WTF Is Stake, the online casino that uses viral posts to promote its venue

In an apparent attempt to circumvent X’s rules banning gambling ads, online gaming site Stake appears to be using influencers, massively popular farming accounts for engagement and stolen content to promote its site.

On some posts, it’s just the Stake logo over a video or images, and others include versions of “This Is An #Ad” or “Gamble Responsibly #Ad.” Influencers are obliged to disclose advertising, per federal law.

The guidelines for advertising gambling content on X state that the platform “prohibits the promotion of gambling content, except for promotions targeting certain countries where it is permitted with restrictions as explained below.” It then provides a long list of guidelines that vary from country to country; for example, targeting users in the US requires the gambling advertiser to be a “US resident”. Effort was founded in Australia and is owned and operated by Medium Rare NV in Curaçao, according to Stake.com. The site for Stake.us, the US version of the sitesays it is owned by Sweepsteaks Limited and has an address in Cyprus.

Stake watermarked posts are not officially X “ads”, in the sense that they are not posts purchased through X’s advertising system and marked as such. Instead, they are memes and posts that go viral because they are boosted by large accounts and can end up in many people’s feeds.

An entrance in Know your meme by Owen Carry (who also wrote about Stake stealing content for his ad watermark for Slate) traces the start of alleged Stakes secret advertising back to 2023, when Kick streamers played on their live streams. In 2022Twitch banned streamers from broadcasting Stake.com, but Kick – a live streaming platform notorious for its loose moderation policies– still allows it.

Stake is owned by Eddie Craven, who also owns the streaming platform Kick. Streamer Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff, who was banned from Twitch earlier this year for using a slur after going on a hateful rant against transgender people, signed a $10 million deal for streaming primarily on Kick. He announced during his first stream on the platform that he would be doing gambling streams “for sure,” claiming it was “part of the contract.” Kick’s head of strategic partnerships told Verge that a play clause is not in Kolcheff’s Kick contract, and e-sports reporter Jake Lucky wrote that Nickmercs “has a Stake contract alongside his Kick contract.”

Stake is also a preferred platform for hackers who want to money laundering stolen cryptocurrency.

@FearedBuck may be one of the first accounts on X to make the Stake watermark go viral, with clips from the Kick stream overlaid with Stake logos.

Massive viral content accounts like @picsthatg0hard_ and @lmfaooooos are accused of stealing other users’ photos and slapping a Stake ad on them:

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in Great Britain told Insider Sport last month, where it is keeping an eye on the Stake watermark situation on X. “There appear to be some jurisdictional points that we need to consider and/or if there are elements that we may refer to the Gambling Commission,” a spokesperson told to Insider Sport. “We believe that seeking to minimize children’s exposure to age-restricted advertising in general is a legitimate regulatory objective, and therefore want to see gambling advertisers use available tools to more effectively target their ads away from children, even where the vast majority of a target audience is over 18. We will add these examples to our intelligence collection and we will keep an eye on cards here.”

At this point, the Stake watermark has evolved into its own meme, with accounts like @fuckstake_ posting the same images and memes without Stake logos on them, and most Stake watermarked posts on X at this point have community notes attached pointing out , that gambling ads are prohibited on the platform. But it makes sense that logos for a site owned by the guy who runs Kick—how many popular streamers have moved their streams when their own racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, or transphobic comments get them kicked off Twitch — have taken over X. People are detaching from X in droves, in part because of owner Elon Musk’s own transphobic remarks and right-wing support, and the platform’s lack of moderation against hate speech and harassment. Stake watermarked posts fit right in on X, where low-quality ads, spam and bots are running rampant major ad buyers left the platform after Musk’s takeover.

Stake and X did not respond to requests for comment.

About the author

Sam Cole writes from the far reaches of the internet about sexuality, the adult industry, online culture and artificial intelligence. She is the author of How Sex Changed the Internet and the Internet Changed Sex.