for early access to the latest igaming videos!
and get the latest igaming news first!
Stake.com is one of the fastest-growing online casinos to emerge from the cryptocurrency boom, known for its crypto-first approach and unconventional marketing. Founded by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani – two young entrepreneurs who first met as gamers – the platform’s journey from a niche experiment to a global betting brand is a remarkable tale. In this report, the iGamingToday.com editorial team dives into the history of Stake.com, from its early origins and key milestones to its impact on the wider iGaming industry, influencer marketing trends, crypto adoption in gambling, and the creation of its streaming offshoot, Kick.com.
Origins: RuneScape and the Birth of a Betting Idea
Every big venture starts small. For Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, it began in the mid-2000s with RuneScape, a popular online fantasy game. As enterprising teenagers, the two met online and developed an in-game gambling scheme that allowed RuneScape players to wager on player-vs-player fights using the game’s digital gold coins. This dueling wager system – nicknamed “staking” – proved extremely popular (and profitable). Eventually, they were banned from the game. But the idea had taken root.
Early Crypto Gambling: Primedice and the Road to Stake
By 2013, both founders had turned their attention to Bitcoin. With BTC trading under $100, they launched Primedice — a simple dice game that let users wager crypto. The project was one of the first provably fair gambling platforms and quickly gained traction. Profitable from the start, Primedice gave Ed and Bijan both the confidence and capital to go bigger.
In 2016, they launched Easygo — a game development company based in Melbourne. The following year, Stake.com was born under a Curaçao eGaming license (Medium Rare NV). Initially, the platform offered a narrow set of proprietary “Originals” games and was entirely crypto-based. But 2017 was also the year Bitcoin began its meteoric rise — and Stake rode the wave. Over time, they added more providers, and Stake.com is now probably one of the biggest places for a game provider to be.
Timing and Traction
Stake.com didn’t just benefit from the crypto boom — it helped shape it. The site offered fast, borderless betting, instant withdrawals, and no tedious KYC checks. That made it particularly appealing to early crypto adopters, who valued privacy, speed, and decentralization. By the end of the decade, Stake had become a fixture in the crypto gambling world.
Pioneering Influencer Marketing in iGaming
Where Stake truly set itself apart was in marketing. Around 2019, the team leaned hard into influencer partnerships — recruiting Twitch streamers, YouTubers, and content creators to gamble live on the platform. It wasn’t just effective; it was revolutionary.
As COVID-19 lockdowns pushed more people online, livestream audiences exploded — and Stake was there, front and center. Some streamers reportedly received up to $1 million per month to play Stake games on camera. The result was a feedback loop: viewers became players, and some players became influencers. A new type of iGaming community was born.
Big-Name Endorsements and Sports Sponsorships
By 2021, Stake.com was flush with profits and ready to spend. But this wasn’t just about slapping logos on jerseys — it was about building cultural relevance at scale. At the heart of this evolution was Akhil Sarin, who joined the company in 2020 and would go on to become Chief Marketing Officer. With Sarin at the helm, Stake’s marketing took a sharper, more calculated turn: instead of broad ad buys, they went straight for where the eyeballs were.
In a matter of years, Stake’s logo leapt from online streams to stadiums, racetracks, and arenas. Among the biggest plays:
- Drake: A multi-million dollar partnership that turned one of the world’s biggest music stars into a full-blown Stake ambassador. Live roulette streams with Drake reached millions and made Stake a fixture on both gambling and pop culture timelines.
- Premier League & Football Clubs: Stake became shirt sponsor for Watford FC and later signed a high-profile multi-year deal with Everton FC. The visibility was global, the branding unmistakable — and in Watford’s case, even came with a crypto twist: the Dogecoin logo on the kit sleeve.
- Formula 1: In what may be the boldest sponsorship to date, Stake became title sponsor of the Sauber Motorsport F1 team, which now races under the name Stake F1 Team. It’s not just marketing — it’s infrastructure. The team’s 2024 car chassis is literally named the Kick Sauber C44, tying Stake’s ambitions directly into its streaming arm.
- UFC and Global Sports: Stake has gone all-in on combat sports too, as the official betting partner of the UFC, and through brand ambassador deals with top MMA fighters and boxers.
These moves weren’t just big-budget brand exercises. They were about credibility, visibility, and staying ten steps ahead in a brutally competitive space. With Akhil Sarin leading the charge, Stake turned sponsorships into a strategic growth engine — one that blends entertainment, influencer culture, and crypto-native sensibilities.
Community at the Core
While Stake was scaling globally, it remained surprisingly close to its user base. The platform’s founders — especially Ed Craven, known in the community as “Eddie” — made a point of engaging with players. Weekly livestream raffles, bonuses, and giveaways became the norm. Users didn’t just feel like customers; they felt like insiders.
That sense of community has remained one of Stake’s competitive advantages. In an industry where many casinos are faceless, Stake positioned itself as a living, breathing entity — complete with memes, banter, and weekly rituals.
Kick.com and the Streaming Power Play
In 2022, Twitch tightened its rules on gambling content — a major blow to Stake’s influencer-driven strategy. The response? Build their own platform. Enter Kick.com, launched by Stake’s founders as a creator-first livestreaming service.
With better revenue splits (95% to creators) and a lenient content policy, Kick quickly became a magnet for disgruntled streamers. Stake’s biggest names — including Adin Ross, Trainwreckstv, xQc, and Tfue — all migrated over, many under eye-watering contracts.
Within a year, Kick wasn’t just a Twitch alternative — it was a headline generator. And with the Kick brand now integrated into Stake’s F1 team, it’s clear the two platforms are part of a much larger vision: entertainment and gambling, under one roof.
What Comes Next
From RuneScape duels to Formula 1 sponsorships, Stake.com has built more than just a brand — it’s shaped a culture. But the story is far from over. With the launch of Stake Engine, the company signals that it’s no longer just a crypto casino — it’s building a full-stack gaming infrastructure. Stake Engine is marketed as a powerful backend platform designed for scalability, speed, and transparency. It allows partners to run casino operations using the same engine that powers Stake.com itself, effectively turning Stake into both operator and tech provider. For an industry where speed, reliability, and user trust are make-or-break, this could reshape how crypto casinos are built and scaled.
Meanwhile, Kick.com continues to gain ground as a streaming alternative with its own ecosystem of influencers, creators, and — inevitably — gamblers. Stake’s dual push into iGaming infrastructure and creator-first media hints at a long game: not just dominating crypto gambling, but redefining the digital playground where gambling, entertainment, and technology merge.
One thing is clear — Stake.com isn’t playing by anyone else’s rules. And if the past decade is any guide, the next one will be even harder to predict.
Sources
- Forbes Australia – “These entrepreneurs went all in on a crypto casino – and became billionaires”
- CoinDesk – “Watford FC Sports Dogecoin Logo in Sponsorship Deal”
- EGR Global – Akhil Sarin’s appointment and role in Stake’s marketing strategy
- Formula1.com – Announcement of Stake as Sauber F1 team title sponsor
- Dexerto – Twitch and Kick.com coverage
- Stake.com and Kick.com official blogs | https://kick.com/blog
