\n<\/p>\n
David and many people like him \u2014 young and chronically online \u2014 have been enticed by crypto casinos, an expanding realm of online gambling where longstanding guardrails are often ignored.<\/p>\n
The sites have spread across social media, taking advantage of the borderless nature of the internet. They offer hundreds of games, including blackjack, sports betting and flashy online slot machines. They operate with fewer restrictions for gamblers by obtaining licenses in small island nations.<\/p>\n
And, although they are not legal in many countries including the United States, the casinos have become gambling havens where teenagers and problem gamblers play and even earn income by promoting the sites, a New York Times investigation has found.<\/p>\n
This flourishing industry has been built by operators willing to deploy an exploitative marketing system. The Times found that their strategies encourage reckless wagers, turn social media influencers into casino recruiters and lure in young people, one of the demographics most vulnerable to addiction.<\/p>\n
One 20-year-old said he was first hooked on the sites in high school, placing wagers with his friends after baseball practice. Another gambler said he took thousands of dollars from his parents and spent it on crypto casinos. David, who asked to be identified by his middle name to protect his privacy, said he emptied out more than $12,000 in childhood savings when he turned 18 this year and converted it into cryptocurrency on a website. He bet it all, doubled it and then lost it all. He later took out and gambled away $4,000 in personal loans without his parents knowing, trying to earn it back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI lost sight of what money actually is,\u201d said David, who graduated from high school in May.<\/p>\n
Online gambling, particularly sports betting, has spread across the country over the last several years as more states have legalized it. Crypto casinos operate outside of these structures by functioning as offshore entities and by allowing gamblers to use cryptocurrencies instead of traditional financial systems.<\/p>\n
The speed at which crypto casinos are moving \u2014 and the loopholes they are identifying and seizing on \u2014 have left lawmakers and regulators struggling to keep up.<\/p>\n
Many sites do not have strong identity verification and are able to advertise on social media with little oversight. Tech-savvy young people in the United States can gamble on them using false identities and readily available software to mask their locations, often unbeknownst to their parents.<\/p>\n
Eight years ago, crypto casinos were obscure websites. Now they are a multibillion-dollar industry with dozens of operators. The success of Stake and Roobet, two of the largest casinos, has enabled them to sign partnership deals with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Premier League soccer teams and celebrity rappers like Drake and Snoop Dogg.<\/p>\n
To help drive this growth, Stake, Roobet and other sites like Shuffle and BC.Game have built an army of livestreamers who broadcast themselves gambling for hours every day.<\/p>\n
The streamers create online communities centered on the casinos, and they offer giveaways to dedicated followers. All the while, crypto casinos incentivize content creators to bring in more customers through \u201caffiliate programs,\u201d which pay a commission on wagers placed by gamblers they recruit.<\/p>\n
Popular gambling streamers flaunt their extravagant lifestyles while their fans wager more, vying to be the next gambling influencer. The content thrives in the manosphere, the male-centric online community, where prominent voices talk about getting rich quick and skipping the traditional route of 9-to-5 employment.<\/p>\n
As the sites grew larger, they paid online celebrities multimillion-dollar deals to promote the casinos. In August, Drake and the famous livestreamers Adin Ross, xQc and Trainwreck gambled together on Stake for a live audience.<\/p>\n
The August 2025 stream where four popular streamers gambled together for hours<\/p>\n
Adin Ross, via Kick<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve dreamed of this night. All my guys in one spot,\u201d Drake said before the group streamed themselves gambling together for three hours.<\/p>\n
Drake, whose full name is Aubrey Drake Graham, declined to comment for this article through a representative. Mr. Ross, as well as xQc and Trainwreck, whose real names are F\u00e9lix Lengyel and Tyler Niknam, did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Snoop Dogg, who had partnered with Roobet, said in a September statement to The Times: \u201cSnoop takes these issues seriously. He is no longer working with Roobet and has no plans to do so in the future.\u201d Roobet announced the end of the partnership on X the same day.<\/p>\n
