Stake.com has a forged a reputation as being one of the more fun, free-wheeling crypto casinos available to play online, having captured rapper Drake’s loyalties and with it thousands of other players.
But the crypto casino is being taken to court over a $400m lawsuit put to it by a former business partner of the company’s owners.
According to the Guardian, Christopher Freeman has filed a lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, alleging he was the architect of Primedice, a precursor to Stake.com.
Freeman, a Florida resident, went to school with Stake’s co-founders and says he was edged out of the company, which the founders deny.
What Is Stake.com?
Stake.com is a crypto casino founded by Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven back in 2017. The website hosts video and live casino games for players around the world, and accepts crypto as a form of payment.
It became notorious recently after Drake began to live stream his gaming sessions on the site. The rapper has been filmed placing million-dollar bets on the roulette wheel, and at one stage had more than $20m in the bank before blowing it all.
His ‘Drake casino sessions‘ are becoming legendary.
Drake interacts with other players and hands out cash prizes. Meanwhile, Stake has a number of sports sponsorship deals, including with English Premier League soccer team Everton, English Championship team Watford, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and F1 driver Pietro Fittipaldi.
Imagine spinning $20 in $100,000 🤑
Thats a 4,968.85×! 😮
Congrats king @FossyGFX 👑 pic.twitter.com/9u52Bq4CyE
— Stake.com (@Stake) September 6, 2022
What Are The Allegations?
According to the Guardian, Freeman says Tehrani and Craven edged him out of the company using bullying and unlawful tactics. Freeman says it was his idea to expand Primedice into a crypto casino, whereas Tehrani and Craven were more interested in sticking to a more traditional casino model.
The Guardian say Freeman is “demanding a full audit of Stake assets to see what he is owed, which he claims could be more than $400m”.
Stake deny the claims, with a spokesperson saying they were “internally inconsistent, intentionally misleading, and provably false”.
“This filing is a desperate attempt to spread false information and extort money over which Freeman has no claim,” they added.
“The company does not intend to give in to this sort of blackmail, and are confident that these utterly frivolous allegations will be dismissed by the court in due course.”
The lawsuit threatens to tarnish Stake’s reputation if Freeman is found to be owed compensation. Indeed, Stake has already come under scrutiny after using Everton FC in its promotion to players, promising to gift bettors $10 if they wagered $5,000 in a month.
