CRYPTO CASINO
for online marketplaces and quoted in the Financial Times, suggests crypto casino takings have soared to a point where they are now at a similar scale to more familiar players like Entain and Flutter. Citing a five-fold increase since 2022, Yield Sec estimates that gambling in cryptocurrency generated US$81.4bn GGR last year alone despite crypto casinos being illegal in most jurisdictions. 2 The numbers are disputed and even Stake, the largest market player, only claims GGR of US$4.7bn. Speaking at a Gibraltar conference, Paul Leyland of Regulus Partners said: “We believe the market could double to US$40bn NGR, putting it roughly on par with the global gray market and a third of the size of the domestically regulated market.” Whichever total you accept, the market share being carved out by crypto casino is sizeable. While crypto gambling sites are blocked almost everywhere, they are readily accessible as gamblers bypass geo-blocks in their home countries to bet on offshore platforms. Use of VPNs is becoming increasingly common (some estimate that 30 percent of Americans and over half of Chinese internet users login via a remote server to mask their location 3 ). The internet is a ready source of guidance for those looking to get around the restrictions with tutorials often promoted by influencers who target new users. KYC safeguards can also be circumvented by purchasing crypto casino user accounts on peer-to-peer marketplaces. 4 Companies that operate crypto casinos base themselves in jurisdictions like Curaçao, Malta, the Isle of Man (more on IoM shortly) and Gibraltar where crypto gambling is legal. The biggest names include Stake, Rollbit and Roobet and all have seen double digit growth in the last few years. Stake, operated by Curaçao-incorporated Medium Rare, claims to account for up to four percent of total transactions on
the global bitcoin network, with 25 million users placing 300 billion bets on the platform since its launch in 2017. Its reported US$4.7bn GGR last year was up 80 per cent from 2022. 5 While the likes of Entain, Flutter and Bet365 don’t divulge GGR, Entain reported a Net Gaming Revenue (NGR) of US$6.7bn 6 , Flutter declared revenue of $14bn 7 and Bet365 posted revenue for the year to March 2024 of $4.8bn. 8 Whilst not directly comparable, Stake’s financials certainly place it in the same ballpark. For its part, Stake told the FT that it is not a crypto casino saying that over half of the transactions on its platform are conducted in fiat currencies. It says its operations are “fully licensed” and “conducted in full compliance with applicable laws and regulations”. It goes on to affirm that its customers undergo “stringent KYC and AML processes”. Influencer driven growth One of the criticisms made against Stake and its peers concerns their use of social media influencers. Often operating outside the reach of advertising regulations, there is nothing to stop these individuals from spreading misleading and unrealistic information concerning odds and the likelihood of winning. In its defence Stake told the FT that what “content creators . . . choose to post is entirely their personal decision and is neither directed nor influenced by Stake”. Does this claim stand up to scrutiny? Attendees at the IMGL spring conference in Vancouver heard a Ted Talk-style session on influencer marketing where figures were cited as to the kind of sums influencers can command. Matthew Showell, CEO of Snap Call Media shared the story of a very successful video game streamer who goes by the name
2 https://www.yieldsec.com/static/Crypto_casino_takings_top%20$80bn_as_gamblers_bypass%20blocks-dd11439235e853895be137b- d2c092198.pdf 3 https://www.statista.com/statistics/1382869/use-of-virtual-private-networks-vpn-by-country/ 4 https://news.sky.com/story/access-to-illegal-crypto-casino-sites-for-sale-on-facebook-and-discord-for-as-little-as-8-13056186 5 https://www.ft.com/content/66f879c6-e51c-4e9d-91ba-b15eecac45c1 6 https://www.entaingroup.com/news-insights/latest-news/2025/2024-full-year-results/#:~:text=9%25-,Revenue,-5%2C089.2 7 https://www.flutter.com/media/lzxixpwb/flutter-2024-10-k.pdf 8 https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/04241161/filing-history/MzQ0OTc1MTU4M2FkaXF6a2N4/document?- format=pdf&download=0
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IMGL MAGAZINE | JUNE 2025
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