Inside Stake’s Marketing Playbook with Akhil Sarin

[00:00]  1. Intro: the marketing behind Stake’s growth

Host:  I think it is about time that we enter and crush the world of esports. Our guest today knows how to turn attention into serious growth; he helped build the marketing engine behind Stake and Kick. Luck happens when opportunity prepares itself. Brand is what brings them in, product is what retains them. Akhil, welcome to the show.

[00:30]  2. Meet Akhil: from affiliate manager to CMO at Stake

Host:  Tell us a little about yourself.

Akhil:  Thank you for having me, this is the most exciting interview I have done, especially aesthetically. I was born and raised in Delhi, moved to Australia at 23, and that is when I discovered iGaming. I am now CMO at Easygo.

Host:  Your rise to CMO was lightning fast. How did it happen?

Akhil:  It correlated with the growth of the business. I was the first person in marketing; when I joined we were 16 or 17 people in Melbourne. Today it is about 850 in Melbourne, over a thousand in Serbia, and a few hundred more across the globe. Being first in marketing and hungry for work was an incredible opportunity, and I took it forward.

[02:30]  3. Luck vs ruthless execution

Host:  Was it more luck, or strong execution?

Akhil:  Ruthless execution. Gambling plus video streaming is a natural blend, I am fully confident of that. The strongest content is authentic live content, but with a partner who understands your brand, not fully crowdsourced.

[03:20]  4. Streaming, Gen Z and VIPs: what drives retention

Host:  Do players care more about product features or brand prestige?

Akhil:  A hundred percent the product features. Brand is what brings them in, product is what retains them. And for Gen Z it is streaming first, real-time streaming.

[03:50]  5. From affiliates to a global brand: skills that scale

Host:  You moved from affiliate manager into sponsorships and partnerships. What carried over?

Akhil:  Three things. First, creating value: affiliates are all about performance and value exchange, so you always ask what a sponsorship actually brings, not whether it looks cool. Second, incentive-led design: when incentives align, everything else works out. Third, negotiation: affiliates are some of the best negotiators in the business, and that skill transfers directly.

Host:  What share goes to sponsorship versus performance marketing?

Akhil:  Believe it or not, there is no dedicated percentage. We assess each opportunity on its own merit. There is a cap, but it is an indicator, not a target; it does not mean we spend it all, or nothing. The budget scales because performance scales, and it is really about cost efficiency, doing more with the same money.

[07:08]  6. Sponsorship strategy: no fixed budgets, only opportunity

Host:  What was your top sponsorship spend?

Akhil:  F1 probably comes close to the top, given the level at which we entered the sport. The Stake F1 team was a three-year agreement that ended in 2025, and it came to a natural close like any deal. But we will definitely be back.

[08:02]  7. F1, UFC and Drake: high-impact sponsorship philosophy

Akhil:  F1 put our brand on another level. In football, every gambling sponsor has a shirt deal, so it is saturated. F1 has 10 teams, and we did not just join, we took over a team and rebranded it the Stake F1 team. My ideology is simple: we are not Apple or Google, so we have to make noise when we do something.

Host:  With Drake, UFC and F1, is there any cannibalization between them?

Akhil:  It is not about cannibalization, it is about legitimacy and cultural relevance. Those partners make it socially acceptable to talk about Stake in their own lane. We are big believers in cross-promotion: taking a Stake streamer to the UFC, or pairing a UFC name with a footballer like Sergio Aguero. If their audiences grow, our brand grows.

[10:15]  8. Deals that almost happened and negotiation lessons

Host:  A partnership that got to 90 percent but failed?

Akhil:  A few, it is part and parcel of what we do. One was a top-six Premier League front-of-shirt deal. We finalized and executed the contract, were waiting on signature, and at the last moment it did not pan out. No hard feelings, we are actually close with the team now.

Host:  Who is hardest to work with, athletes, celebrities or streamers?

Akhil:  You cannot put people in buckets, it comes down to personality. Streamers are celebrities today, and many athletes and celebrities are streamers. There is no fixed formula.

[12:13]  9. Entering esports: why now and why it matters

Host:  You are entering esports by sponsoring Vitality. A big move, or a simple project?

Akhil:  It is about time we properly enter and crush esports. We have taken over a lot, but we had stayed away from esports, so it is time. Expect some strong moves.