To understand how these sites built an online marketing machine, The Times analyzed hundreds of videos produced by gambling streamers, sifted through thousands of messages in online chat rooms, obtained private messages sent by casino representatives and reviewed cryptocurrency data from gamblers and the casinos.<\/p>\n
The Times also spoke to more than two dozen people who worked in the crypto casino world, including affiliate streamers, marketing managers and casino employees. Some said it was an open secret that the marketing practices could encourage gambling addictions and entice underage gamblers.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people have produced videos of themselves gambling on crypto casinos. In August, viewers of the top 100 gambling streamers watched 12 million hours of their videos, according to data from analytics website Streams Charts.<\/p>\n
The finances of crypto casinos, private companies licensed outside the United States, are not public. Stake told Forbes it earned $4.7 billion in gaming revenue in 2024, more than MGM reported earning from casino games at all of its Las Vegas properties. Stake would not comment to The Times about its finances.<\/p>\n
The homepages of Stake.com and Roobet.com<\/p>\n
Some of the largest crypto casinos are finding new ways to navigate the global legal landscape to bring in more customers. While Stake\u2019s original crypto casino, Stake.com, is licensed in Cura\u00e7ao, it later created additional platforms in more highly regulated countries like Italy and Brazil. In the United States, Stake started Stake.us, which it says legally operates in most states. It circumvents the need to obtain a gambling license by calling itself a \u201csocial casino\u201d where players use virtual currency instead of real money.<\/p>\n
But ongoing lawsuits, including one from the Los Angeles city attorney, argue that Stake.us still functions as a casino by allowing players to purchase the virtual currency and withdraw it as cryptocurrency. Audrey FitzGerald, the head of global communications at Easygo, the Australian company behind Stake, said, \u201cStake.us rejects the allegations in the Los Angeles lawsuit.\u201d She said Stake no longer saw itself as a crypto casino business because of its expansion into markets that accept only traditional currencies.<\/p>\n
Many U.S. gamblers who spoke to The Times said they still preferred Stake.com and were willing to mask their location to access it from the United States.<\/p>\n
In response to The Times\u2019s findings regarding the industry\u2019s tactics, Ms. FitzGerald said Stake had tools in place to promote responsible gaming and stop underage gambling. \u201cWe implement stringent checks and use real-time monitoring systems to identify suspicious activity and prevent unauthorized platform use,\u201d she said. Ms. FitzGerald pointed to Stake\u2019s sponsorship deals with major sports leagues as evidence that it is a well-trusted company.<\/p>\n
Jeff Ifrah, a lawyer for Roobet, which has founders based in the United States, said in a statement that the site complies with all laws in accordance with its Cura\u00e7ao license and removes users who are violating its terms. \u201cRoobet is proud of their streaming partners and works to promote safe and responsible gaming to adult audiences,\u201d Mr. Ifrah said.<\/p>\n
Other crypto casinos including Shuffle and BC.Game did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Because their brains are still developing, teenagers and young adults under 25 are a demographic at high risk of developing addictions, according to experts who study gambling problems. It\u2019s impossible to know how many minors are using crypto casinos. The sites themselves do not have accurate information because those customers use false identities. And there isn\u2019t substantial research or data on the topic, the experts said.<\/p>\n
Still, mental health clinicians who work with young people see signs that the problem is growing. Matt Missar, a gambling counselor at The Better Institute in Pittsburgh, said he had seen a few dozen patients between 16 and 26 years old in recent years and most of them were gambling on crypto casinos. \u201cThey\u2019re watching these streamers, and the streamers are winning their bets,\u201d Mr. Missar said. \u201cThey have this false notion in their head that it\u2019s just a matter of time until I hit it big like Drake did, or like Adin Ross did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nancy Key, a therapist based in New York who sees patients with online addictions, said she has been treating more young adults with gambling problems over the last few years. \u201cThey develop anxiety,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re not sleeping, dropping out of school, thinking that their career is going to be like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Bitcoin, the first major cryptocurrency, gained wider traction in 2017, sites like Stake and Roobet helped transform online cryptocurrency gambling into a major business. Their focus on social media marketing, especially through the livestreaming platform Twitch, brought in popularity across the globe.<\/p>\n
