Crypto casino billionaire’s father’s mansion in ‘suspicious’ fire
The luxury beach house owned by the father of Australia’s youngest billionaire caught fire just weeks after the local council approved a $30 million refurbishment of the property.
The $16 million, 15-bedroom, 15-bathroom property owned by Jamie Craven, the father of convicted fraudster and crypto casino tycoon Ed Craven, went up in flames Tuesday night, with police treating the incident as “suspicious.”
Emergency services were called to the property at Coachmans Close, Korora, just north of Coffs Harbour, at 5.40pm on Tuesday and NSW Fire and Rescue were attempting to extinguish the fire, NSW Police said in a statement. They were called back to the house just before midnight after receiving reports of a second fire, believed to have started by itself. The news was first reported by regional television channel NBN.
“The property was abandoned and vacant and no injuries were reported. Officers from the Coffs/Clarence Police District have launched an investigation into the incident,” NSW Police said.
“The fire is being treated as suspicious and the investigation is ongoing.”
There is no suggestion that the Cravens were under any suspicion regarding the fire. Neighbors told NBN News vandalism was a problem in the area.
Scott O’Shea from Fire and Rescue told the station: “The crew last night reported most of the windows were broken, the house was destroyed, the yard was not maintained so no one was there.”
The 1.8-hectare compound, known as Noorinya, was purchased by Craven’s corporate interests from bankrupt colored coal baron Nathan Tinkler in 2024 for $16 million in cash. The price was half the $30 million Tinkler was asking for when the property was listed.
Last year Craven launched plans with Coffs City Harbor Council for a $29.7 million regeneration of the property; It was intended to demolish the existing house and build a new two-storey mansion with two underground swimming pools and a 300-millimetre-deep reflecting pool.
The plans were approved by council in June, despite the new property exceeding existing height limits by 26 per cent.
Jamie Craven, whose son Ed Craven became one of Australia’s youngest billionaires, was banned from working in financial services for five years and sentenced to six months in prison over the collapse of Spedley Securities in the late 1980s.
He was initially on the board of his son Ed’s game development company, Easygo. In 2016, Ed Craven co-founded Stake, the world’s largest online cryptocurrency casino, based in the Caribbean tax haven of Curacao.
The explosive success of Stake, which sponsors Premier League football clubs and a Formula 1 team, has seen Ed Craven become Australia’s youngest billionaire in 2023, aged just 27. He has an estimated fortune of $4.6 billion.
Despite the success of Stake, the strategy of allowing users to gamble with cryptocurrency, which allows players to play in regions where online gambling is restricted, has sparked significant legal and regulatory scrutiny, including a series of lawsuits in several US states.
In a recently filed class-action lawsuit in New Jersey, Craven was accused of running one of the largest and most profitable illegal online gambling operations in American history in a class-action lawsuit that also included megastar rapper Drake. A spokesperson for Easygo called the matter a “desperate cash grab” and the company has taken a dismissive attitude towards such legal matters.
Craven is also the co-founder of streaming platform Kick, which launched in 2022 after Amazon-owned Twitch banned broadcasts from unlicensed gambling sites, including Stake.
The streaming platform is notorious for taking a laxer approach to moderation, a business model that has sparked a number of controversies, although it claims to have strengthened its approach in recent years.
Craven’s representatives have been contacted for comment on the Sapphire Beach fire.
The Noorinya house was built more than 20 years ago by former Microsoft executive Jaybe Ammons and his wife Shelle. It was bought for $11.5 million in 2008, months after Tinkler sold a $420 million stake in Macarthur Coal and became Australia’s richest person under 40.
Tinkler’s business has been plagued by a series of legal issues ever since. He was declared bankrupt by the Federal Court in 2016. The bankruptcy was canceled two years later.
Tinkler’s legal entity, Noorinya Holdings, which previously owned the Sapphire Beach property, was placed into administration two years ago and the title deed to the house carried a handful of notices from unpaid creditors before it was sold, one of which was the Commissioner of State Revenue.
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Kishor Napier-Raman is senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He previously worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliament press gallery.Connect with: X or email.
