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Ed Craven didn’t build Stake into a $4.7 billion operation by playing it safe. The Melbourne-born co-founder took a platform that started with 15 games and a Curaçao licence and turned it into one of the most recognisable names in global iGaming — and now, with a five-year Danish licence secured and a headquarters being set up inside Parken Stadium, Stake is proving that its regulated market push is anything but accidental.
This is an EpicWins editorial. From time to time, our team steps back from the daily news cycle to take a closer look at the operators and individuals shaping the iGaming industry. In this piece, we examine how Ed Craven took Stake from a crypto-native startup operating on the fringes of global regulation to one of the most recognised gambling brands in the world — and why the company’s push into regulated markets may be its most defining chapter yet.
A Billion-Dollar Origin Story
There’s a version of the Stake story that gets told a lot — the one about crypto casinos, influencer deals, and grey-market growth. It’s not wrong, but it misses something important about what Ed Craven actually built.
Craven, now 29, co-founded Stake in 2017 alongside Bijan Tehrani. The platform launched with proprietary games, a cryptocurrency-only model, and a Curaçao licence. It wasn’t glamorous, and it certainly wasn’t regulation-ready. But it was fast, it was community-driven, and it understood its audience in ways that established operators frankly didn’t.
By 2020, Stake was posting $105 million in gross gaming revenue. That figure crossed $2.6 billion in 2022, then reached $4.7 billion in 2024 according to Forbes. For context, that kind of growth trajectory — roughly 45x in four years — is almost unheard of in this industry outside of lottery or state-run monopolies. Stake’s parent company Easygo estimates the brand accounts for 4% of all global Bitcoin transactions. That’s not a niche product anymore. That’s infrastructure.
A key part of that scale came from Stake’s long-running partnership with Softswiss, which helped expand the platform’s game library from 15 titles to 1,500 almost overnight. It required a full architectural rebuild of the website — converting from proprietary content to a third-party provider model — but it unlocked the addressable audience Stake needed to compete globally.
At EpicWins, we’ve been watching Stake’s trajectory closely, and the numbers are difficult to argue with. This isn’t a company that stumbled into success — it’s one that made calculated decisions, absorbed the chaos of early crypto gambling, and came out the other side with a brand that resonates across markets and demographics.
The Pivot That Everyone Saw Coming (But Few Expected This Fast)
Craven has never been shy about acknowledging that Stake operated in legal grey areas during its early years. Crypto gambling existed in a regulatory vacuum for a long time, and Stake exploited that vacuum better than anyone else. But grey markets have a ceiling, and Craven appears to have understood that before most of his competitors.
In March 2025, he announced publicly that approximately 70% of Stake’s transactions were already being processed in fiat currency — a striking admission from the founder of what many still call a “crypto casino.” The company has also acknowledged past shortcomings in KYC, AML, and responsible gaming practices, and has taken steps to align the business with the compliance standards expected in licensed jurisdictions.
Industry analyst Paul Leyland of Regulus Partners put it bluntly: “Stake has got so big that it almost has to go regulated. Once you want to capitalise, you can’t list Stake or sell it without a critical mass of licences.”
That’s the commercial logic. But Craven’s comments suggest there’s also a strategic one. Regulated markets offer stability, longevity, and — crucially — legitimacy. The company has been actively distancing itself from its crypto-only roots. Stake left the UK market in early 2025 following regulatory concerns, and has faced legal challenges in several US states. Rather than treating these as setbacks, Craven appears to be using them as motivation to double down on markets where Stake can operate with full regulatory backing.
From our perspective at EpicWins, this is the right call. The iGaming companies that will matter in ten years are the ones building compliance infrastructure today. Stake is building fast.
The Acquisition Blueprint
Rather than spending years applying for licences from scratch, Easygo developed a smarter route to regulated markets: acquire local operators with existing licences, player bases, and regulatory relationships, then integrate Stake’s technology and marketing expertise on top.
The template was first tested in November 2023 with the acquisition of Betfair Colombia, giving Stake its opening into Latin America. July 2024 saw the acquisition of Baldo Line SRL, the Italian operator behind IdealBet.it — Stake’s entry into one of Europe’s most tightly regulated markets. Then came Brazil, where Stake launched in January 2025 following the country’s new regulatory framework coming into force, having secured a licence in late 2024.
We covered Stake’s Brazilian market activation extensively — including their Brazilian Grand Prix sponsorship campaign that showed what a fully activated regulated market launch looks like when a brand is operating at Stake’s level. Read our coverage here.