But in 2022, Twitch banned videos promoting crypto casinos amid growing concerns about user safety.<\/p>\n
Stake\u2019s founders quickly built a solution. They started their own livestreaming website called Kick with fewer rules and restrictions, which has proved to be a boon for streamers who are signed on to be affiliates for crypto casinos.<\/p>\n
\u201cAffiliates are the backbone of this industry,\u201d said Akhil Sarin, the chief marketing officer of Easygo who has worked on Stake\u2019s marketing for years, during an April podcast interview.<\/p>\n
Anyone registered to play on the casino\u2019s website can become an affiliate and start trying to earn money with their content. Affiliates are given their own referral code to share with their followers, and they get a commission on wagers placed by people who sign up with that code \u2014 calculated based on the odds of the games they play. Slots, which are popular in gambling streams, tend to earn higher commissions than skills-based games like blackjack.<\/p>\n
Streamers can see the program as a pathway to earning a living making videos. But The Times found it essentially turns them into casino promoters who need to keep their fans gambling.<\/p>\n
The overall marketing system generates more wagers<\/span> through deals between crypto casinos and different tiers of streamers.<\/span> <\/p>\n Celebrity partners, <\/span> like Drake and Mr. Ross, sit at the top. Many of them don\u2019t directly earn money from the affiliate programs and are instead paid millions to promote gambling on the sites to their enormous fan bases.<\/span> <\/p>\n Top affiliates, <\/span> who can bring in thousands of live viewers, are just below them. They are paid major deals to stream on a regular basis, often six-figures annually or more, according to streamers and former crypto casino employees who spoke to The Times. They also earn affiliate commission from their followers who wager with their referral codes.<\/span> <\/p>\n (The Times reached out to the top-20 gambling streamers on Kick according to August viewership data, but none were willing to be interviewed.) <\/p>\n Other streamers <\/span> who have small, consistent audiences can sign deals with casinos, but the terms are less profitable. A common deal structure pays a streamer a daily \u201cfill,\u201d generally between a few hundred and several thousand dollars, to gamble with during their videos. Streamers with fills can keep what they have after gambling for a minimum amount of time, but if they end the day with an empty account, they earn nothing.<\/span> <\/p>\n Self-funded streamers lose the most, trying to gain viewers by gambling for hours with their own money.<\/span> <\/p>\n The crypto casinos<\/span> benefit from each layer of the system, which encourages streamers and their viewers to constantly gamble.<\/p>\n The financial incentives for streamers can encourage people to make reckless decisions on camera for views. \u201cDegen\u201d \u2014 short for degenerate \u2014 gambling where people make outrageous wagers is celebrated by fans on social media. One streamer who spoke to The Times became popular after he poured urine on his head on camera for $500 as part of a dare from another streamer. Shortly after, BetBolt, a small crypto casino, gave him a paid deal to make more gambling content. BetBolt did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Some gambling streams mislead fans, who may believe they are watching people take real risks. Two affiliate streamers told The Times that they earn a flat payment as part of their deals and that the wagers in their videos have no stakes. The money is provided by the casino, and they cannot keep their winnings.<\/p>\n As streamers have been pushed to bring in more customers, they\u2019ve developed techniques to reel them in. Take a livestream from Club Chedda, a gambling streamer account. (Club Chedda did not respond to requests for an interview.)<\/p>\n The main video features a streamer gambling on different games for hours with live reactions and commentary<\/strong> drumming up excitement.<\/p>\n Simultaneously, viewers are chatting<\/strong> with one another and the streamer, cheering on the wagers.<\/p>\n The streamer promotes the affiliate code<\/strong> throughout the stream and sometimes offers giveaways to people who are watching.<\/p>\n To encourage more bets, some streamers have leader boards<\/strong> that give out rewards to fans who\u2019ve gambled the most in a month.<\/p>\n The leader boards can reveal how much some fans are willing to wager on crypto casinos. The top five fans of Syztmz, one of the most popular gambling streamers, wagered more than $1 million each in September alone, according to the leader board Syztmz publishes online.<\/p>\n When crypto casinos started emerging online, they separated themselves from their competition by breaking well-established rules intended to make gambling safer.