Aussie crypto casino strikes record sponsorship deal with Everton FC

Australian-founded and led crypto casino Stake has signed a multi-year deal with Everton FC to become its main sponsor after the English Premier League club lost several sponsors due to sanctions brought in after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Stake’s deal with Everton comes shortly after the Australian casino group signed Canadian pop star Drake as its global brand ambassador. The hugely popular musician has recently appeared in livestreams playing roulette to promote the casino website.

As revealed by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald last year, Stake.com was founded in Australia by two gaming entrepreneurs in their 20s – American-Australian Bijan Tehrani, 28, and Sydney-born, Melbourne-based Ed Craven, 26, who recently purchased a home in Toorak for $38 million.

Since its inception in 2017, Stake (not to be confused with the low-cost share trading platform Stake) has grown to be one of the biggest online casinos in the world, handling over $US100 billion in bets across a range of casino games and sports betting services.

The group has an office on Collins Street and is legally part-operated from Australia due to loopholes in Australian legislation that allows online casinos to have operations here if they don’t serve any Australian customers. Cryptocurrency betting is banned in the UK. France recently also banned Stake from operating in that country over concerns French customers were illegally accessing the site.

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Everton, a top-tier club where Australian football sensation Tim Cahill played for eight years, avoided relegation this year after a horror season, where it finished 16th in the 2021/2022 season. The club is also in financial strife in part due to losing a host of sponsors linked to Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov.

While the exact size of Stake’s sponsorship deal is unknown, the Usmanov companies’ deal with Everton was worth £20 million a year, according sports publication The Athletic. As part of the deal, Everton exercised its option to cancel its main jersey sponsorship deal with UK car dealer Cazoo.

Stake was the main jersey sponsor for EPL upstarts Watford FC before the club was relegated to English Football League Championship after 25 losses during the season.