The crypto casino that appeared from nowhere, stole Stake’s biggest star, and then publicly thanked Stake’s own founder for the opportunity.
Rainbet burst onto the scene in 2023 with almost no backstory, an anonymous CEO nobody can verify, and a design that looks suspiciously like a copy-paste of Stake. Within two years it had signed the biggest influencer deal in streaming history, built a multi-hundred-million-dollar business from scratch, and this week publicly thanked the founder of its supposed biggest rival for “supporting fair competition.”
That rival – Stake – also happens to own Kick, the streaming platform that Rainbet’s ambassadors call home.
The official story is that Rainbet is a scrappy competitor disrupting the market. But the more you dig, the harder that story is to believe.
Who Actually Owns Rainbet?
Stake is publicly run by Australian entrepreneurs Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, who Forbes estimates are worth roughly $2.8 billion each. Their names are on record. Their faces are on camera. They do interviews.
Rainbet? The listed CEO is a man named “John Evans.” He has no verifiable career history outside of Rainbet’s own press releases. No conference appearances. No LinkedIn with a past employer. No prior footprint in gambling, tech, or finance that anyone can independently confirm. Investigators at FinTelegram spent time trying to find him and concluded that the individual “has no documented history in gambling, gaming, or related industries, suggesting either a constructed persona or nominee arrangement.”
Rainbet is incorporated as RBGAMING N.V. in Curaçao – an offshore jurisdiction specifically chosen by crypto casinos for its light regulation and its allowance of nominee directors. In plain English: Curaçao lets a company put a fake name on the door. The real owners never have to be disclosed.
So the first thing you need to know about Rainbet is this: we don’t know who actually owns it.
Stake Blueprint, Different Name
When a startup builds a product from scratch, there are rough edges. Early versions. Bugs. The signs of a team figuring things out.
Rainbet launched looking like it had been built by people who had already built this exact product before.
Multiple industry reviewers noticed it immediately – the layout, the color scheme, the game paging, the interface structure all closely mirror Stake. Rainbet even acknowledged it in their own marketing, writing: “Rainbet isn’t just a copy of Stake; we’ve come to displace all competitors and lure all their clients.”
Rival That Keeps Getting Helped
In September 2025, the online gambling world had its version of a blockbuster trade.
Adin Ross – the face of Stake for four years, a streamer who reportedly received over $78 million in transfers from Stake during that period – announced he was switching to Rainbet. Live. On Kick. Mid-stream.
The deal was reportedly worth $100 million upfront and $50 million per year.
Then Kick banned him. Not for a week. Not for a month. For exactly 24 hours – just long enough to generate enormous media coverage – then silently lifted the ban with zero explanation.
Here’s why this matters: Kick is owned by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. The same two people who own Stake. The platform just banned their top gambling streamer, who had spent four years promoting their casino, the moment he announced he was going to a competitor.
One interpretation: Stake’s founders were furious and hit the ban button out of spite, then cooled down.
Another interpretation: the whole thing was engineered. A ban that lasts exactly one day, generates 225,000 concurrent viewers when Ross moves to Twitch, gets Drake appearing in the chat, and sends Rainbet’s name to every gaming news site on the internet – that’s not a punishment. That’s a launch campaign.
The Friendliest Enemies in Gambling
For two years, observers speculated. Industry forums debated. Rainbet and Stake both denied any connection.
Then, on June 9, 2026, Rainbet posted this on their official Twitter account:
Rainbet x Kick
Rainbet’s growth has always been built on supporting communities, creators, and giving back to the people who helped us get here.
Today, we’re proud to announce that Rainbet will be the first official sponsor of the Slots section on Kick.
A huge shoutout to the… pic.twitter.com/t5kSRV6gzZ
— Rainbet.com (@rainbetcom) June 9, 2026
Think about what this tweet is saying. A casino that supposedly poached Stake’s biggest ambassador – costing Stake a streamer who brought in hundreds of millions in revenue – is now publicly thanking Stake’s own founder, by name, on their official announcement. And that founder is letting his platform give Rainbet the first official sponsorship of the entire Slots category.
If Rainbet and Stake are genuine competitors, this is the single strangest business relationship in the history of online gambling.
You don’t let the company that just cost you $78 million worth of talent become the headline sponsor of your platform’s most valuable content category. Not unless the money stays in the same pocket.
What It All Adds Up To
Let’s review what we actually know:
- Rainbet has an anonymous CEO whose identity cannot be verified
- It is incorporated in a jurisdiction specifically designed to conceal real ownership
- It launched looking like a fully-built clone of Stake
- It signed Stake’s top ambassador in a deal so dramatic it generated global press coverage
- The ban that followed that signing lasted exactly 24 hours and served as a perfect marketing event
- It now has an official sponsorship deal with Kick – the platform owned by Stake’s founders
- The announcement was made with a personal thank-you to Stake’s co-founder
No documents connect the two companies. Rainbet denies any link.
But consider the alternative explanation: that a casino run by an unverifiable ghost of a CEO, with no documented history, built a Stake clone from nothing, had the capital to pay $150 million for one streamer, and then – rather than compete with Stake – became the first-ever premium sponsor on Stake’s own streaming platform, with the personal blessing of Stake’s founder.
You’re welcome to believe that. It’s technically possible.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
