Line up DraftKings and Stake.com by revenue or brand recognition and they look like peers. Line up their timelines instead and the gap opens immediately. One company spent a decade building a state-by-state US license map. The other built a global crypto casino and, along the way, decided the US market wasn’t worth entering at all. DraftKings vs Stake only looks like a fair fight until you check which country each one is actually built for.

Two Timelines That Never Cross

  • 2012 — DraftKings launches in Boston as a daily fantasy operator, years before a US sportsbook is even legal.
  • 2017 — Stake.com launches out of Curaçao, founded by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani after their earlier Bitcoin dice game, Primedice.
  • 2018 — PASPA falls; DraftKings starts converting its DFS user base into a licensed, state-by-state sportsbook.
  • April 2020 — DraftKings lists on Nasdaq as DKNG, going public rather than staying private.
  • 2025 — Stake surrenders its UK Gambling Commission license and exits the UK market; later that year it begins accepting fiat currency alongside crypto in supported regions.
  • March 20, 2026 — Arkansas becomes DraftKings’ latest live sportsbook state, bringing the map to 27 states plus D.C.

Nothing on Stake’s side of that timeline points toward the United States. Nothing on DraftKings’ side points away from it. That’s the whole comparison in six dates.

Is DraftKings or Stake Legal in the US?

DraftKings answers with a map, not a slogan: 27 states plus Washington D.C. as of August 2026, each one a separate state license, each one revocable by that state’s own gaming agency. Outside that map — California, Texas, Florida among them — there is no DraftKings sportsbook to open, only DFS, a different product with a wider footprint. Stake.com isn’t on any US legal map at all, because it has never sought to be; it blocks American registrations at sign-up, the same way it now blocks the UK.

Don’t confuse Stake.com with Stake.us. Stake.us is a separate, US-facing sweepstakes site — Gold Coins for play, Sweeps Coins redeemable for prizes — with its own state-by-state rules. It shares a name with Stake.com and almost nothing else: different legal structure, different license, different company product for a different audience.

Is DraftKings or Stake More Legit?

DraftKings’ legitimacy is verifiable in public filings: a Nasdaq listing, quarterly earnings, and a named regulator in every state where the sportsbook is live. Stake’s legitimacy has to be taken on operating history — nine straight years, a reported $4.7 billion in 2024 revenue, and founders visible enough to co-own the Sauber Formula One team. That track record is real. It also sits behind a single Curaçao Gaming Authority license, a lighter regulatory bar than any state commission DraftKings answers to, and one Stake chose to narrow further in 2025 by giving up its UK license rather than keep meeting that standard.

How Safe Is Each One?

For a US reader, safety and access are the same question here. Wherever DraftKings is live, a bettor has a state-audited operator and an actual agency to file a complaint with. Stake.com gives a US reader nothing to weigh, because it will not open an account for one — and routing around that block with a VPN violates Stake’s own terms, with KYC checks that typically surface at withdrawal, not at sign-up, freezing a balance right when a player wants it out.

Which One For Who

In a live DraftKings state, this isn’t close: a state-licensed sportsbook with real regulatory backing beats an offshore casino a US reader can’t even sign up for. In a dark DraftKings state, Stake.com still isn’t the fallback — it blocks the US regardless of what any individual state has or hasn’t licensed. The only relevant “Stake” for an American reader is Stake.us, and even that depends on state availability. Outside the US, Stake.com is a real option for crypto-comfortable players; DraftKings, outside a handful of international markets, mostly isn’t. Treat either one as entertainment, not income — 21+ where DraftKings operates, and not an option at all for a US player on Stake.com.