A new civil lawsuit in Virginia says that rapper Drake, streamer Adin Ross, and the online gambling site Stake.us are breaking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by running illegal gambling businesses and using false advertising.

According to HotNewHipHop, the lawsuit says that Stake.us, the U.S. branch of the global e-casino Stake.com, runs an illegal online casino that pretends to be a "social casino" to get around U.S. gambling laws. According to the plaintiffs, Stake's virtual currency system lets people turn their money into cryptocurrency or digital gift cards. This means that people could bet real money without the government watching them.

Drake isn't accused of running Stake.us, but it's said that he made about $100 million a year by advertising the site. Court documents say that he also used Stake's internal systems to get money for gambling and make transfers that were supposedly linked to fake streaming campaigns that made his music metrics look better.

People say that Adin Ross worked with Drake by hosting high-profile Stake.us gambling streams that made the site seem normal to younger audiences and promoted it. The complaint says that there were big money transfers between Ross and Drake through Stake's tipping system, but they weren't very clear. The people who are suing say that these payments were used to pay for streaming farms and amplification services that were run by bots.

According to the plaintiffs, the main reason for the case was Stake.us's tipping feature, which let people make big transfers without normal financial oversight. Some people say that George Nguyen made money by using bots and streaming farms to fake streaming to get more people to listen to Drake's music on sites like Spotify.

The lawsuit asks for class certification and at least $5 million in damages. However, RICO rules could allow them to get three times that amount. The plaintiffs also want Stake.us to stop operating in the U.S. and give them their money back.

The Guardian says that Drake has been promoting Stake on Instagram and Kick, which is owned by Easygo and lets people watch live events. He said in one post that he lost $8.2 million while betting $124.5 million over the course of a month. The lawsuit says that Stake paid Drake $100 million a year and gave both him and Ross free gambling credits.

Ross left Stake in 2025 for a competing platform, but he still streams on Kick. Ed Craven, who co-founded Easygo and owns Kick and Stake's Australian parent company, would not say anything about this lawsuit. But he has defended the company in court before.

People have sued Stake and its partners in other states in the U.S. for the same things.

Bijan Tehrani, one of the people who started Stake, was sure of himself when he answered the lawsuit. At the same time, rapper DDG tweeted his support for Drake, Ross, and Stake as the legal pressure grew.

This lawsuit is a big step forward in the ongoing legal fights over famous people who promote online gambling and the claim that they messed with the metrics for streaming digital music.

Originally published on Music Times

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Drake