Every industry has a moment when a name steps out from the shadows of corporate anonymity and becomes shorthand for an entire movement. In the world of crypto casinos and high-velocity sports betting, that name is Ed Craven. If you’ve searched for “Stake CEO,” you’re after the person steering Stake.com—the crypto casino and sportsbook that turned streaming partnerships and digital-first marketing into a global growth engine. Yet “Stake” also means something completely different in finance circles: the commission-free brokerage app, HelloStake. Two businesses. Two CEOs. Very different DNA. This is the definitive guide that separates those worlds, profiles the people who run them, and maps the ecosystem of companies orbiting the Stake name.
Disambiguation: Stake.com (Crypto Casino) vs. Stake Brokerage (HelloStake)
Clarity first, because the brand ambiguity confuses even savvy readers:
- Stake.com is a crypto casino and sportsbook known for its VIP program, crypto deposits, Drake partnership, and splashy sports sponsorships. It was co-founded by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Craven is the public face, often referred to as the CEO, though the business spans several corporate entities across jurisdictions.
- Stake (HelloStake) is a brokerage platform that offers commission-free trading in international equities. It was founded by Matt Leibowitz. It is not connected to Stake.com, does not offer gambling, and operates under financial services regulations.
Quick comparison for orientation:
| Attribute | Stake.com (Crypto Casino/Sportsbook) | Stake Brokerage (HelloStake) |
|---|---|---|
| Core product | Crypto casino games, sportsbook, promotions, VIP | Zero-commission brokerage for global stocks |
| CEO/founder | Ed Craven (co-founder, public face), with Bijan Tehrani | Matt Leibowitz (founder and CEO) |
| Licensing | Curacao eGaming; local sportsbook license in Australia | Financial services licenses/partners in AU, UK, and via custodians |
| Geography | Global (geo-blocks where required); Stake.us social casino for US | Primarily Australia and UK, serving global markets |
| Notable deals | Drake streams, UFC, Everton, F1 team brand partnership | Brokerage partnerships, market access providers |
| Payment rails | Crypto-first; fiat in local markets where permitted | Fiat brokerage rails; no crypto gambling |
From this point on, when you see “Stake.com,” think crypto casino and sportsbook. When you see “Stake brokerage,” think equities platform. Two different CEOs. Two different industries.
Stake CEO: Ed Craven, Founder, Operator, and Relentless Builder
The story of Stake.com and its leadership starts in Melbourne’s tech underground and stretches across offshore gaming jurisdictions, esports arenas, and live-streaming platforms with audiences the size of small nations. Ed Craven, often referenced simply as “Eddie” in creator circles, emerged as the visible founder who could talk product, code, marketing, and risk like a seasoned operator. If you’ve watched a creator stream a high-roller session, spotted Stake on a football jersey, or seen the neon-green Kick logo on a Formula 1 car, you’ve been seeing the ripple effects of Craven’s playbook.
Early path and product instincts
Craven’s background is not the standard corporate résumé. He built in tech and gaming circles, obsessed over product velocity, and embraced crypto payments long before brands were comfortable holding digital assets on balance. Where traditional betting firms focused on retail outlets and slow-moving compliance pipelines, Craven’s team experimented with live content, short feedback loops, and direct relationships with creators. The early days were scrappy: shipping game features fast, optimizing onboarding, teaching the UI to sell energy, not friction. The audience found them.
Easygo: the studio behind the curtain
The engine room for many of Stake’s exclusive titles is Easygo, a game studio co-founded by Craven and Tehrani. Easygo isn’t just a vendor. It’s a creative factory that feeds Stake’s content pipeline with provably fair games designed for fast play, clean math, and mobile-first engagement. The connection between platform and studio helped Stake move faster than competitors reliant on third-party aggregators alone. Exclusive content became a retention moat. The studio approach also enabled data-driven iteration on hit mechanics—simpler interfaces, heavy emphasis on feel and pacing, and a transparent “provably fair” architecture that resonated with crypto-native users.
Founding Stake.com and scaling the sportsbook
Stake launched as a crypto casino, then built out a sportsbook that could ride the same rails: wallet in, odds live, withdrawals streamlined. The sportsbook gave the brand mainstream anchors—football, MMA, basketball—and let the marketing machine run through shared storylines and global schedules. Crypto settlement aligned perfectly with a global audience: no card declines, no bank hold-ups, no waiting for a wire that never arrives. That decision—controversial inside conservative firms—has been one of Stake’s durable advantages.
