I just finished reading a rather disturbing investigation into how the world of cryptocurrency casinos really works, and honestly, there are things here I didn’t know were so extreme.

It all started when I noticed that some streamers on Kick seemed to have absolutely disproportionate luck when playing on Stake. We’re talking about Drake losing 3.5 million in bitcoin during a broadcast—only for Ed Craven, the cofounder of Stake, to appear on screen reloading his account and telling him which games to play. And then, magically, he starts winning. First 800 thousand, then more. By the end of that August 2025 broadcast, he had recovered 2.2 million.

But here’s the interesting part: Bloomberg Businessweek analyzed 500 hours of live streams of slot machines on Stake with 25 different players. What they found is that Drake won major prizes at a rate four times higher than the average. While normal players win a major prize every 10,000 spins, Drake did it approximately every 2,500. And in third-party games, his rate was completely normal.

It’s not just Drake. Adin Ross showed the same pattern. Both have significantly higher win rates when playing Easygo games, Stake’s matrix, but average when playing on other sites. Craven denies any manipulation, but the evidence is pretty suspicious.

What really bothered me was reading about Chris, a Swedish man who started playing on Stake at 15. Without identity verification, nothing. He went from trading Counter-Strike skins to depositing 14 bitcoins (100 thousand dollars at that time) into his account. Stake never asked for KYC. During the pandemic, this kid was betting between 10 thousand and 40 thousand dollars in bitcoin every week, all from his phone at school. Craven was literally his VIP manager, communicating with him almost daily.

When Chris tried to self-exclude, Stake gave him a 24-hour “cooling-off” period. Then, when he finally self-excluded permanently, Craven asked whether he wanted to deposit again. When Chris asked to unlock his account, Craven first said he couldn’t—but then changed his status from banned to suspended, allowing him to withdraw funds and create a new account. Basically, they avoided a permanent ban.

This pattern repeated for years. Between 2021 and 2024, Chris filed more than ten self-exclusion requests. Each time, Stake found a way to keep him playing. In total, over seven years, he lost approximately 1.5 million dollars in cryptocurrency. If he had kept those assets, they’d be worth between 15 and 20 million today.

Now, about Stake itself. It’s the largest cryptocurrency casino in the world, processing around 10 billion in bets monthly. It’s practically unregulated, headquartered in Australia but registered in Curazao, the Dutch Caribbean. It receives at least 127 million visits per month. In 2024, they reported revenues of 47 billion after bonuses, an 80% increase from 2022.

The irony is that it’s blocked in huge markets like Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, and Francia. It’s even banned in Australia, where Craven lives and where Easygo has offices. But people just use VPNs to get around the restrictions—even employees at Easygo do it.

Kick, the streaming platform that Craven founded in 2022 after Twitch banned cryptocurrency betting streams, became the perfect megaphone for all of this. Since its launch, Kick has multiplied Stake’s traffic by more than five. Top streamers earn eight-figure monthly sums. Ross received at least 26 thousand ETH (78 million dollars) from November 2021 to March 2025. Drake receives between 45 and 50 million weekly in cryptocurrency, according to former employees.

The murkiest part is that some streamers like Roshtein would start their streams with accounts pre-loaded with hundreds of thousands of dollars. Others admitted to using platform funds, meaning their apparent earnings aren’t real—just a motivational pitch for other players.

When Business Week confronted Stake with its findings about Drake’s and Ross’s anomalous win rates, the company responded that the findings were “completely erroneous” and refused to share data on the actual win rates. They didn’t answer specific questions about how influencers receive funds or about favorable odds.

Stake’s corporate structure is deliberately complex. The licensed entity in Curazao is Medium Rare NV. In Australia are most operations. Payment processing goes through Chipre. They have call centers in Serbia, developers in Reino Unido, and subsidiaries in Brasil, Italia, and Canadá. It’s almost impossible to trace.

There are lawsuits in Estados Unidos alleging that Drake, Ross, and other influencers are making statistically improbable wins look normal, misleading viewers about the real risks. A lawsuit in Missouri specifically says that Stake “excessively promoted these extremely rare results, exploiting players’ cognitive biases.”

What worries me most is that Stake is almost completely unregulated. There’s no international agency verifying that its odds are fair. Authorities in Reino Unido, Francia, and Ucrania have ordered the site to be blocked. In Estados Unidos there are at least 10 class-action lawsuits. The Los Ángeles district attorney filed a suit calling Stake’s lottery-style model a “gambling scam with harmful effects.”

Meanwhile, Craven keeps living lavishly in Melbourne. In 2022, he bought a mansion for 80 million Australian dollars and has a fleet of Land Rovers. Despite lawsuits and increasing regulatory pressure, the top influencers stay. Ross signed with Rainbet for 100 million, but Drake is still there.

The real tragedy is the victims. Cramm, a Dutch activist, has been helping players recover money from dishonestly authorized operators in Curazao. Her organization has obtained more than 15 million euros in settlements for more than 100 players. But even with abundant evidence, Stake denies, files counterclaims, and delays proceedings.

In July de 2025, the Curazao prosecutor’s office announced that it would hold the online gaming industry accountable for the first time. But instead of arrests or revocations, they reached settlements with 12 unidentified entities, each fined 12,500 dollars. According to sources, Stake was one of them. That’s roughly equivalent to about a minute and a half of their betting revenue.

Chris, the young Swedish man, finally managed to walk away. After seven years of losing 1.5 million dollars, he stopped playing in November 2024. He installed apps to block betting content. But he says it’s almost impossible to completely avoid Stake. Even popular meme accounts on X post viral content with Stake’s logo as a watermark.

This is the reality of large-scale crypto gambling: influencers with improbable luck, minors without protection, platform funds disguised as real winnings, and virtually no regulation. Craven built a 47 billion-dollar-a-year revenue empire, and apparently can keep doing it while authorities move slowly. It’s a reminder of why we need stronger regulation in the cryptocurrency space.