These Entrepreneurs Are Billionaires Now, Thanks To An Crypto Casino

Forbes

Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani parlayed Stake’s success into launching a streaming platform, sponsoring an F1 team—and billion-dollar fortunes.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2024/06/07/stake-founders-ed-craven-bijan-tehrani-crypto-casino-billionaires/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, these entrepreneurs went all-in on a crypto casino and became billionaires.

00:08It's fitting that Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani first met online, where, as enterprising teenagers,

00:15they developed a way for players of RuneScape, an old-school online video game,

00:19to wager on fights between them using in-game digital gold coins.

00:24The scheme, called, quote,

00:26"'staking," was profitable, until it reportedly got them booted from the platform.

00:32Craven, who's Australian, says with a sly smile, quote,

00:36"'I wouldn't say so much kicked off,

00:38but it definitely wasn't looked too highly upon by the game's creators.'"

00:43Just over a decade later, the 28-year-old Craven and 30-year-old Tehrani

00:48run Stake.com, the largest offshore crypto casino in the world.

00:53Stake generated $2.6 billion in revenue last year,

00:57despite crypto gambling being unavailable in the United States, United Kingdom, and much of Europe.

01:03The pair's instinct for marketing and willingness to operate in legal gray areas

01:07have made them two of the youngest self-made billionaires in the world,

01:10worth an estimated $1.3 billion each.

01:15Craven and Tehrani, who operate from Melbourne, Australia,

01:18have used their fortunes to put Stake's name on Formula One cars,

01:22English Premier League jerseys, UFC octagons, and a new live streaming service.

01:28But what they really want, more than anything, is legitimacy, for which no price is too high.

01:34Craven says, quote,

01:36"'We've taken two of the most controversial technologies and industries and combined them,

01:40so it's always been an uphill battle for us to beat public perception

01:44of what the company may stand for.'"

01:47The duo began dabbling with crypto in 2013,

01:50when Bitcoin was trading for around $100.

01:53Along with a few friends, they coded a primitive game called PrimeDice,

01:57which lets users bet Bitcoin on the role of a virtual die.

02:01PrimeDice generated enough profit to make it a full-time job for its teenage creators.

02:06Their ambitions grew in the spring of 2016,

02:09when they opened an office in Melbourne and founded their company, EasyGo, with 18 employees.

02:14EasyGo launched Stake the following year,

02:17eventually adding slots, table games, and a sportsbook, with all wagers in cryptocurrency.

02:23Their timing was great.

02:25By late 2017, a single Bitcoin was worth north of $10,000,

02:30and an ever-growing number of people believed it could be the future of money.

02:34In that early period, crypto laws and regulations were practically non-existent,

02:38and casinos could get licensed in offshore havens like Curaçao,

02:42where stake is licensed and taxes are minimal.

02:45The lack of oversight enabled Stake to keep costs low and offer gamblers better odds.

02:50Players were kept anonymous from authorities and paid no transaction fees.

02:55The category grew in popularity, and in search of young, risk-tolerant customers,

03:00Craven found a new breed of willing pitchmen — content creators.

03:05Stake began paying some of them $1 million per month or more

03:09to gamble on the live-streaming platform Twitch,

03:12often wagering funds seemingly provided by Stake.

03:15When the pandemic lockdowns more than doubled Twitch's viewership,

03:18Craven says that it, quote,

03:20"...put rocket boosters on the operation."

03:23A blockbuster partnership worth a reported $100 million with rap superstar

03:28and high-stakes sports better Drake followed in 2022, giving Stake mainstream visibility.

03:35Between 2020 and 2022, Stake's gross gaming revenue

03:39rose from around $100 million to more than $2 billion,

03:43giving it a dominant share of the crypto casino market.

03:46The company, still self-funded and split 50-50 between Craven and Tehrani,

03:51earned hundreds of millions of dollars in profits.

03:54The founders began living like Rockefellers — literally.

03:58Tehrani purchased a $47 million Manhattan townhouse previously owned by David Rockefeller,

04:03and Craven bought two homes in Melbourne's posh Turack neighborhood

04:07for a combined $76 million.

04:10The two have also been willing to spend lavishly on marketing.

04:14Stake is paying $12 million a year for an English Premier League soccer jersey sponsorship

04:19and $100 million over three years to become the naming rights sponsor of a Formula One team.

04:24Tehrani says, quote,

04:26"...it's not ROI-based at all.

04:28But I feel like when you have people's attention,

04:30you should invest everything you can to hold on to that."

04:33For full coverage, check out Matt Craig's piece on forbes.com.

04:38This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:40Thanks for tuning in.

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