The cofounder: Bijan Tehrani
Any profile of Stake’s leadership that ignores Bijan Tehrani misses the balance at the top. Tehrani and Craven built Easygo together, co-founded Stake.com, and split responsibilities with a clarity that is rare in high-growth ventures. Tehrani is quieter in public but deeply present in product and team culture. Those who’ve worked with the pair describe a dynamic where Craven drives public strategy and partnerships while Tehrani keeps the operations and design ethos tight. The bond matters; when a platform grows as quickly as Stake, internal coherence makes or breaks it.
Ownership and company structure
Stake.com is a global operation with entities in multiple jurisdictions. Historically, the core casino license has been issued under Curacao eGaming via an operating company based there. For Australia, Stake established an onshore sportsbook licensed by the Northern Territory Racing Commission, enabling local compliance and fiat betting for Australian residents. Marketing, product, and game development talent cluster in Melbourne around Easygo, with distributed teams in Europe and Latin America. It’s a web, not a simple org chart.
Public perception often compresses “ownership” into a single line, but the practical reality is layered: founders, early partners, operating companies in specific jurisdictions, and brand contracts linking them. Stake is privately held, and the founders have kept tight control while expanding through brand partnerships rather than equity dilution.
Ed Craven’s net worth and the Toorak story
Australian financial media cast Craven as one of the country’s youngest self-made billionaires, a label he hasn’t exactly chased but hasn’t disputed either. The estimates come from a mix of sponsor spend, market share modeling, and the founders’ personal real estate purchases in Melbourne’s Toorak—one residence reported as a record-breaking sale north of A$80 million, and another acquisition widely covered as an additional eight-figure buy. Real estate isn’t a perfect proxy for net worth, but it paints a vivid picture. Stake has thrown off enough cash for the founders to play in the top bracket of Australian property, and to keep scaling global sponsorships that would crush the budgets of many public gambling companies.
Leadership style and the public persona
Craven’s public presence is unusual for a gambling CEO. He drops into live creator chats, talks openly about product changes, and leans into new platforms. On Kick—the live-streaming platform he helped launch—he’s been as much a product explainer as an executive, discussing payout splits for creators and the calculus behind courting streamers after Twitch’s policy shifts. When he speaks about VIP programs, it’s with the fluency of someone who has talked to hundreds of high-stakes players. There’s salesmanship, sure, but also a granular understanding of retention math, risk, and player psychology.
Who Owns Stake.com? Founders, Entities, and the Operational Reality
Gambling companies that operate across borders tend to arrange themselves around a few pillars: intellectual property and brand, operating company and license, content supply, payments, and marketing rights. Stake follows that pattern.
Corporate complexion
- Brand and platform: Stake.com, maintained by a core product team that coordinates casino and sportsbook.
- License and operation: The casino has been licensed under Curacao eGaming through a local corporate entity. The sportsbook for Australia holds a domestic license from the Northern Territory Racing Commission. The brand geo-blocks markets where it cannot operate, and deploys localized terms and affiliates where it can.
- Content studio: Easygo, supplying exclusive games and helping tune RTPs, volatility, and UX. Exclusive content gives Stake reliable differentiation.
- Distribution and affiliates: A large share of customer acquisition runs through streamers, affiliates, and sponsor placements in major sports. The Drake partnership alone became a brand shortcut in new markets.
Stake.com vs. Stake.us ownership distinction
For readers in the United States, a crucial separation exists between Stake.com and Stake.us. The latter operates as a sweepstakes-based “social casino,” using virtual currency and redeemable prizes to fit US requirements. It is a distinct operation, with its own terms, and it does not accept real-money cryptocurrency wagers. Stake.us may share branding and some web design DNA, but it is not the same product as Stake.com, and it is not licensed for traditional gambling in the US. Think of it as a compliant parallel track designed for US users, often available in most states but not all.
A quick comparison:
| Feature | Stake.com | Stake.us (Social Casino) |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Real-money crypto casino/sportsbook | Sweepstakes-based social casino |
| Payments | Crypto (plus local fiat in some regions) | Virtual coins, redeemable sweepstakes prizes |
| Availability | Many international markets, excludes restricted regions | Available in most US states, excludes some jurisdictions |
| Licensing | Curacao eGaming for casino; local licenses for certain sportsbooks | Sweepstakes compliance framework; not real-money gambling |
Licensing, Compliance, and Legal Status
Licensing is both a shield and a lightning rod in online gambling. It confers legitimacy and enforces AML/KYC standards; it also becomes the focal point for competitors, regulators, and critics.
