Stake Puts VIP Bonus Payouts Above $14 Billion Since 2019
Stake co-founder Ed Craven disclosed the figure in an X post on July 10. He said the operator introduced daily reloads, weekly boosts, and monthly bonuses in 2019. Craven also claimed that many of those reward mechanics later became industry standards.
Manual Bonuses Lead the Published Breakdown
The accompanying chart listed manual bonuses at $6.39 billion. Coupons followed at $4.06 billion, with claimed reloads at $2.04 billion.
Rakeback accounted for $975 million. Stake also listed $213 million under webhooks and $191 million in race rewards. The post did not explain what was included in the webhook category. Stake’s races are wagering-based leaderboard competitions in which the highest-ranked players receive prizes.
The six figures shown in the chart add up to $13.869 billion. That is at least $131 million below Craven’s “over $14 billion” headline figure. The gap is too large to be explained by ordinary rounding of the displayed amounts alone. It may indicate that the headline total includes other bonus categories, uses a different reporting cut-off, or reflects data not shown in the chart. Stake did not provide a calculation method or reconciliation.
The Figures Show the Cost of VIP Retention
Stake’s VIP club is divided into tiers based primarily on wagering volume. Its current support materials state that weekly and monthly bonuses are calculated using factors such as VIP rank, the amount wagered, applicable profit values, and the house edge of the games played. Reloads and dedicated VIP hosts become available at higher tiers.
The breakdown shows where most of the disclosed VIP payouts went. Manual bonuses accounted for about 46% of the six disclosed categories, making them the largest component of the published breakdown.
Coupons and reloads formed another major part of the total. Both are recurring reward formats that can support customer retention.
The sum of payouts should not be interpreted as revenue, profit, or winnings. Bonuses are a cost for retaining customers. The commercial value of these bonuses comes from the wagering and net gaming revenue generated by the recipients.
Key Performance Data Remains Missing
Stake did not indicate the number of VIP members accounted for by this figure. In addition, it did not provide any yearly details of payments, wagers, or revenue associated with the program. This limits comparisons with rival operators.
The disclosure sets a scale benchmark for online gambling’s VIP economy, but it does not establish whether the spending was efficient. For competitors, the clearest signal is the size of the budget Stake has directed toward high-value player retention. A fuller performance assessment would require cohort results, revenue contribution, and bonus costs over time.