<\/p>\n In 2017, Sam DeMello was 30 and struggling with a gambling addiction when he asked every gambling website he used to ban him. The process, known as self-exclusion, is one of the key tools available to stop problem gambling, according to experts, and states with regulated gambling require casinos to honor the bans. He said even the offshore sports betting sites he used properly excluded him.<\/p>\n Then Mr. DeMello found some of the early crypto casinos. The sites were the only places he could continue betting when he relapsed, he said, because they ignored his attempts to self-exclude. \u201cI basically put myself into the black market,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Now, years after he successfully quit gambling, he still gets calls from those smaller crypto casinos encouraging him to return. Since creating Evive, a mobile app that provides support for people experiencing gambling problems, he has heard similar stories over and over.<\/p>\n The casinos also became known for weak or nonexistent identity verification protocols that failed to ensure gamblers met minimum age requirements and were located in countries where their sites were legal. A study conducted in 2022 found that 37 out of 40 popular crypto casinos did not require proof of identity before accepting monetary deposits.<\/p>\n Even after some sites strengthened their verification procedures in recent years, users have been able to bypass them, sometimes with the help of streamers who offer guidance in online chat rooms, The Times found.<\/p>\n Gaps in the oversight system have created new markets where people sell verified crypto casino accounts registered with false identities, according to messages reviewed by The Times. One Canadian man who spoke to The Times said he made more than $18,000 this year by creating accounts using real IDs collected in India and Kenya and providing them to gamblers \u2014 most of whom were in the United States. The man, who shared photos of IDs and financial details with The Times, requested not to be named because of the illicit nature of his operation.<\/p>\n A Canadian man showed The Times a real Kenyan ID used to create and sell verified crypto casino accounts to gamblers in countries like the U.S.<\/p>\n Before he turned 18, David, the young gambler who emptied out his savings, participated in streamer leader boards and chat rooms. He gambled with a false identity on multiple casinos, including Stake and Roobet, and had a private V.I.P. host from Shuffle offering him rewards.<\/p>\n The Times spoke to several U.S.-based affiliate streamers who can broadcast their illegal gambling sessions on crypto casinos. In one case, a Stake representative helped a Texas-based streamer sidestep its identity verification to stream from the United States, according to private messages The Times reviewed.<\/p>\n \u201cOur Terms of Service bar our Stake.com affiliates from operating in or targeting users in restricted regions such as the U.S.,\u201d Ms. FitzGerald, the Easygo spokeswoman, said in response. She said Stake employees were never authorized to help streamers bypass verification.<\/p>\n In their quest for growth, crypto casinos also spent millions recruiting YouTube personalities and Twitch livestreamers whose initial fame came from playing video games and filming pranks for young male viewers.<\/p>\n For example, Stephen Deleonardis, known as the prank video star SteveWillDoIt online, signed a deal with Roobet to livestream himself gambling on the site. Mr. Lengyel, or xQc, one of the most popular video game streamers on Twitch, signed a two-year exclusive deal in 2023 worth up to $100 million with Kick, the streaming platform created by Stake\u2019s founders. Recently, Mr. Ross, who started streaming video games as a teenager, claimed to his viewers that he earned $100 million by signing a new partnership deal with Rainbet, another crypto casino. Rainbet did not respond to questions or confirm the details of the deal to The Times.<\/p>\n 2020<\/strong> Adin Ross first gained online popularity on Twitch by playing video games like NBA 2K.<\/p>\n 2022<\/strong> In the years before Twitch banned crypto casino videos, Mr. Ross started streaming himself playing casino games on sites like Stake.<\/p>\n 2025<\/strong> For the last three years, Mr. Ross has streamed himself gambling on crypto casinos on Kick.<\/p>\n Some crypto casinos have even worked with streamers who were under 21. Duel, a new crypto casino that started this year, was promoted by N3on, a young social media celebrity who first made videos as a preteen and now has more than 250 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n N3on, whose real name is Mikyle Rafiq, made promotional gambling videos in July, when he was still 20 and appeared to be streaming from his home in California, where online gambling is illegal, according to a Times analysis of his streams. He said in a video that he had a contract to stream himself gambling.