Ossi “Monarch” Ketola – the Finnish entrepreneur behind CSGOEmpire and, more recently, the crypto casino Duel.com – sat down for an AMA this week and didn’t hold much back: numbers, shots at rivals, a defense of the fake-balance streams his platform runs, and a detour into the Andrew Tate blackjack deal that never happened. Here’s the rundown for anyone who didn’t watch the whole thing.
Numbers
Duel is reportedly doing roughly $10 million a month, dwarfing Empire’s ~$4 million a month in profit. Monarch’s explanation for the gap wasn’t about traffic or marketing – he said Empire runs a higher house edge, and that’s precisely why he never pushed it as hard as he’s pushing Duel.
He also dropped a few hard figures:
- The Duel domain cost $900,000.
- He’s spent roughly $5 million on celebrity blackjack appearances so far.
- Mike Tyson is, by a wide margin, the most expensive name on that list.
- Mia Malkova came in under $1 million but was still, in his words, “pretty expensive.”
- Bonnie Blue was priced in a similar range to Malkova.
What’s Coming to Duel
Monarch teased a fairly aggressive roadmap:
- A Triton-sponsored heads-up tournament built for super high rollers.
- Private poker games with custom, curated lineups.
- In-house slots – he said building these out is something he genuinely wants to do, not just a checkbox feature.
- An optional bonus mode, where players can opt into bonuses in exchange for a worse house edge – effectively letting users choose their own risk/reward trade-off.
- Praise for Stake Engine, which he called “a cool concept,” while saying he wants to build Duel’s own version with better odds for players.
- A long-term deal signed with Clavicular.
He also said Duel still needs to hire an influencer manager before streamers can start getting fills. Asked about mass layoffs, he denied firing most of the staff and joked that, if anything, they “haven’t fired enough.” He also said the platform’s X account should be back soon.
Fake-Balance Defense
Monarch confirmed the fake-balance streamers on his platform are deliberate, not a bug or a loophole – he framed it as parody. The intent, as he described it, is to get viewers questioning whether anything they watch on a gambling stream is real.
He said he’s still open to sponsoring streamers, but only if the content itself is good. In the same breath, he called all gambling streamers “scum.”
He went further on two specific names: he claimed everybody already knows Roshtein plays on a fake balance, and said he’d bet heavily that Trainwrecks does too.
Shots Fired
Monarch didn’t shy away from comparisons. Asked whether he’d lost respect for Empire, he described the two platforms as siblings – calling Empire the “Down syndrome child” and Duel the “super giga child” of the family, insisting they still love Empire but that Duel simply outclasses it.
He wasn’t done there:
- He said Gamdom is “desperate” for signing SteveWillDoIt, and accused them of overpaying for streamers just to stay relevant.
- He pushed back on the narrative that Goobr left for higher limits elsewhere.
- On Kick, he doesn’t think the platform would sell Rainbet-style ad placements to just anyone, claiming Sean Park has “very, very special connections.”
The Tate Story
The most somber part of the AMA was about Andrew Tate. According to Monarch, Tate was reportedly on his way to doing a celebrity blackjack appearance, similar to the Tyson and Malkova deals. Then he went quiet for months following the “Bottom G” stream. When Tate resurfaced, he allegedly said they should get the appearance done immediately, telling Monarch “time kills us all.” Shortly after that conversation, Tate was arrested.
