New posts on X have revived claims that crypto casino Rainbet is secretly run by the people behind market leader Stake. We checked the licenses, the corporate paperwork and the public record. The coincidences are real; proof of common ownership is not.

The theory that Rainbet and Stake are two faces of one business is back. Posts on X from the accounts @lesh534 on September 23 and @BeCoolMandy on September 26 have revived the debate. Users argue that Rainbet mirrors Stake so closely, down to its on-screen animations, that the two must share an owner.

The @lesh534 profile lists a role with BetBoltBank, a brand linked to rival crypto casino BetBolt. At the time of writing, neither Rainbet nor Stake had publicly responded to the latest posts.

The short answer is that nothing in the public record proves a link between the two companies. The longer answer explains why the theory refuses to die.

Why the theory keeps coming back

The first argument is the product itself. Covers has pointed to the brands' strikingly similar design, and iGaming Today argued in February that Rainbet's interface and color scheme echo Stake's on purpose. Rainbet's in-house "Originals," including Plinko, Mines, Dice, Limbo and Keno, mirror formats at the core of Stake's own line-up.

The second is ownership. Rainbet names John Evans as its chief executive, but iGaming Today found no clear professional history for him outside Rainbet's own materials. Compliance outlet FinTelegram has publicly appealed for help identifying him, and football site AttackingFootball questioned whether he is a real person.

The third is money. On September 22, 2025, streamer Adin Ross, long one of Stake's best-known promoters, revealed a new sponsorship with Rainbet. Reports put it at $50 million a year with an unverified $100 million upfront, and Ross later cited $100 million himself.

Skeptics ask how a casino launched in 2023 could afford that. In a Bitcointalk forum thread in March, one user also offered a motive: as Stake pursues licenses in regulated markets, a separate brand could chase the offshore audience without putting those licenses at risk.

The fourth, and most potent, is Kick, the streaming platform launched by Stake co-founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Kick banned Ross without explanation during his first Rainbet stream, then restored his channel later that day. On February 16, 2026, Craven joined Ross on a Kick stream and gambled on Rainbet, the pair reportedly turning $200,000 into $1 million at blackjack.

On June 9, 2026, Rainbet announced it had become the first official sponsor of Kick's Slots section. Its post thanked the Kick team and Craven, tagged by his "StakeEddie" handle, for backing fair competition. Streaming news personality Jake Lucky wrote that the deal seemed to confirm the rumored relationship; Kick did not comment publicly, and the terms were not disclosed.

What the paperwork shows

Stake's corporate footprint is relatively clear. Its main international site is operated by Medium Rare N.V., a Curaçao company (No. 145353) licensed by the Curaçao Gaming Authority under license OGL/2024/1451/0918. Local entities hold licenses or permits in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, and both co-founders are public figures.

Rainbet's paperwork is harder to pin down. Its current terms say the service is owned by Rain Group Ltd, registered in Anjouan, Comoros, under company number 16077. Yet Anjouan's license register, as reported by CryptoSlate and Casinos.org, lists a differently named holder, RBGAMING N.V., for license ALSI-152406029-FI2, valid until June 2027.

That license showed as valid on the regulator's validator in mid-September. Earlier Rainbet disclosures placed RBGAMING N.V. in Curaçao under number 163051, and the current terms also name a third entity, Gaming Services Provider N.V., as the licensing body for unresolved complaints. None of these documents identifies Rainbet's ultimate owners.

Shifting company names do not point to Stake. They do explain why the theory is so hard to test: FinTelegram has described Rainbet's ownership structure as opaque, and outsiders cannot see who ultimately controls it.

The most telling counterpoint comes from one of Rainbet's harshest critics. FinTelegram, whose September 2025 report was highly critical of the casino, said it found no evidence of operational connections between Rainbet and Stake.

The relationship has also looked genuinely hostile at times. In November 2025, Ross publicly accused Kick of cutting his payouts and capping his viewership because of his Rainbet deal. Stake-sponsored streamer Trainwreckstv, asked about a rumored Rainbet move of his own, said the casino was not big enough to cover wins as large as his.

The numbers describe two very differently sized businesses. FairGambling's on-chain data for August 31 to September 6, 2026 showed about $570 million in deposits at Stake against roughly $52.5 million at Rainbet. A smaller sister brand would look much the same, however, so scale alone settles nothing.

Craven, for his part, posted in February that Stake held a 63% share of deposit value among crypto betting providers and said the company would never be sold. The Kick sponsorship also has a plain commercial reading: Bitcoin.com News framed it as Kick selling its gambling audience to the highest bidder, just as the platform began testing advertising.

