Bloomberg claims Drake wins on Stake at 4x average rate
Table of contents
- A year-long Bloomberg Businessweek investigation found Drake and Adin Ross recorded big-win rates four times the average on Easygo-owned slots streamed via Kick.
- The anomaly disappeared when influencers played third-party games, raising questions about whether in-house titles offer preferential outcomes.
- Stake called the findings “categorically incorrect” and denied rigging odds in favour of sponsored streamers, as the operator faces multiple class-action lawsuits across the US.
A year-long data investigation by Bloomberg Businessweek, published on 28 February 2026, claims that Canadian rapper Drake and Kick streamer Adin Ross recorded unusually high win rates on slot titles owned by Easygo Entertainment, the Australian parent company of crypto casino Stake.
The report, headlined “How to Win Slots and Influence People,” analysed with AI almost 500 hours of slots gameplay from 25 Stake gamblers on Kick. Claude found a pattern that diverged sharply from statistical norms on in-house games.
Researchers Leon Yin and Surya Mattu defined a “big win” as a payout exceeding 1,000 times the base bet. Across the full streamer sample, that milestone occurred roughly once every 10,000 spins.
For Drake, the data told a different story. Bloomberg reported that he landed big wins once every 2,500 spins on Easygo-owned titles, four times the average rate.
In one session alone, he recorded four such wins in a single hour. He also outperformed the next-luckiest player in the sample by a factor of two. Four players who wagered a comparable number of rounds never recorded a big win at all.
The gap was specific to Easygo content. When Drake played slots built by independent studios, his win rate aligned with the field average. The same pattern applied to Ross. His rate on Easygo titles also sat well above the baseline, while his performance on third-party games showed no statistical anomaly.
Stake pushes back
Stake rejected the report’s findings in direct terms. A company spokesperson told Bloomberg the analysis was “categorically incorrect,” adding that using a single big-win benchmark “ignores how game mathematics work” and that comparing win rates across different slot titles is inherently misleading because each game carries its own mathematical design.
Stake co-founder Ed Craven had previously addressed similar allegations in a 2022 blog post, writing:
“Despite certain widespread notions of odds being rigged in some people’s favors or money not being real, we have no direct control of the odds of any of our games as these are controlled by a third-party.”
Despite its public rebuttal, Stake has reportedly declined to provide internal payout data to disprove the statistical patterns the investigation identified.
Co-founder Bijan Tehrani also weighed in on social media, criticising the methodology.
He posted that Bloomberg had “settled on smugly claiming that our stake games are rigged in favor of drake and adin based on a sample size of… 0.1 hours for adin and 1.3 hours for drake.”
The best tool to win players is trust, and with that in mind, critics argue all house-original titles at crypto casinos should be required to adopt provably fair technology, allowing players to independently verify every spin’s outcome in real time
Social media amplifies reach
Drake reportedly signed an endorsement deal with Stake in 2022 worth around $100 million. Stake funds are typically provided directly to streamers, who are often restricted from withdrawing the full balance, a practice the report describes as creating the illusion of uncapped personal risk for viewers.
Stake and its sister streaming service Kick have built a content distribution model centred on viral big-win clips.
Insiders told Bloomberg that third-party social media accounts are paid to post such clips, allowing gambling content to bypass traditional advertising restrictions on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, often reaching audiences that include younger users.
Class action lawsuits across the US
The investigation lands as Stake faces multiple class-action lawsuits across states including California, Missouri, Virginia, Illinois, and Ohio. Multiple suits also name Drake and Ross as respondents, characterising them as paid promoters who glamorised a highly addictive product.
A Virginia lawsuit filed on 31 December further alleged that Drake and Ross used Stake’s internal tipping function to move funds between parties and artificially inflate music streaming numbers. That case seeks class-action status and at least $5 million in damages.
The UK Gambling Commission launched an investigation into Stake’s social media advertising after concluding it appealed strongly to young people. Following that probe, white-label partner TGP Europe shut down the UK site in March 2025. Stake described the closure as a strategic decision.
Implications for the industry
Bloomberg’s report raises a question that no international regulator currently has the power to resolve. As the investigation noted:
“There’s no international enforcer to ensure Stake’s odds are fair.”
Stake is registered in Curaçao, operated by Medium Rare NV, and has offices in Serbia, Australia, and Cyprus.
Stake’s main domain and affiliated sites attract billions of bets monthly. That scale, combined with the investigation’s findings on influencer win rates, is likely to intensify calls from regulated operators and trade bodies for tighter oversight of offshore crypto casinos and the streaming platforms that amplify their reach.
As class-action litigation and state-level enforcement actions multiply, the pressure on Stake to demonstrate transparency over its in-house titles will grow.
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