Curacao eGaming and the operational baseline
Stake’s casino license comes through Curacao eGaming, a regime that historically allowed faster onboarding and flexible product development. Curacao has been reforming its approach, tightening fit-and-proper tests and oversight, which aligns with where serious operators already were headed: more compliance investment, better transaction monitoring, and hardening KYC. Stake, like other top-tier Curacao licensees, layered in global AML controls because payment rails and sponsorships demand it. Even players who never touch fiat increasingly encounter identity verification thresholds tied to cumulative deposits, VIP tiers, and withdrawal volumes.
Australia and localized compliance
Stake.com Australia operates on an onshore sportsbook license under the Northern Territory Racing Commission. That license pulls the local operation into Australian regulatory standards: age verification, advertising rules, strict KYC, and responsible gambling frameworks. Local licensing also enables partnership activity and advertising within Australian sport and media without the gray-zone ambiguity that offshore operators face.
US legal status and the role of Stake.us
Stake.com does not offer real-money gambling to US residents. Stake.us fills the gap with a sweepstakes model that mirrors gameplay without the same legal classification. Availability varies by state, because sweepstakes rules and prize redemption parameters are governed at the state level. For users, the mechanics feel similar—games, coins, promotions—but the underlying legal architecture is distinct. This satisfies a key search query around “is Stake legal in the US”: the real-money crypto casino isn’t, while the sweepstakes version generally is, with exceptions in certain states.
Other markets and the geo-blocking reality
Stake actively geo-blocks users from countries where it cannot operate. In markets like the UK, where online gambling requires a license from the UK Gambling Commission, Stake.com is blocked, though you might still see the brand through global sports sponsorships beamed into the UK. That dichotomy can confuse viewers who see the logo on jerseys or cars but cannot legally access the site. The reason: sponsorship inventory is global; product access is regulated market by market.
Partnerships and Brand Deals: How Stake Bought Culture and Distribution
Stake’s sponsorship strategy didn’t just buy logos. It bought rituals.
Drake and the live-streaming era
Few partnerships have been as effective as the Drake alliance. The rapper’s Stake-branded streams turned gambling sessions into cultural moments that trended across social media. The streams were part entertainment, part brand reinforcement, and part education in how crypto betting works. Giveaways and audience participation blurred the line between fan and player, while the celebrity halo gave Stake a credibility shortcut with mainstream audiences. It wasn’t a cheap play, but it compressed time—what would have taken years through affiliates alone happened in months.
UFC, Everton, and the language of sports
A global sportsbook needs global sports. Stake locked in a steady cadence of high-visibility placements: the UFC, where events run almost weekly and the brand flashes through international broadcasts; major football partnerships, notably as front-of-shirt sponsor of Everton; and category expansion into other leagues and teams. Those contracts serve two purposes: steady top-of-funnel awareness and direct funnels through promo codes, boosted odds, and local activations.
The F1 play: Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber
Formula 1 became the capstone of Stake’s sponsorship era. The Sauber-run team carried “Stake” in its name for the season branding period, with “Kick” appearing for races in markets with stricter gambling ad rules. This dual-branding approach—Stake and Kick—allowed the team to navigate local regulations without breaking continuity. It also told a story beyond gambling: Stake’s founders were backing a creator-first streaming platform and pushing it into mainstream sports. On-track performance was secondary to the imagery: the cars, the paddock shots, and the weekend-long media loop delivered branding that few categories can match.
The Twitch policy shift and the birth of Kick
When Twitch cracked down on streaming of certain unlicensed crypto casinos, a giant slice of the creator economy went looking for a home. Kick arrived with a generous revenue split and looser content rules. Craven emerged publicly as a driving force behind Kick’s launch, positioning it as a creator-first alternative. It wasn’t subtle: better splits for streamers, faster payouts, and high-profile signings of big names who were clashing with Twitch’s changing policies. Stake never needed to hide its link to creators; Kick turned that alignment into a platform bet.
