The Canadian rapper Drake is to answer a RICO civil case in the United States which alleges that he used online casino money to fund a campaign to artificially inflate his Spotify streaming numbers – in turn maximising the royalties earned from each play.
Drake and his close friend, the streaming influencer Adin Ross, will be the plaintiffs in the case alongside Stake, the global gambling brand that was forced out of the UK market in 2025.
Tiffany Hines and LaShawnna Ridley, from the US state of Virginia, have launched the legal proceeding, with $5 million (£3.7 million) in damages sought.
Artificial Popularity
The civil case is being brought to the courts under the banner of RICO – Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations – and consumer protection law.
It alleges that Stake.com paid Drake winnings from his online casino activity through their anonymised blockchain token system, which is used in their American-facing platform in place of traditional real money withdrawals.
And the writ claims that Drake and Ross used these funds to purchase automated streams, which artificially ‘fabricated’ the rapper’s popularity on platforms like Spotify.
Artists also earn royalties based upon the number of times their songs are streamed, so Drake would have benefitted financially from the ruse – if the allegations are true, of course.
Middle Man
Documents seen in court claim that Drake ‘hid’ his Spotify scheme by transferring winnings via Stake’s anonymous tip system to Ross – amounting to millions of dollars, as per the legal docs. These funds were then forwarded to the account of George Nguyen, an Australian who runs the accounts grandwizardchatn**** and Grandavious.
Nguyen, it’s alleged, acted as a ‘money transfer conduit’ between Stake and automated ‘bot’ vendors, who actioned the artificial Spotify play count.
It should be noted that the matter is ongoing and that nobody has been accused of criminal wrongdoing – this is a civil case brought by Hines and Ridley, who claim to have screenshots of communications that prove the link between Drake, Ross and Nguyen.
They also allege that Stake’s partnership with Drake was engineered to ‘prey upon consumers’ by ‘influencing participation’ in a ‘predatorial gambling environment’.
Stake, meanwhile, have rubbished the allegations, labelling them ‘nonsense’.
“For the record, Stake.us does not have a tipping function that could be used in this way,” a company spokesperson commented.
“This is a nonsense claim and we are not concerned about this lawsuit.”
A separate lawsuit, brought by the rapper RBX against Spotify, accused the streaming platform of allowing artists like Drake to use bots to play billions of ‘fake’ streams.
Legal Battles
This isn’t the first time that Stake, Drake and Ross have faced legal action.
Drake has been in a partnership with Stake since 2022, promoting the firm on Instagram, Kick – owned by Stake’s parent company Easygo – and other social media platforms.
In June 2025, Drake himself claimed that he had gambled around $125 million – around £93 million – with Stake, recording a loss in the region of £6.1 million.
However, it has been alleged that Drake is on the Stake payroll, earning $100 million a year as a brand ambassador. It has also been suggested that the Canadian is handed ‘free’ credit with the operator.
In October 2025, the Missouri native Justin Killham attempted to sue Stake, Drake and Ross for ‘deceptive, fraudulent and unfair’ practices.
“When Ross and Drake purport to gamble online with Stake.com, they often do not do so with their own money… despite telling the public the opposite,” he alleged.
Plaintiffs in both Missouri and Virginia claim that Stake.us – the offshoot of Stake.com designed to circumnavigate US gambling law – uses an ‘unlawful’ staking system, with players able to purchase tokens that can later be redeemed for cryptocurrency and cashed out.
Both the Missouri and Virginia lawsuits accuse Stake.us of operating illegally, while a separate suit brought by a Los Angeles based attorney alleges something similar – to which Easygo responded:
“We reject allegations that have been made in the media in relation to this potential claim and will vigorously defend this and all such claims.”
Perhaps the wheels are starting to fall off. Back in August, Drake posted four separate times on his social media channels that Stake had refused to let him withdraw funds from his account.
It has since been suggested that he has severed ties with the operator.
Meanwhile, Adin Ross has also ended his allegiance to Stake, having become a prolific streamer and promoter of a rival brand, Rainbet, instead.