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Crypto casino billionaire Ed Craven’s dad buys trophy beach house for $16m cash
By Lucy Macken
Jamie Craven, the father of Australia’s youngest billionaire Ed Craven, has swooped in and bought the Sapphire Beach house of Nathan Tinkler for $16 million - cash.
The sale price is almost half the $30 million that the former coal magnate-turned-discharged bankrupt Tinkler was seeking when he listed the almost two-hectare estate last June.
The Sapphire Beach property of Nathan Tinkler sold for $16 million cash.Credit: Domain
The purchase by Craven snr’s corporate interests of the property, known as Noorinya, is a return to the Coffs Harbour area for the family. His son, crypto-casino co-founder Ed Craven, 28, was raised in the Mid North Coast city just south of Sapphire Beach, and until 2018 the family still owned in the up-market beachside suburb.
However, in more recent years the Cravens have been one of Melbourne’s top trophy-home buyers. Craven jnr’s registered address is a $12.5 million penthouse in Southbank owned by the same company as the Sapphire Beach property, as well as a Toorak mansion he bought two years ago for $38.5 million to live in while he undertakes a rebuild of an $80 million mansion nearby he bought 18 months ago.
Ed Craven debuted on the rich list at 27, becoming the country’s youngest self-made billionaire.Credit: Eamon Gallagher
Helping to fund it all is Stake.com, the casino and sports betting site Craven jnr co-founded in 2017 and which has since grown to become one of the world’s biggest gambling enterprises.
Fuelled by cryptocurrency deposits, the casino and sports betting site he co-founded in 2017 has grown to become one of the biggest gambling enterprises in the world, propelling his personal wealth to $3.11 billion on last year’s Australian Financial Review Rich List 200.
Craven jnr also owns game creator Easygo. His dad Craven snr –who was banned from working in financial services for five years and jailed for six months over the late 1980s collapse of Spedley Securities – is listed as a director of Easygo.
Craven jnr’s mother is Verena Marie Macarthur-Onslow, the daughter of the late Major General and grazier Sir Denzil Macarthur-Onslow.
Noorinya was built by former Microsoft executive Jaybe Ammons and sold in 2008 for $11.5 million.Credit: Domain
For their $16 million the Craven family’s new beach house is a consolidation of three sites totalling 1.8 hectares of absolute beachfront and features a 15-bedroom, 15-bathroom family compound that was built by former Microsoft executive Jaybe Ammons and his wife, Shelley.
Noorinya took shape about 20 years ago after Ammons quit Microsoft in 1999 and spent the following two years looking for the perfect place to build their ideal home on the state’s coastline, before securing the Sapphire Beach site at a cost of $2.75 million.
Architect Rosalie Stollery was commissioned to build thesignups Balinese-style house, with two separate villas and a main residence that includes two kitchens, a home cinema, gymnasium, two studies, a 25-metre lap pool and a children’s playground.
Tinkler was riding high in 2008 when he bought it for $11.5 million, just a couple of months after selling more than $420 million worth of his shares in Macarthur Coal and taking the title of Australia’s richest person aged 40 or under.
However, Tinkler’s fortune has taken a hit since those heady days. In 2016, he was declared bankrupt by the Federal Court, and in a ripple effect of that sold his Patinack Farm racehorse enterprise and the Newcastle Knights NRL team.
The 15-bedroom mega-mansion is set on a consolidation of three properties totalling 1.8 hectares of absolute beachfront.Credit: Domain
Tinkler’s corporate entity that previously owned the property, Noorinya Holdings, was placed into administration two years ago and the property’s title carried a handful of caveats from outstanding creditors before it sold, of which one is the Commissioner of State Revenue.
Noorinya was listed by Sotheby’s James McCowan a year ago, and it almost sold for $25 million a few months later but the deal fell through. It was relisted more recently for $15 million.
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