A selective snapshot of partnerships and why they mattered:
| Partnership | What it delivered | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| Drake streams | Cultural reach, virality, on-ramp education | Made crypto gambling feel mainstream and social |
| UFC | Weekly cadence, global broadcast exposure | Consistent awareness across dozens of markets |
| Everton | Premier League visibility | Trusted footprint in traditional football |
| Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber | Tech-forward, global race weekend presence | Top-tier brand theater with regulatory flexibility |
| Creator ecosystem | Direct audience acquisition | Massively scalable affiliate-plus model |
Security, Technology, and the Stake Hack
No gambling platform with a crypto backbone is above the threat line. During one high-profile incident, attackers siphoned tens of millions in crypto from hot wallets tied to Stake. Withdrawals were paused, damage contained, operations resumed. Stake emphasized that only hot wallets were affected and that the bulk of funds sat in cold storage. Post-incident, the company hardened its posture: additional segregation of funds, tightened access controls, speedier hot wallet replenishment from multisig cold vaults, and an expanded bug bounty remit. The episode became an inflection point—painful, public, but survivable.
Crypto-native security is a dance of minimization and monitoring. Hot wallets must hold enough to meet withdrawal demand without becoming juicy targets; cold storage must be hardened but accessible enough to top up quickly. Stake’s technology teams invested in monitoring tooling that detects anomalies fast—sudden withdrawal spikes, patterns crossing chain analytics alerts, and address behavior that looks like laundering.
Fairness and exclusives
On the game side, Stake and Easygo lean into provably fair mechanics—cryptographic seeds and hashes that let players verify roll outcomes. Savvy players care about the math. The appeal is not just the content; it’s the feeling that outcomes are verifiable, not a black box. Exclusive games tested directly with Stake’s user base allow faster iteration on RTP and volatility preferences, which in turn improves retention. That’s a quiet advantage over operators using only off-the-shelf titles.
VIP Program, Revenue, and the Business Model
Stake’s commercial engine can be understood through three levers: margin, velocity, and lifetime value.
The VIP spine
High-volume players form a disproportionate share of GGR. Stake’s VIP program is designed for them: dedicated hosts, customized offers, loss-back deals, milestone bonuses, and frequent cash-equivalent rewards. Public commentary from Craven and team members has framed the program as relationship-driven—moving away from blunt, across-the-board bonuses toward tailored incentives and sustainable play thresholds. The mechanics are familiar to anyone who has managed online whales, but Stake’s execution is modern: real-time dashboards for hosts, loyalty ladders that are transparent, and faster comping.
Revenue streams and unit economics
Casino revenue comes from house edge; sportsbook revenue from margin and liquidity. Stake’s crypto rails reduce payment friction and cost, which increases conversion and frequency. The sportsbook runs tightly priced odds with in-play markets that are optimized for latency—where a fraction of a second matters in live betting. On the casino side, exclusive titles let Stake capture more margin and avoid aggregator fees.
Valuation narratives
Privately held companies attract mythology. Stake’s valuation and revenue figures get passed around by pundits who triangulate sponsor spend, market share modeling, and the founders’ personal real estate purchases in Melbourne’s Toorak—one residence reported as a record-breaking sale north of A$80 million, and another acquisition widely covered as an additional eight-figure buy. Real estate isn’t a perfect proxy for net worth, but it paints a vivid picture. Stake has thrown off enough cash for the founders to play in the top bracket of Australian property, and to keep scaling global sponsorships that would crush the budgets of many public gambling companies.
Controversies and Regulatory Scrutiny
Any operator playing at Stake’s scale will attract scrutiny. The most visible flashpoints:
Twitch’s gambling policy shift
Twitch adjusted its rules to restrict streams from certain unlicensed crypto casinos, naming a handful directly. Stake was part of the conversation whether or not it ticked every box in a given region, because the public discourse rarely distinguishes between licensing frameworks. The policy shift catalyzed creator migrations and reawakened debates about gambling visibility in mainstream streaming culture. Stake and its leadership responded by leaning into Kick and continuing sponsor campaigns outside Twitch. The market moved, and the company pivoted with it.
Litigation from a former associate
A former associate filed a lawsuit in the United States alleging he was cut out of the Stake venture. Stake’s founders rejected the claims as baseless. The matter has been contested in court filings and coverage from business press. It’s not unusual for high-growth founders to face disputes that trace back to handshake-era relationships. The company’s posture has been to litigate as required and keep scaling.
