017 |
Headquarters | |
Key people | Mladen Vučković (CEO)[1] |
Revenue | US$2.6 billion (2022)[2] |
Website | stake |
Stake is an Australian-Curaçaoan online casino operated by Medium Rare NV, a company incorporated in Curaçao that holds an online casino licence.[3][4] Stake is a global company with offices in Serbia, Australia, Cyprus and staff globally.[5]
In 2016, Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani established Easygo, a company that developed games for online casinos.[3] The two co-created Stake, which was launched in 2017.[3]
In December 2021, Stake expanded to the United Kingdom through a partnership with TGP Europe.[6]
On 1 August 2022, Stake.us was launched as a separate site for U.S. residents.[7][8]
In June 2023, a federal judge in Manhattan dismissed a $580 million lawsuit against Stake due to jurisdictional issues. The plaintiff, Christopher Freeman, an early associate of Craven and Tehrani, claimed that he had been excluded from the business and mislead using illegal tactics.[9][10]
On 4 September, 2023, over US$41 million was stolen from one of Stake's Ethereum wallets in a hacking incident.[11] The Federal Bureau of Investigation attributed the attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group.[12]
In November 2024, Stake announced that they purchased the Italian company Baldo Line SRL in a strategic move to help Stake increase their influence in Italy trough the brand Idealbet.[13]
Stake offers traditional casino games (such as slots, blackjack and roulette) and sports betting.[3][14] It offers video streams with live dealers.[3]
Users at Stake generally transact in cryptocurrencies rather than traditional currencies for their betting accounts.[3] Account balances can be withdrawn in the equivalent value of cryptocurrency and then deposited back into the user's personal cryptocurrency wallet.[3] Users of Stake's UK site deal only in fiat currency.[6]
Stake has invested in sponsorship deals across several sports, including with UFC fighter Israel Adesanya,[15] English football teams Gillingham, Watford, Everton,[16][17] Indian football club Mumbai City,[18] USA Cricket,[19] Argentine footballer Sergio Agüero,[20] Formula One reserve driver Pietro Fittipaldi and his brother, Formula 2 driver Enzo Fittipaldi,[21] Canadian musician Drake,[22] and the Gennady Golovkin vs. Ryōta Murata boxing match.[23] Stake is also sponsoring UFC Light Heavyweight champion Alex Pereira and Puerto Rican rapper Anuel AA.
Stake garnered publicity in 2022 via advertising deals with streaming personalities such as Trainwreckstv, xQc, and Drake, under which they were provided with credit to gamble during streams on Twitch. The surge in gambling streams tied to these deals and others led to scrutiny, resulting in Twitch announcing in September 2022 that it would prohibit streams of online slots, roulette and dice games on services that are not licensed to operate in the United States or "other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection"—a ban that would include Stake.[7][24][25] Craven and Tehrani subsequently launched a competing livestreaming service known as Kick as a sister company, which would differentiate itself by promising higher revenue splits to streamers than Twitch, and looser content guidelines—especially in regards to gambling streams.[25]
In January 2023, the Alfa Romeo F1 Team announced that Stake would be their title sponsor in a multi-year deal, with the team renamed to "Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake".[26] In 2024, the sponsorship deal continued with Sauber after Alfa Romeo's departure from Formula One at the end of the 2023 season, with the team operating as "Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber".[27] Stake logos on the team's livery are replaced with those of Kick during selected races, particularly those held in countries where Stake cannot be advertised due to local laws.[28][29]
In late-2024, it was reported that Stake had partnered with a number of content aggregator accounts on X, which repost viral images and videos taken from other users (sometimes in a plagiarized form), and are edited to include an additional watermark advertising Stake. The UK Advertising Standards Authority stated in October 2024 that it had been made aware of the advertising and was monitoring it. The ads may be a violation of X's terms of service for paid partnerships, while they may run afoul of advertising codes restricting the marketing of gambling products where minors may be present. The watermarks have also been satirized as an internet meme by other social media users, including meme posts that include excessive numbers of Stake logos for comedic effect, or satirize the sponsorships with logos for other companies (such as Dave & Buster's).[30][31][7]