Stake.com, one of the fastest growing Internet gambling brands, and its founders, Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven, filed a return with the Australian Stock Exchange last Friday in which they confirmed that they had acquired 16 million shares in PointsBet, a local sports betting company.
This follows up after the pair previously bought out a 4.2% stake in the operator, pushing the total stake to more than 5%. The new business transaction was facilitated through Easygo Gaming, the pair’s local business.
Commenting on this development, an Easygo representative said that the company was determined to continue expanding across various gambling-related businesses, including entertainment, media, tech companies, and betting operators.
In this sense, there is nothing unorthodox about Craven and Tehrani’s pursuit of a prominent brand, especially when they have the war chest to make it happen.
"We will continue to expand our investment portfolio and will look for further opportunities within the global media and entertainment system," the spokesperson said.
This reflects on a long-time ambition the pair has had – to break ground into the Australian sports betting market, which they are now slowly doing through carefully purchasing positions in one of the country’s leading brands.
Stake was trademarked in the country, but it has not yet launched. News about Stake seeking an Australian gaming license broke last summer, when Stake Gaming Pty Ltd was registered, although no formal big development has followed – yet.
Although Stake is run out of Melbourne, Australia, local players cannot access or play at the Stake.com website or any of its sub-domains globally. This is because the operator does not have a local license and it would not want to butt heads with local regulators, such as the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Stake.com has not stopped building recognition for its name and brand, namely through an F1 Sauber Team sponsorship and other equally ambitious and arguably deep-pocketed market initiatives.
Essentially, Stake.com’s founders may be bidding their time as they are trying to figure out how to best expand their empire’s influence back home. In the meantime, Stake.com runs under a Curacao license, and the company has already entered several markets with localized domains, including the United States and the United Kingdom.
Established in 2017, Stake has gone on to become the most impressive juggernaut the online gambling industry has seen, with the company even launching a rival to Twitch, an Amazon-owned streaming service, and even stoked rumors that Kick, as the platform is called, may actually be attempting to buy out its competitor outright.
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