Global tax and jurisdiction questions
Running a crypto casino through offshore licenses invites hard questions about tax obligations, source of funds checks, and responsible gambling frameworks. Stake’s public line emphasizes compliance with the laws of each operating jurisdiction and adherence to AML/KYC policies commensurate with its licenses. Players eventually encounter identity checks, particularly at withdrawal or VIP tiers. The balance the company has tried to strike—frictionless where possible, rigorous where necessary—is one reason for its rapid growth and one reason regulators keep looking closely.
KYC and player protection
Stake’s KYC policy has matured over time. Identity verification is now a standard rite of passage for serious play. Document checks, source-of-funds questions for higher tiers, transaction monitoring, and cooling-off tools all form part of the compliance stack. The more the brand enters mainstream sports and onshore markets, the more these controls intensify.
Kick Streaming and Stake: Leadership, Funding, and the Strategic Tie
Kick didn’t emerge from nowhere. It came from the same operators who understood that streaming had become the discovery engine for gambling and gaming brands. Craven has been publicly attached to Kick’s launch and vision, positioning it as a creator-friendly platform with better economics than incumbents. Revenue splits tilted toward creators, minimum guarantees for top talent, and a product roadmap shaped by the people who make the content rather than legacy policies built for advertisers first.
Does Stake own Kick? The answer is nuanced. Kick is a separate platform with its own corporate structure, but it has been backed and driven by the same founders behind Stake. The co-marketing between Stake and Kick is not incidental; it’s strategic. In motorsport branding, for example, team liveries have spotlighted Kick when local rules limited gambling sponsorships, then switched to Stake elsewhere. The brand choreography tells the story better than any cap table.
Stake’s Regulatory Footprint and Where It’s Headed
A credible gambling operator expands by stacking licenses. Curacao may be the operational base for the casino, but onshore sportsbook permissions and partnerships are the growth edges. Australia became a key proving ground for Stake’s ability to operate under domestic rules through its Northern Territory license. Expect the company to pursue more local permissions where the unit economics hold up—markets with strong sports cultures, digital-first users, and advertising frameworks that reward branded spend.
The Curacao reforms matter, too. As regulatory standards lift, the gap between well-capitalized operators and small fly-by-nights widens. Stake has the resources to meet higher bars: better reporting, stronger AML monitoring, and more transparent affiliate oversight. That’s less glamorous than F1 paint jobs, but it’s where long-term operators win.
Inside the Melbourne Hub: People and Culture
The gravitational center of Stake and Easygo sits in Melbourne. The city has quietly become one of the Southern Hemisphere’s gaming and fintech nodes—talent across product, data science, payments, compliance, and creative content. Easygo and Stake-related entities draw from this pool, blending startup pace with enterprise-level discipline as the stakes grew. Hiring emphasizes versatility: engineers who can ship features and own reliability, designers who understand attention loops, hosts who can talk to VIPs without sounding like scripts.
Teams are distributed, with operational muscle in Europe and Latin America to cover sportsbooks and localization. But Melbourne remains a nucleus, especially for game design and brand creative. It’s also where the founders’ presence is most tangible—where you hear the internal language of product, the shorthand that moves teams faster than any document can.
Stake and Taxes: What Users Should Understand
Stake’s tax position is a company matter that varies by jurisdiction and entity. Users, however, live with their own obligations. Winnings may be taxable depending on local laws; crypto gains and losses introduce a separate set of tax considerations. Stake’s terms are explicit that users are responsible for their own tax compliance. The company provides transaction histories and account statements, but it does not offer tax advice. Professional gamblers and casual players alike should assume that the clarity of crypto transactions is a double-edged sword: easy to audit, easy to misreport if you’re not paying attention.
Is Stake Legit? Is It Safe?
Legitimacy in this space is not a vibe; it’s the sum of licensing, consistent payouts, visible partnerships, and how a brand responds under pressure. Stake pays, and it pays fast under normal conditions. The hot wallet incident tested the system; operations resumed with minimal long-term damage to player confidence. The company invests in onshore compliance where it makes sense and continues to elevate its controls. No gambling site is risk-free, but Stake sits in the top tier of operators who act like they expect to be around for decades.
