Curaçao Gambling Leak Unmasks Offshore Casino Owners

A Curaçao gambling leak has handed the public something offshore casinos have guarded for decades: the names of their owners. Records taken from the Curaçao Gaming Authority’s licensing system identify roughly 800 owners behind nearly 650 licensed gambling firms, including some of the biggest brands in crypto betting. For players at Curaçao-licensed sites, the files raise an uncomfortable question about who really sits across the table.

How the Curaçao Gambling Leak Happened

Lilith Wittmann, a Berlin-based cybersecurity researcher who previously claimed a breach of Malta’s gaming regulator, says she was behind it. By her account, she registered on the CGA’s licensing portal as a trust-office manager for a fictitious DreamCatcher Private Foundation, using a personal Gmail address. The regulator approved the account within days, and she then uploaded software that widened her reach across the system. She kept that access for around nine months.

Dutch journalists later sifted through tens of thousands of leaked documents from Curaçao’s gambling licensing system. The haul included ownership declarations, licence applications, regulatory assessments, passports, tax records and financial statements. Their review confirmed 897 ultimate beneficial owner records covering 767 people across 646 entities, many of them firms whose owners were hard to confirm through public registers.

What the Files Say About Stake

The most prominent gambling brand caught up in the leak is Stake, which operates in Curaçao through Medium Rare NV. Its licence paperwork lists Serbian national Mladen Vuckovic as owner, with declared assets of more than $1 billion in 2024. The CGA’s own assessors did not take that declaration at face value, though.

Regulator audits reportedly turned up large loans and payments tied to people and businesses linked to Stake founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Neither man appears as an owner on the licence application. None of this is a finding of wrongdoing, but it reveals real doubts inside the regulator about Stake’s ownership.

1xBet and Blaze.com Face Fresh Questions

The Curaçao gambling leak also puts 1xBet back under the microscope. Its Curaçao company names Ihor Hniedash as owner and CEO. Roman Semiokhin, Dmitry Kazorin and the late Sergey Karshkov have all had public links to the brand, and CGA assessors suspected it had more than one owner. They asked for details on how Hniedash connects to those three men.

Those questions did not block the application. 1xBet still received its Curaçao licence in 2024, even though assessors had pressed for more information about who controls it. Blaze.com also appears in the files through Prolific Trade NV, a Curaçao company whose owners reportedly include Dutch national Nick van Gorsel and American Nicholas Beugg.

A Regulator Still Rebuilding Its Licensing System

Curaçao overhauled its gambling framework in 2024, replacing a decades-old model largely built on private master-licence holders. The new regime moved licensing under direct CGA control and put ownership transparency at the heart of every application. For an island that has spent years trying to shake off its light-touch reputation, the timing of this breach could hardly be worse.

The CGA has acknowledged that it issued some licences while ownership questions remained open. It says it is giving companies time to meet the new law’s requirements during the transition. However, players following the gambling leak in Curaçao may find that explanation thin when it covers brands this large.

The breach method adds a second problem. An account opened with a personal Gmail address, on behalf of a foundation that does not exist, cleared the portal within days. That raises doubts about how Curaçao vets gambling licence applicants, a gap the leak has now made public.

What Comes Next After the Curaçao Gambling Leak

Wittmann says more disclosures could follow, reportedly including material on Platino Casino and software provider SoftSwiss. Files on a major platform supplier would drag the B2B side of the industry into the story. Her earlier claim of a breach at the Malta Gaming Authority led to legal action and controversy over remarks she made about the gambling industry. The fallout from Curaçao may end up in court too.

For now, the Curaçao gambling leak leaves the island’s regulator facing questions that a transition timeline alone cannot answer. Players choosing an offshore casino have long treated the Curaçao licence as a basic signal of legitimacy. The leaked files suggest the licence sometimes said far less about who runs a site than players assumed.