In September 2023, Sky News shook up the UK gambling world with an investigative article, “From Drake to Fake Money: Inside the Wild World of Crypto Casinos”, exploring the rise and risks of crypto casinos like Stake.com and streaming platforms like Kick.com.
It explored the rise of crypto casinos, highlighting their appeal through celebrity endorsements, such as rapper Drake, and the associated risks. It also delved into the questionable legality of these platforms (namely Stake.com) and their marketing strategies in regard to the UK gambling legislation.
In conclusion it was mentioned that the investigation material regarding illegal casino promotion for the UK audience, was given to the regulatory body in order for further actions to be taken.
Were There Any Consequences?
Since a lot of Gamblescope team members have ties with the UK, and also many readers of ours come from there as well, we decided to launch a small investigation of our own. In the Sky News article there were mentioned a number of streamers (Drake being the most prominent), a large crypto casino Stake.com and a streaming platform Kick.com. Were there any actions taken against them after a year and little more? Let’s find out.
How Is Drake Doing?
In two months after the release of the “From Drake to fake money” article, the Canadian rapper Drake went online on Kick.com on December 18 2023 with his “end of year stream”. During the stream he engaged in gambling, gave away $100 000 and achieved a peak online of 141 356 viewers according to Streamcharts. He also engaged in conversation with his viewers, mentioning his desire for a $1 billion contract with Kick.com, highlighting his significant influence and the platform's growing prominence in the streaming industry.
After this, however, he hasn’t done any gambling-related streams, choosing to focus more on releasing his eighth studio album, "For All the Dogs," featuring collaborations with SZA, Bad Bunny, and 21 Savage. And going on a tour “Big as the What?” with J. Cole, that lasted from February till April 2024. During 2024 Drake also teased his new album “Hometown Love”.
How Is Stake.com Doing?
In short — very well. They largely managed to shake off the aftermath of a huge cybersecurity accident in September 2023, which led to a loss of $41.000.000 in crypto. And was attributed to North Korean hackers by the FBI.
According to The Australian, by July 2024 EasyGo Solutions Pty Ltd., a company owned by Stake.com co-founder Edward Craven, generated over $500.000.000 in profits in the last 3 years.
And it is not a coincidence that this in turn led to a large-scale recruitment initiative from Stake.com and associated companies. As The Australian managed to find out, they are willing to pay extra 20% over the current industry standards, as well as up to $100.000 in sign-up bonuses. All to attract the best tech specialists on the market and to support the company's rapid growth and expansion in the cryptocurrency and gambling sectors.
According to Similarweb, in October 2024 Stake.com managed to attract 59.180.000 visitors, 52% of them almost equally split between India and Canada. And the next 3 biggest traffic sources being Indonesia, Argentina and Brazil. While the British traffic seems non-existent at a first glance, it is actually well-hidden behind the VPN.
All this puts Stake.com into the 4th place in the global gambling website rankings. Add subsidiary websites like Stake.us, Stake.uk.com, Stake.bet and others — and you get around 50.000.000 more monthly visitors for the company. It would not be an exaggeration to say that currently Stake.com is enjoying a huge success.
How Is Kick.com Doing?
Kick, a streaming platform, has entered the market with a blast in October 2022. And has been rapidly gaining popularity ever since, even if followed by scandals from time to time.
The secret behind this is that Kick occupied an empty market niche of a livestreaming service with fairly lax rules about what people could stream, gambling content in particular.
And it’s not a coincidence, since Kick is essentially controlled by the same people who run the Stake.com casino: Edward Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Launched as a competitor for Twitch, Kick profited greatly from Twitch tightening its rules regarding streaming casino games and other gambling content.
After Twitch has banned promotion of a number of websites, including Stake.com, casino streamers started to migrate on Kick, with their subscribers following and boosting the website’s viewer base. To boost the move from Twitch and other platforms, major streamers are receiving sponsorship from the platform, one of them — Trainwreckstv even becoming one of the partial owners of Kick.
According to Similarweb, in October 2024 Kick.com was visited by 107.000.000 viewers. Still around 12 times less than Twitch.tv. However, the traffic increased by 21% compared to September. With 17.4% coming from the US, 15.22% — from Turkey, and 7-8% each — from Colombia, Argentina and Peru. It’s interesting that the rival Twitch.tv is the second largest referrer to Kick.com after Linktree.
All in all, the investigation from Sky News hasn’t affected Kick in any negative way. On the contrary— it actually boosted the platform. It was the pressure from the investigation that caused Twitch to start banning streams that promoted certain casinos. Which in turn caused the streamer and viewer exodus for Kick!
Any Actions Against Them Expected In The Future?
Despite the Sky News investigation taking place more than a year ago, as of November 2024, there have been no publicly reported actions by the UK Gambling Commission or other UK authorities against Stake.com, Kick.com, or individual streamers promoting Stake.com to British audiences.
So far the Gambling Commission has only expressed concerns about unlicensed operators targeting UK consumers. However, we should note that regulatory investigations are often confidential and may take a significant amount of time. Thus the absence of public information doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of action. At Gamblescope we will continue to keep an eye on the issue and will update in case we know about any meaningful action taken.