Stake Brokerage (HelloStake) CEO: Matt Leibowitz, and Why This Isn’t the Casino
A separate lane with a similar name. Matt Leibowitz built Stake brokerage to solve a different problem: accessing US and global shares without legacy broker friction. The brokerage operates under traditional financial services rules, partners with custodians and clearing firms for execution and settlement, and provides a mobile-first user experience for retail investors. It serves Australia and the UK as core markets and has built a reputation around low-cost access to global equities.
This Stake does not touch gambling. It is not owned by Craven and Tehrani. Its regulatory overseers are financial services regulators. If you’re here because you tapped “Stake CEO” after using the brokerage app, the person you’re looking for is Matt Leibowitz.
A concise disambiguation:
| Topic | Stake.com (Casino/Sportsbook) | Stake Brokerage (HelloStake) |
|---|---|---|
| CEO | Ed Craven (co-founder; public lead), with Bijan Tehrani | Matt Leibowitz |
| Industry | Online gambling, crypto-first | Retail investing, equities |
| Regulation | Gambling regulators (Curacao; local sportsbook regulators) | Financial regulators (ASIC, FCA, and partners) |
| Payments | Crypto, plus local fiat in approved markets | Fiat; brokerage custodians |
| Related ventures | Easygo (game studio), Kick (streaming) | Brokerage partnerships and custodial infrastructure |
The VIP Program Through the CEO Lens
Craven has spoken in interviews and live appearances about the philosophy behind Stake’s VIP and bonus system: rewards should follow genuine engagement, not just bonus-hunting behavior; hosts should be empowered to make real-time decisions; and the math should be sustainable at scale. It’s a delicate balance in any high-roller-focused operation. The best VIP programs feel human while protecting the house from arbitrage. Stake’s approach borrows from the old Vegas host tradition but updates it with data flows that make modern offers smarter—rakeback tied to game mix, loss rebates tied to volatility, and milestone gifts that feel earned rather than random.
Stake’s KYC Policy and How It Evolved
Crypto-native users often flinch at KYC, but regulators don’t. Stake’s policy matured as the brand scaled: basic identity checks for new users in onshore markets, enhanced due diligence for higher deposit tiers everywhere, and proof-of-address and source-of-funds reviews where warranted. Timing can vary—some users pass early checks quietly, others hit a verification gate at withdrawal or when entering VIP tiers. The company frames this as a compliance necessity and an anti-fraud measure, not a product feature. It’s both.
Stake’s Biggest Sponsorship Partners and Why They Chose Each Other
- The UFC deal gave Stake nearly continuous presence across fight nights and PPVs, perfect for sportsbook cross-sell and bet boosts tied to headliners.
- Everton’s shirt front put Stake into living rooms across the football world, leveraging one of the sport’s most coveted inventory pieces.
- The F1 relationship with Sauber stitched Stake and Kick into the pop-tech glamor of race weekends, generating thousands of micro-impressions from practice to podium.
- Drake’s streams turned personality into performance marketing, with the artist’s audience melting into Stake’s funnel.
Each partnership wasn’t just about visibility; it was about cadence. Regular events, reliable airtime, and clear calls-to-action. That’s how a gambling brand becomes part of a fan’s weekly ritual.
Stake’s Revenue, Valuation, and What the Numbers Really Mean
Stake’s exact revenue and valuation remain private. But the outside world can draw sensible inferences. Sponsor spend at that level is not charity. It’s a calculated acquisition cost supported by healthy GGR and predictable lifetime values. Site traffic, affiliate chatter, and the velocity of payouts indicate a business with vast handle moving through its systems. The casino side delivers steady edge; the sportsbook rides seasonal waves but cross-sells well; the streaming funnel keeps new players coming in. Even conservative modeling places Stake among the most financially robust operators in crypto gambling.
The Stake Hack: Aftermath and Lessons
The breach forced a reset in operational security, especially around hot wallet exposure. Stake accelerated its push toward tighter fund segregation, greater use of multisig cold wallets, and improved anomaly detection. The bigger lesson for the industry: public, crypto-visible breaches require immediate, credible communication. Stake’s window from discovery to statement to resumption was short enough to stabilize trust. Speed matters, but so does clarity about what happened, what was affected, and what changed.
Where Stake Goes Next
Three moves look inevitable:
- More onshore sportsbook licenses where unit economics justify the overhead and where sports culture is strong.
- Deeper creator platform integration through Kick, expanding beyond gambling categories and into mainstream entertainment.
