Stake - Australian Bitcoin billionaire plans to expand his empire
The crypto age has made millionaires of some interesting characters. Australian businessman Ed Craven has to be close to the top of the list. Last year, he spent $80 million on a derelict mansion in the Melbourne suburbs. Now, the 27 year old billionaire has plans to spread his empire beyond Australia and into North America. But is the Land of the Free ready for him?
Casino background forms a solid launchpad
Ed Craven has big business in the blood. His father Jamie Craven was almost as well known and successful in the early 90s as his son is today. That all fell apart when Craven Snr was bankrupted and ultimately did prison time for his role in the collapse of Spedley Securities in the 1990s. All that was water under the bridge before Ed was even born, and the chip off the old block was firing out the business ideas before he had even turned 20.
The one that stuck leveraged the Australian passion for a wager. Today, literally millions of Australian casino players play real money pokies online alongside other casino games every day. But when the then 20 year old Ed launched Easygo gaming in 2016, it was practically unheard of down under.
Easygo rapidly emerged into one of Australia’s fastest growing companies and Ed Craven became Australia’s youngest billionaire. That gave him a launchpad to expand his business in imaginative directions.
Crypto, streaming – and the world?
What we might call Master Stroke the First was the launch of Stake.com in 2017. This online casino gaming platform was among the first to exploit the power of crypto for online gambling. Not for the first time, Ed showed exquisite timing, jumping onboard at exactly the right moment, and the company blossomed almost instantly.
Earlier this year, Ed decided to expand into the streaming business and take on Twitch in its own backyard. He took the equivalent approach of throwing in a hand grenade and taking a leap of faith, being carried by the blast, as his new streaming platform Kick rewrote the rules, taking just a five percent cut on subscriptions instead of the 30 to 50 percent charged by Twitch. It was an instant success, as some of the biggest names in streaming flocked to the platform. Critics were sure the model would be unsustainable, but Kick even made a profit in its first quarter of operations.
Last month, Ed was once again in the headlines after remarking during a livestream interview with The Gaming Update that Stake.com had its eyes firmly on a significant acquisition in the US. That set the rumor mill going at full speed, with Chicago-based Rush Street Interactive (RSI) seen as the most likely target.
RSI CEO Richard Schwartz commented in May that the company is “open to potential opportunities,” which in CEO speak is as close as you can get to putting a “FOR SALE” banner across the company’s office building and website homepage. The company would be an ideal target for Stake.com as it is already licensed to operate online gambling services in ten US states.
Sailing close to the wind
Crypto billionaires are popular targets for the world’s media, and in the wake of the FTX debacle, another business that was headed up by a youthful and charismatic crypto entrepreneur, the eyes of the world are understandably focused on Ed Craven. Last month he successfully dodged a $500 million lawsuit when it was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction and questions persist about how the company can legally operate from Australia given the nation’s regulatory stance on online betting.
For now, however, everything that Stake.com and its enigmatic leader touches continues to turn to gold. We can only watch events unfold over the coming months, safe in the knowledge that whatever happens, it will not be boring.
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