Drake and Adin Ross sued over “deceptive” gambling streams

Drake and Adin Ross are being sued over gambling streams.

• READ MORE: Is the ‘Drake curse’ real? Five times Drake’s support has been a pox on sport

The rapper and the influencer are being sued, alongside the online sweepstakes casino and sports betting platform Stake.us, by Justin Killham of Independence, Missouri.

According to the suit, filed Monday (October 27) in Jackson County Circuit Court, the defendants engaged in “deceptive, fraudulent and unfair” practices to mislead the public in violation of Missouri law, per Casino Beats.

In his filing, Killham says Sweepsteaks Limited, which operates Stake.com, created the website Stake.us as “a virtual clone of Stake.com, rebranded to mislead Missouri regulators and consumers into believing it offers harmless gameplay instead of an unlawful gambling platform.”

Stake.us uses a dual-currency system, where users pay to gamble with redeemable tokens rather than cash. Killham says the system is a way for Stake to conceal illegal gambling behind “a superficial disguise of social gaming.”

The complaint singles out Ross and Drake, who are allegedly paid millions of dollars per year to promote Stake in livestreams. Earlier this year, it was reported that Drake signed a $100million per year endorsement deal with Stake, per the Financial Times.

Killham claims that the glamorous lifestyles depicted in Drake and Ross’s streams are enticing young viewers to begin gambling illegally. “Stake’s and Drake’s and Ross’s conduct here threatens the welfare of Missouri residents and especially its young people,” it continues, pointing to a 2021 study from the National Institutes of Health, which claimed that online gambling is rising in popularity with adolescents despite its illegality, “which puts their mental health and well-being at serious risk.”

Killham claims that these promotions are targeted at teenagers, who cannot legally gamble, and that “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.”

NME has contacted representatives for Drake and Stake for comment. Representatives for Ross could not immediately be reached, and he has not yet commented on the lawsuit at time of writing.

Back in June, Drake shared the colossal amount he’d lost on gambling bets that month alone, revealing he had placed close to $125million (£93million) in bets and lost more than $8million (£6million) in the process.

It’s not the first time the rapper has made headlines for his poor betting choices. He’s earned a reputation for being something of a bad luck charm for a number of top-level sports teams and athletes in recent years, as people have noticed that whenever he associates with sportspeople or endorses certain teams, they almost always end up suffering some sort of on-field misfortune soon afterwards.

His bad record at placing money on sporting events also dates back at least as far as 2019, and has even been dubbed the “Drake curse”.

Most recently, in November, he lost a huge bet on the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight after placing money on Tyson to win when it was Paul who claimed the victory.

Before that, last summer he bet on Canada to beat Lionel Messi’s Argentina in the Copa America semi-final, costing him a potential win of $2.88million, causing the Argentine FA to post an image of them celebrating with a caption of ‘Not Like Us’, in reference to Kendrick Lamar’s diss track of the same name.

That came just months after he lost $500,000 (£393,000) after betting that Tyson Fury would win his boxing match against Oleksandr Usyk. If Fury had won, Drake would have had a payout of just over $1million (£786,600) from the bet.

The year before, the rapper lost $250k (£195,198) after betting on UFC legend Nate Diaz during a boxing match between him and Jake Paul. Just months earlier, he shared that he wagered nearly $1million (£829,500) in “psychotic” bets for the 2023 Super Bowl.

Back in 2022, the ‘Hotline Bling’ artist seemingly lost $1million on a World Cup bet after Argentina beat France. If he had made the right call for the match, he would have won roughly $2.75m (£2.26m).

That same year, it was reported that FC Barcelona fell victim to the notorious “Drake curse” after the rapper bet on them to win their game against Real Madrid.

In other news, earlier this month Drake lost his defamation suit against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar’s diss track ‘Not Like Us’. The track later enjoyed a streaming spike after the suit was dropped.

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