Parallel to the market expansion, Stake has also been putting regulatory credibility front and centre. The company’s membership of ESIC as an official anti-corruption partner is a clear signal that Easygo understands the reputational requirements of operating in high-profile regulated environments.
By end of 2025, Easygo employed over 1,000 people across Australia, Serbia, Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. Revenue from Easygo Solutions exceeded $500 million in the 2024 financial year, with profits of $260 million and $405 million held in cryptocurrency assets.
Beyond direct market entry, Craven and Tehrani have invested heavily in brand building. Stake spends $12 million annually on a jersey partnership with an English Premier League club, and committed $100 million over three years for naming rights to the Stake F1 Team — the rebranded Sauber outfit — from February 2024. The F1 deal in particular signals where Craven wants to take the brand: away from crypto-casino associations and toward mainstream sports entertainment.
The Domestic Picture: Stake’s Complex Relationship With Australia
There’s an irony in Stake’s global expansion that isn’t lost on Australian industry observers. Craven built one of the world’s largest gambling brands from Melbourne — yet Stake’s services remain unavailable to Australian players, and the company’s home market relationship has become increasingly complicated.
Australia is simultaneously grappling with a broader offshore gambling problem. Offshore gambling operators are capturing an estimated 36% of Australia’s online market, with illegal losses reaching AU$3.9 billion — a figure that underlines the scale of the grey market that companies like Stake were part of and are now, in their regulated markets push, moving away from.
Stake itself has been navigating active legal proceedings in Australian courts, with critical hearings scheduled as the company’s domestic legal exposure continues to develop. And Australia’s regulatory environment is tightening broadly — ACMA’s recent classification of prediction markets as gambling is part of a wider regulatory recalibration that will define which operators can participate in the country’s future iGaming landscape.
Stake’s trajectory in its home market will be one of the more interesting regulatory storylines to watch in 2026. If Craven can resolve the domestic legal picture and eventually seek an Australian licence, it would represent the most symbolically significant market entry of all.
Denmark: The Blueprint Scales North
On 18 February 2026, Stake confirmed it had secured a five-year gaming licence from Denmark’s gambling authority, Spillemyndigheden, and launched officially in the Danish market. It’s Stake’s first presence in Northern Europe and represents the clearest proof yet that the acquisition-led, compliance-first model is repeatable.
The groundwork was laid in January 2025, when Easygo agreed to acquire MocinoPlay — the Danish operator behind the VinderCasino brand. The deal was structured identically to the IdealBet acquisition: retain local expertise, integrate global technology, and scale from a compliant base. MocinoPlay CEO Peter Eugen Clausen — who now serves as Managing Director at Stake Denmark — articulated the logic of the combination clearly.
“Denmark has one of the most well-regulated and competitive gaming markets in Europe, and that’s exactly what makes it so exciting,” Clausen said. “With Stake’s arrival, Danish players can expect a fresh, world-class experience backed by global scale and strong local focus. We’re raising the bar in terms of product, transparency, and entertainment, and I believe increased competition from brands like Stake will only drive the market forward in a positive way.”
Danish players now have access to Stake’s full casino and sportsbook, including proprietary games and a locally adapted user experience. From 1 March 2026, Stake Denmark will open its new headquarters at Parken Stadium — the home of FC Copenhagen and Denmark’s national football ground. It’s a statement of intent that goes well beyond a licence approval.
Easygo Chief Strategy Officer Brais Pena was direct about where Denmark sits in the broader strategy. “We have already expanded our local presence in LatAm and Southern Europe, so making our mark in the north was the clear next step,” he said. “We are demonstrating our clear ability to be successful in highly regulated markets, providing us with a blueprint for entry in other territories where compliance is crucial.”
For EpicWins, the Denmark launch is more significant than the headlines suggest. Spillemyndigheden runs one of the tightest licensing regimes in Europe. Getting a five-year licence there isn’t just a commercial milestone — it’s a compliance credential that opens doors elsewhere. Stake is building a regulated market portfolio, and Denmark is an important addition to it.
What Comes Next
Canada and additional European markets are reportedly in Stake’s expansion pipeline. The streaming platform Kick — also co-founded by Craven and Tehrani surpassed 50 million users in 2024 with 1.8 billion hours watched, creating an owned media channel that no other iGaming operator can replicate. The Easygo ecosystem Stake, Kick, and a growing list of regulated market subsidiaries is maturing into something that looks less like a casino group and more like a diversified entertainment company with iGaming at its core.
Ed Craven built a $4.7 billion business by moving fast and understanding his audience. He’s now rebuilding it, more carefully, with a regulatory foundation that could sustain it for decades. That’s a harder job and, arguably, a more impressive one.
