{"id":1224,"date":"2026-01-03T08:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T08:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/?p=1224"},"modified":"2026-01-03T08:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T08:41:14","slug":"drake-hit-with-rico-lawsuit-over-alleged-gambling-scheme-funding-fraudulent-music-streams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/drake-hit-with-rico-lawsuit-over-alleged-gambling-scheme-funding-fraudulent-music-streams\/","title":{"rendered":"Drake Hit with RICO Lawsuit Over Alleged Gambling Scheme & Funding Fraudulent Music Streams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drake<\/strong>\u00a0may have spent most of 2025 occupying the plaintiff\u2019s seat\u00a0in civil courts, but 2026 is already seeing him take the role of defendant due to shocking claims of illegal gambling practices and payola-like activity.<\/p>\n

Alongside streamer\u00a0Adin Ross\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0George Nguyen<\/strong>, 5-time GRAMMY winner Drake (born\u00a0Aubrey Graham<\/strong>) is a named defendant in a class action lawsuit for allegedly promoting an illegal online casino while using proceeds from the site to inflate streams of his music.<\/p>\n

In court docs obtained by\u00a0USA TODAY, the suit, which was filed on\u00a0December 31<\/strong>, claims the trio used the website Stake.us to \u201cobscure transmissions of money\u201d to advance \u201ctheir ongoing music botting campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth nothing Drake is the\u00a0highest-streamed artist\u00a0in the history of music streaming.<\/p>\n

Branding the site \u201cone of the largest and most profitable illegal online casinos,\u201d the lawsuit was filed on behalf of\u00a0LaShawnna Ridley\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Tiffany Hines\u00a0<\/strong>and also alleges Ross, Nguyen, and Graham\u00a0used Stake\u2019s tipping program to \u201cdirectly transfer money between and among themselves\u2026outside the oversight of any financial regulator.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough these and other promotions, Stake has bombarded consumers with advertisements appearing on social media platforms, depicting its games as safe, legal, and fun,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0the complaint reads.\u00a0\u201cBut these casino games are illegal in Virginia and throughout the United States and have inflicted harm on consumers across the Commonwealth who have lost real money chasing gambling wins on the Stake platform.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
\n

As if that\u2019s not enough, the lawsuit claims money from the site was used to \u201ccreate fraudulent streams of Drake\u2019s music; fabricate popularity; disparage competitors and music label executives; distort recommendation algorithms; and distribute financing for all of the foregoing, while concealing the flow of funds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uniquely, those allegations are similar to the one\u2019s Graham\u00a0previously wielded\u00a0against his Rap nemesis\u00a0Kendrick Lamar<\/strong>\u00a0due to the popularity of his diss track\u00a0\u2018Not Like Us.\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

With lawyers claiming the actions of Drake and co. violate the RICO and Virginia Consumer Protection Act, they are demanding both damages and a jury trial.<\/p>\n

At writing, Drizzy has not made a public statement responding to the suit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drake\u00a0may have spent most of 2025 occupying the plaintiff\u2019s seat\u00a0in civil courts, but 2026 is already seeing him take the role of defendant due to shocking claims of illegal gambling practices and payola-like activity. Alongside streamer\u00a0Adin Ross\u00a0and\u00a0George Nguyen, 5-time GRAMMY winner Drake (born\u00a0Aubrey Graham) is a named defendant in a class action lawsuit for allegedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[160],"class_list":["post-1224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","author-urbanafrica"],"authors":[{"term_id":160,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"urbanafrica","display_name":"URBANAFRICA","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-FFB50F59-0D6C-491C-BACA-64123F72D056.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-FFB50F59-0D6C-491C-BACA-64123F72D056.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1225,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1224\/revisions\/1225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1224"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africahalloffame.org\/Home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}