The biggest and most popular crypto casinos in the U.S. is Stake.com and if you are a player, it’s hard to miss. Its close partnerships with huge names such as Drake and the UFC, has helped turn Stake.com into a household name.
Based on the success story of the Stake.com brand, things sure seem to be running smooth like the well-oiled machine we have gotten used to seeing. Well, apparently Stake has run into some problems down under that could slow the train down, at least a little bit.
Stake.com and Drake
Hello Stake
Expanding into new territories and markets is a part of doing business when running an impressive global brand and Australia is a big and very lucrative casino market. The problem is that there’s already an Australian-based digital investment and trading platform called HelloStake.com, also known as Stake.
This is the company that has recently filed a lawsuit against Stake.com for consumer protection and copyright infringement issues for operations in Australia. Ouch!
False and Misleading Statements
The lawsuit in question has been filed to prevent Stake.com from using the brand name in marketing in Australia, during its expansion plans. Considering if the two companies would be operating under the same name, the clash makes sense and a lawsuit seems unavoidable.
A case was made that the crypto casino broke the law by using its name and making false and misleading statements on its website, which confused Australia-based customers into thinking the companies were related.
Welcome to Federal Court of Australia
It’s Up to the Australian Court System
It was at the New South Wales Registry of the Federal Court of Australia where the consumer protection order was “dropped off” on August 11th. The full name of the Australia-version of Stake is Stakeshop Pty, but the company is widely known as Stake down under.
According to news-sources, to complete the lawsuit, both the original application, supporting statements and the applicant’s genuine steps statement has been submitted to the courts.
What the applicant’s genuine steps statement means is to show the steps taken between the two parties to resolve the matter before it was taken to court. Clearly an agreement between the two has not been reached.
As far as we know, no further motions have been filed by HelloStake, and there has been no response from Stake.com either, in regards to the filing of the lawsuit.
Not the First Time
When I mentioned that Stake.com was working smoothly earlier, I wasn’t completely honest. As a matter of fact, if you remember, it was less than a year ago when there was another legal drama taking place.
Stake founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani
A $400 million lawsuit
Last year, Stake.com was hit with a $400m lawsuit from a business partner of one of the co-founders. The business partner felt that he had been unfairly removed from the company and not compensated what he thought was right.
At the time, a spokesman for Stake.com left a statement saying: “This filing is a desperate attempt to spread false information and extort money over which [the applicant] has no claim.
“The company does not intend to give in to this sort of blackmail, and are confident that these utterly frivolous allegations will be dismissed by the court in due course.”
Australia – A Booming Market
The fact that the Australian market is appealing to any of the big crypto casinos is no secret. Taking a quick look at the numbers, the Australian online gambling market size reached US$ 4.5 Billion in 2022. If that’s not a big enough carrot, the forecast for the year 2028 is $7.2 billion. Wow!
It will be interesting to see how this thing plays out. I’m sure it will be settle one way or another but I doubt it will stop Stake.com from finding its way into this very attractive market.
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