- Continued investment in exclusive content, tightening the loop between Easygo’s game pipeline and Stake’s casino verticals.
As regulators raise the bar, Stake’s scale and resources become an advantage, not a liability. Compliance is expensive; winners can afford it.
Key Takeaways for Searchers of “Stake CEO”
- Ed Craven is the co-founder and public leader of Stake.com, the crypto casino and sportsbook. He also co-founded Easygo and helped launch Kick.
- Bijan Tehrani is the co-founder alongside Craven and integral to product and operational leadership.
- Stake.com’s casino license runs through Curacao eGaming; Stake.com Australia operates under a Northern Territory sportsbook license.
- The US-facing Stake.us is a separate social casino based on a sweepstakes model; it is not the same as Stake.com.
- Major partnerships include Drake, the UFC, Everton, and a Formula 1 team branded as Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber.
- Stake experienced a hot wallet security incident that prompted reinforced security and resumed operations.
- Stake brokerage (HelloStake) is a completely different company; its CEO is Matt Leibowitz, and it operates under financial services regulations.
- Craven’s net worth is widely reported in the billionaire range by Australian business media, with high-profile property purchases underscoring that wealth.
- Stake’s VIP program, KYC policy, and AML posture have matured with scale and regulatory expectations.
- The company’s strategy combines crypto-native speed with mainstream sports sponsorships and a creator economy flywheel.
Commonly Sought Facts, Stated Clearly
- The CEO of Stake casino: Ed Craven is widely recognized as the CEO and co-founder of Stake.com, though the operation spans multiple entities and jurisdictions. He is the principal public leader and strategist.
- Stake founders and the founding story: Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani co-founded Stake.com after building the Easygo game studio together. The duo leveraged exclusive content and crypto payment rails to grow fast, using creator partnerships to accelerate distribution.
- Ed Craven’s net worth: Australian media describe Craven as one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the country. The public evidence includes large-scale real estate purchases in Toorak and sustained, high-cost sponsorships under the Stake banner.
- Stake headquarters and company footprint: Stake runs a distributed operation. Product and game development gravity sits in Melbourne through Easygo and related teams, with operational entities in Curacao for the casino license and an onshore Australian sportsbook license for local compliance.
- Stake licensing: Casino licensing is through Curacao eGaming; the Australian sportsbook is licensed by the Northern Territory Racing Commission. Stake geo-blocks jurisdictions where it cannot operate.
- Stake legal status in the United States: Stake.com does not offer real-money gambling in the US. Stake.us operates a sweepstakes-based social casino available in most states, with exclusions in some jurisdictions.
- Stake and Kick streaming relationship: Kick is a creator-first streaming platform launched with backing and leadership from the founders behind Stake. The two brands cooperate strategically, including in motorsport branding where gambling advertising restrictions apply.
- Stake hack and security upgrades: A publicized hot wallet breach resulted in tens of millions in crypto being siphoned before operations resumed. Stake strengthened its wallet architecture, access controls, and anomaly detection, and emphasized that cold storage remained intact.
- Stake’s biggest sponsorships: Drake, UFC, Everton, and the Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber relationship form the core of Stake’s sports and entertainment footprint, serving acquisition and brand objectives.
- Stake brokerage CEO: Matt Leibowitz is the founder and CEO of HelloStake, the brokerage platform. It is unrelated to Stake.com and operates under entirely different regulations.
Final Word
Stake’s ascent reflects a new kind of gambling operator—crypto-native, creator-powered, and global by design. Ed Craven sits at the center of that story: a founder who fused product velocity with cultural reach, and who proved that a gambling brand can be both technically aggressive and operationally disciplined. The sponsorships, the streams, the high-roller VIPs, the Melbourne tech hub, the F1 team photo ops—none of it is random. It’s a system powered by speed, data, and partnerships that move at the pace of the internet, not old-world betting shops.
For anyone chasing the “Stake CEO” thread, the essential map is simple: Ed Craven runs the crypto casino and sportsbook machinery of Stake.com alongside cofounder Bijan Tehrani; Matt Leibowitz runs the separate equities app called Stake brokerage. If you’re an investor using HelloStake, your CEO is Leibowitz. If you’re a bettor watching a Drake stream or an F1 broadcast, the architect behind that presence is Craven. Two leaders, two companies, one very overloaded brand name—and one of the most revealing case studies in how digital entertainment, finance, and sport now collide.
