Headquartered in Australia, but registered on the island of Curaçao, in the Caribbean, the platform launched in 2017 operates in several Asian and South American countries, such as Brazil and Mexico.
Unlike most of the big gambling groups, which do not accept crypto, many of Stake.com’s 600,000 regular users and 6mn registered accounts are located in “grey” markets such as Brazil, Japan and other countries in south-east Asia where the rules about online gambling on foreign sites are undefined.
It has a pending non-crypto gambling licence application in Australia and another nearing approval in the Canadian state of Ontario. It also has small non-crypto online gambling operations in the US and UK and recently acquired traditional gambling licences in Mexico and Paraguay.
Part of the billionaire achievement that raised Stake to the hall of the largest online gaming platforms is due to Canadian rapper Drake, who has a US$ 100 million advertising contract with the company, according to a report by the British newspaper Financial Times (FT). The site claims that Stake.com has become the seventh largest gambling group in the world.
“I am incredibly proud of everyone's efforts at the Stake. Our growth has been astronomical since inception in 2017, growing from a handful of customers to the company we are today,” company co-founder Ed Craven wrote in an article on Medium.
The FT reveals that, in 2020, Stake had generated gross revenue of “only” US$ 105 million, as shown in the graph of the platform’s financial evolution.
The other co-founder is also Australian Bijan Tehrani. They met more than a decade ago while playing RuneScape online, reports the publication.
Stake was born out of ‘Primedice’, the duo’s first betting site, launched in 2013 when bitcoin was worth just US$20. From there, they were able to finance their future business until the launch of Stake in 2017.
In the case of Stake, the main star is Drake, a traditional cryptocurrency gambler. In simultaneous actions, he exposes his bets on his Instagram profile – with 134 million followers – while on the Stake platform he broadcasts his bets and reactions live.
Who takes care of all this are the company's 370 employees trained to serve VIP and "super" VIP players, reports the FT.
Stake does not skimp on advertising: in addition to Drake, the company sponsors several YouTube channels, including Brazilian channels that produce MMA content, such as Diretasso, Super Lutas and Sixth Round – to serve players, the platform also accepts deposits via PIX.
The platform has about 6 million registered accounts, but the number of regular users, that is, those who play always or occasionally, is 600,000. A large part of this amount comes from Asian countries and Brazil, the report points out.
Ingo Fiedler, co-founder of the Blockchain Research Lab, said that a large part of Stake.com's success could be due to the fact that cryptocurrency and gambling are natural companions, both attracting customers willing to take risks.
Source: Portal do Bitcoin