Look-alike is not proof: the animation question

Matching visuals, animations included, are the weakest evidence of shared ownership. Plinko, Mines, Dice and Limbo are generic formats offered across the crypto casino sector. Both Rainbet and Stake say their versions are built in-house.

Copying is also cheap. Software vendors openly sell white-label "clone scripts" of popular crypto casinos, including products pitched as Rainbet clones that replicate its interface. A look-alike site can be built by anyone, which is why resemblance says little about who owns it.

This month, Stake-built content also began reaching rival casinos through legitimate channels. On September 9, five studios that had supplied Stake exclusively relaunched as a new supplier, Juice, with rival Roobet first to go live with the full catalog. Juice's chief executive, Brais Pena Sanchez, was part of Stake's founding team and later a senior executive at Easygo, the group behind Stake.

On September 15, Stake also opened its game platform, renamed Engine, to operators across the industry. We found no public announcement that Rainbet has signed with either supplier. But shared games and animations can now travel between rival casinos through ordinary supply deals, without any common owner.

What would actually settle it

Real proof would look very different from side-by-side clips. It would take corporate filings naming shared shareholders or directors, a regulator's finding, court records, or on-chain analysis tracing both casinos' funds to common wallets. None of that has surfaced in the public record reviewed for this article.

The quickest resolution lies with the companies themselves. Rainbet could disclose its ultimate beneficial owners, which it has not done, and Stake could state plainly whether its founders hold any interest in the brand.

The bottom line

Could Rainbet and Stake be the same organization? It is possible, and the public record cannot rule it out. But the case rests on resemblance, timing and unexplained spending rather than documents, so on current evidence the claim remains unproven.

18+. Online gambling is restricted in many countries, and both sites exclude players from several of them. Gambling involves financial risk.

Sources

  • X post by @lesh534, September 23, 2026
  • X post by @BeCoolMandy, September 26, 2026
  • Rainbet official X account, Kick Slots sponsorship announcement, June 9, 2026
  • X post by Jake Lucky on the Rainbet and Kick announcement, June 9, 2026
  • Rainbet, Terms and Conditions (accessed September 27, 2026)
  • Rainbet, Originals page
  • Stake, Licensing Information page
  • Curaçao Gaming Authority, license certificate for Stake (Medium Rare N.V.)
  • Easygo, Stake product page
  • CryptoSlate, Rainbet company profile (updated September 21, 2026)
  • Casinos.org, Rainbet review (September 2026)
  • FinTelegram, "Rainbet: Offshore Gambling Empire Built on Deception and Regulatory Evasion" (September 30, 2025)
  • iGaming Today, "Rainbet – The copycat thriving in a hyper-competitive market" (February 6, 2026)
  • AttackingFootball, "Rainbet Exposed: The Most Dangerous Bookie On Football Twitter" (September 26, 2025)
  • Bitcoin.com News, "Stake Rival Rainbet Becomes First Official Sponsor of Kick's Slots Category" (June 12, 2026)
  • Streams Charts, "Adin Ross returns to Twitch after $100M sponsor and Kick ban" (September 25, 2025)
  • iGaming Express, "Adin Ross Suspension Raises Speculation of Rainbet Ties" (September 24, 2025)
  • GamblingNews, "Kick Reverses Adin Ross Ban After $50M Rainbet Deal Rumored" (September 24, 2025)
  • VegasSlotsOnline News, "Kick Briefly Bans Adin Ross After New $50m Rainbet Deal" (September 23, 2025)
  • VegasSlotsOnline News, "Adin Ross and Eddie Craven Win $1m on Blackjack Stream" (February 17, 2026)
  • Win.gg, "Adin Ross hit with Kick ban after new gambling deal, what we know" (October 2025)
  • Win.gg, "Eddie Craven has some strong words on Stake sale rumors" (February 18, 2026)
  • Sportskeeda, "What are the allegations Adin Ross made against Ed Craven and Kick?" (November 13, 2025)
  • Covers, "Rainbet vs. Stake" comparison (September 2026)
  • FairGambling, "iGaming Weekly: Liquid's 4,000 BTC drain, Engine's quiet rebrand, Goobr walks" (September 7, 2026)
  • FairGambling, "Stake's Exclusive Game Studios Spin Out as Juice and Open to All Operators" (September 9, 2026)
  • iGaming Business (iGB), "New era for Stake as Engine goes industry-wide to build potentially largest content pipeline" (September 15, 2026)
  • Bitcointalk forum, discussion thread on a possible Stake and Rainbet relationship (March 2026)
  • Malgo Technologies and DappsFirm, Rainbet clone script product pages