Drake’s list of lawsuits continues to grow. The latest is a new RICO class-action filed in Virginia that names Drake, streamer Adin Ross, online casino Stake (Stake.us), and Australian clip farmer George Nguyen as defendants. The suit accuses them of using Stake’s platform to illegally finance the inflation of Drake’s music streaming numbers.
The complaint seeks to shut down Stake.us — described as an illegal online gambling platform promoted by Drake, Ross, and Nguyen — and alleges it was used to obscure money transfers tied to ongoing music-botting campaigns. Plaintiffs are also seeking civil penalties against all defendants to stop future misconduct.
According to court filings, Drake and Nguyen allegedly moved money through Stake’s “tipping” program — characterized as “an unlimited and wholly unregulated money transmitter that appears to exist outside the oversight of any financial regulator” — to fund bots that generate fake streams.
One excerpt from the complaint reads:
At the heart of the scheme, Drake—acting directly and through willing and knowledgeable co-conspirators—deployed automated bots and streaming farms to artificially inflate play counts of his music across major platforms such as Spotify. These inauthentic streams were calibrated to mislead royalty and recommendation engines, manufacture popularity, distort playlists and charts, and divert both value and audience attention. The manipulation allegedly suppressed authentic artists and narrowed consumers’ access to legitimate content by undermining the integrity of curated experiences.
The Virginia suit follows similar class-action lawsuits filed in Missouri and New Mexico in October against Drake, Ross, and Stake, which accused them of promoting an illegal gambling scheme. A month later, Drake was sued for copyright infringement by an Italian photographer over a scene in the “What Did I Miss?” music video. That same month, although not named as a defendant, Drake was cited in a federal lawsuit accusing Spotify of ignoring widespread botting of his music.
Stake.us is also facing active lawsuits in several other states, though Drake is not named in those cases. Separately, Drake lost a high-profile defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group in October over Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” a ruling he is currently appealing.