Host:  Esports is a separate world, separate audience. Not something you do on the surface.

Akhil:  A hundred percent. The early deals I did did not make me an esports expert, so I brought in a team to educate me and take me on that journey. Now I can see the effect on the business directly.

Host:  People say esports fans are less loyal than traditional sports fans.

Akhil:  It is the opposite in dedication. A CS or Dota fan follows with deep passion because it is not mainstream, so the engagement is unparalleled. What esports needs is backing, which is what we are doing with Stake Ranked and StarLadder, putting on our own event to show the community we are really here for it. Then VIPs come and stay.

[15:28]  10. Building your own events: Stake Ranked and StarLadder

Host:  Why build your own event instead of just sponsoring one?

Akhil:  Flexibility and deliverables. Why does Floyd Mayweather own his own distribution rights instead of taking a fixed fee? He is backing himself. We know our product is the best, so owning the event lets us control the specific assets we want and bring real value to esports. It is a win-win, as opposed to blindly handing someone money and asking them to do it for us.

[16:33]  11. Confess or Call: activations, pranks and CFO chaos

Host:  Time for a game, Confess or Call. Answer the question, or spin the wheel and take a prank.

Akhil:  The most expensive activation was the London launch of the Stake F1 team. We took over a museum and flew in partners, celebrities and our founders from Melbourne. It was upwards of a couple of million pounds.

Host:  The wheel then lands on a prank: at roughly 2am Melbourne time, Akhil calls his CFO to “approve” a five million dollar sponsorship of a celebrity’s pet Instagram account, and defend the ROI.

Akhil (on the call):  If you see a payment come through next week, I have agreed a five million dollar sponsorship for a pet Instagram account. You trust me, right?

Akhil:  He barely needs convincing, there is so much trust built. That is the culture: if it comes from someone I trust, we just do it. Most of what we have done in marketing would be impossible without the backing of our founders.

[22:50]  12. Founder trust and ownership culture

Akhil:  It is an ownership-led culture. The success is yours, but so is the failure; you own it end to end. If your founders and executives do not back each other, the business is already doomed.

[23:50]  13. Viral marketing case: 10,000 dollars to massive impact

Akhil:  We did a small one-time activation in Brazil, an offbeat exhibition football match. It became the most viral thing on the internet for three to five days. In a week we had more than 16 billion impressions, and we paid less than 10,000 dollars for it. Sometimes the most effective marketing is also the most cost-effective; it is just about doing something a bit different.

[24:34]  14. Why Stake avoids standard deposit-and-bonus ads

Host:  People are bored by conventional marketing.

Akhil:  You will never see a standard TV commercial from us saying sign up here, deposit this much, get this much. That is not how I see Stake, and I do not think I ever will. The industry is full of it. It can work for a little acquisition in one particular market, but for a global brand it does not reach the volumes we need.

[25:41]  15. Long-term partnerships: Drake and cultural fit

Host:  A dream partnership landing soon?

Akhil:  Nothing lands soon, that is part of the dream. And I will not negotiate against myself by naming it; the moment it comes out of my mouth, there goes a few million in pricing.

Host:  A relationship you underestimated that then exploded?

Akhil:  We have been lucky, though really it is the ruthless execution we spoke about. Our partners have been with us four, five, six years because they overdeliver. Drake is a good example: we did not underestimate him, but we could not predict where Drake and Stake would go together. The foundation was injecting Stake into the culture, and it took over the iGaming world and mainstream marketing. The key is that the relationship cannot be transactional. If someone opens with “here is my number and my deliverables,” you know on the first call it will not work.

[28:34]  16. Leadership red flags and high-performance teams

Host:  What are your own red flags as a leader?

Akhil:  Self-awareness matters. My biggest red flag is that I need to be more patient; I am impatient with mediocrity. I demand a lot; we are a high-performance team and everyone is in the office five days a week. For the right people that pressure is exciting, for others it is challenging. But at the end of the day the team appreciates the impact and the results.

[29:41]  17. Wrap up

Host:  Akhil, it was a pleasure. Even in the Barcelona rain, you exposed Stake from angles we only half expected. Operators and providers can learn a lot from Stake, it is a heavyweight in this industry. Thank you.

Akhil:  Thank you for having me, incredible show and concept. I had a lot of fun.

Host:  Another great episode of Bet It Drives. Take care and see you all soon.