How Did an Online Crypto Casino Take Over Twitter?
Prior to Elon Musk's takeover of X (formerly Twitter), the app was a wildly popular social media site known for throwing everything from the latest breaking news to the newest memes all on the same constantly refreshing timeline. Now, it's an ad- and bot-ridden playground for far-right posters — and nothing shows it downfall more than this inescapable scourge: Stake ads.
Stake is an app that allows users to bet on sports events and in online casinos using cryptocurrency. Since startup founders Edward Crave and Bijan Tehrani first launched the site in Australia in 2017, Stake has continued to expand into other countries' markets — including building out operations in the U.K. and Europe — while remaining illegal in the U.S. But in the past two years, users have begun to notice advertisements for the casino taking up a sizable amount of space online.
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Some of the biggest meme accounts on X have begun running dozens of Stake ads every day — posting the logo on viral jokes and stolen videos. When 404 media reported on the trend in November, they noted that undisclosed advertisements for gambling went against X's content guidelines, which explicitly prohibit ads from casinos and online houses domiciled in another country. (Stake is operated out of Cyprus.) Worse, posts that disclose they are a Stake ad have a Community Note explaining what Stake is, and often linking to the website itself, giving the brand that much more prominence on X. On its own, the Stake meme campaign appears to be an attempt from the online casino to gain prevalence and more users in the process. But alongside the degradation of X's content, Stake ads are more than annoying — they're the current face of true digital slop. And people are tired of it.
It's unclear if Stake owns these X accounts outright or is paying the users to tweet content with the Stake logo. (The press email for Stake.us does not work and the company did not respond to Rolling Stone's request for comment through its support email.) The meme accounts that tweet the ads usually include the Stake handle in their bios. But the ads have taken X's shaky infrastructure and content-farm feeling from bad to unbearable. Musk's Twitter Blue program, which allows anyone to purchase a blue verification check mark, also prioritizes posts from users with check marks, meaning spam accounts often get thousands of eyes on content they've ripped from other viral accounts. Owen Carry wrote for Slate that Stake's marketing work with meme accounts is not only legally murky but an 'amorphous advertising campaign that ignores international borders and the gambling laws that exist within them.'
Stake's meme farming isn't its only attempt at marketing and virality. In the U.K., the crypto casino became the white-label sponsor of Premier League football club Everton in 2022. But according to the Athletic, Stake left the U.K. market entirely in Feb. 2025 after the country's Gambling Commission launched an investigation into Stake's advertising practices. The investigation began because of a stake ad on X — more specifically a viral repost of a picture of porn star Bonnie Blue with the Stake logo slapped on. And just last week, a video spread online of a drone flying up to rapper Drake's Australian penthouse. The clip shoes Drake throwing a shoe at the camera, attempting to knock it down — but a closer look at the open laptop also in frame shows a blurry image of the Stake website. The rapper seemingly confirmed the collaboration within minutes, posting the video on Instagram alongside a photo of himself in a Stake logo shirt.
After several Redditors alleged that a member of their subreddit owned and operated multiple meme accounts that posted Stake ads, Musk warned against the practice. 'Platform manipulation by buying large follower accounts and then using them to push paid narratives/scams will result in the annihilation of those accounts,' he wrote on X. 'Moreover, if a crime is involved, 𝕏 will prosecute to the full extent of the law. DON'T DO IT.' While the warning was emphatic — and the accounts linked to the scheme were suspended — newer meme accounts promoting Stake have continued to pop up on the site.
The result is that Stake ads have become ubiquitous on X — a constant cycle of stolen posts and hijacked memes that make the scrolling experience feel like a claustrophobic nightmare of gambling advertisements for an operation that doesn't even operate in the country. It's not unexpected considering Musk notably told advertisers in early 2024 to 'go fuck [themselves]' and has since hemorrhaged revenue. But combined with the site's continual bend towards misinformation, or just outright AI garbage, Stake ads feel like another downward step — a constantly recycling of internet clutter that's so clearly half hearted it feels like looking or scrolling past produce the same result: a waste of time.
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