TLDR
- Leaked Curaçao Gaming Authority records show Stake’s operator, Medium Rare N.V., received a conditional gambling license on June 9, 2025.
- Regulators were still unsure who truly owned the company when the license was issued.
- The application named Mladen Vuckovic as sole owner but did not disclose Stake founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani.
- Medium Rare was given five weeks to explain its ties to the founders and several linked companies.
- The records do not show whether Medium Rare met the five-week deadline.
Leaked records from the Curaçao Gaming Authority show that the company behind Stake was granted a gambling license while regulators still had questions about who owned it.
The company, Medium Rare N.V., is based in Curaçao and operates Stake. Stake is one of the best-known crypto casinos in the world and has grown into a multibillion-dollar business. Rapper Drake is its most famous public face.
According to a licensing timeline published with the leak, the license was conditionally issued on June 9, 2025.
How the Stake Records Were Leaked
The documents were made public on September 22 as part of an investigation called Casino Secrets. Berlin-based hacker and researcher Lilith Wittmann obtained tens of thousands of confidential files from the regulator’s licensing system.
Wittmann then worked with Follow the Money and other media outlets to review the records.
An internal licensing report named Mladen Vuckovic as Medium Rare’s CEO and its sole ultimate beneficial owner. However, the report pointed out that Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani are widely known as Stake’s founders.
“There has been no specific disclosure of either individual in this application,” the report said.
Near the end, the report returned to the issue. It said the applicant’s “true beneficial ownership” was unclear, along with its connections to Craven, Tehrani, Easygo, Primedice, Sweepsteaks and Well Done STK.
Follow the Money reported that officials had questioned whether Vuckovic was really the sole owner. This came after they found loans and payments involving companies and people linked to Craven and Tehrani.
Stake License Came With Conditions
Despite these doubts, reviewers concluded that “a license could be granted subject to certain specific license conditions.”
One condition gave Medium Rare five weeks from the license date to explain its relationships with Craven, Tehrani, Easygo, Primedice, Sweepsteaks, Mebit d.o.o. and Well Done STK.
The regulator also asked Medium Rare to explain the agreements that allow it to use the Stake brand, the Stake.com domain and its subdomains.
The Curaçao Gaming Authority has not disputed Follow the Money’s finding that it granted licenses before ownership questions were settled.
“Under the responsibility of the minister of finance, it was decided not to implement all requirements at once, but to give companies the opportunity to comply with them step by step,” the regulator told the outlet.
It added that it would not “immediately refuse a licence or terminate existing activities whenever there is a question or uncertainty.”
In a September 22 press release, the regulator said it had “followed robust internal procedures in performing due diligence of its applicants.” It also warned against judging its process based on single documents taken out of context.
The records reviewed by Gambling Insider do not show whether Medium Rare provided the requested answers by the five-week deadline.