<\/p>\n In one stream, he told his fans: \u201cI remember when I was a 17-year-old kid gambling every day. It was so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Duel and Mr. Rafiq did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n 2018<\/strong> Early in his streaming career, Mikyle Rafiq, known as N3on, played video games on Twitch.<\/p>\n 2025<\/strong> Years later, Mr. Rafiq had become a social media celebrity and started promoting a crypto casino named Duel.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re having a largely unregulated, largely wild west kind of approach to advertising,\u201d said Joshua Grubbs, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico who studies online addictions.<\/p>\n Addictive behaviors are normalized, and streamers like Mr. Ross and Mr. Rafiq have admitted during their videos to having gambling problems.<\/p>\n N3on speaking on a podcast about having a gambling addiction at 17<\/p>\n Chito Vera Podcast, via YouTube<\/p>\n \u201cThe absence of guardrails means that a disproportionately large number of people are going to develop problems,\u201d Mr. Grubbs said.<\/p>\n Even though crypto casinos have existed for years, regulators around the world have struggled to control them.<\/p>\n In the United States, gambling is mostly regulated at the state level, with different laws in each state. Online casino games are legal only in seven states, and none of them allow gambling with cryptocurrencies. But the fragmented regulatory system and outdated laws have left authorities slow to react.<\/p>\n The young people who use the sites, on the other hand, have become increasingly sophisticated. They use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to hide their locations, and they are well-versed in social media networks where illicit activity is encouraged.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kids are much more technologically advanced than the lawmakers and the researchers that are trying to provide stopgaps or controls for them,\u201d said Ms. Key, the New York-based therapist.<\/p>\n Some U.S. states have taken action to disrupt crypto casinos and other illegal gambling websites. The Michigan Gaming Control Board said it had sent more than 100 cease-and-desist letters, including one to Stake\u2019s U.S. operation. Stake.us stopped allowing gamblers from Michigan to use the site.<\/p>\n But the ability of state regulators to crack down on the sites is limited, especially because crypto casinos are licensed overseas and use cryptocurrencies. Many of the smaller sites don\u2019t have an actual address or point of contact.<\/p>\n Legal experts said certain states have laws banning advertising of illegal gambling, which could be used against crypto casino streamers based in the United States. So far, no regulatory action has been taken against them.<\/p>\n Class-action lawsuits on behalf of gamblers who lost money have been filed in some states, including one in Missouri filed in October that accused Stake, Mr. Ross and Drake of deceptive marketing. Stake said it rejected allegations related to the Missouri suit and would vigorously defend itself against the claims. Cases like this can take years to litigate.<\/p>\n In August, a coalition of 50 U.S. attorneys general admitted they needed help addressing the growing problem of illicit online gambling, including crypto casinos.<\/p>\n In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, they asked for Justice Department assistance to seize assets and internet domain names from illegal online gambling operations and to block access to their websites. \u201cSince 2013, USDOJ enforcement actions against illegal offshore gambling sites have been extremely limited,\u201d the letter said.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the Justice Department told The Times in response that illegal internet gambling sites posed a threat to public safety and that the department was committed to holding these operators accountable.<\/p>\n As regulators figure out a path forward, support groups are grappling with an increase in gambling among young people.<\/p>\n Robin Singh, the team leader for the Queens Problem Gambling Resource Center in New York City, said the viral nature of social media videos easily outpaced awareness efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t keep up with the most popular streamers that are on the internet,\u201d Mr. Singh said. \u201cThat\u2019s the problem, unfortunately, that the issue spreads way faster than the solution does.\u201d<\/p>\n Alain Delaqu\u00e9ri\u00e8re contributed research.<\/p>\n Top video grid clips, via Kick, from: Drake, ClassyBeef, Moose, Cabrzy, Frank Dimes, Jay, Yassuo, HeyItsRuff, BlondeRabbit, Trainwreck, Konvy, Keith Locks, xQc, SteveWillDoIt, PayMoneyWubby. Streamer photos, via Kick, from: Drake, Adin Ross, ClassyBeef, Syztmz, Roshtein, Xposed, SteveWillDoIt, Konvy, SchneckyIRL, Frank Dimes, voided, Yassuo, Haddzy, Cabrzy, BlondeRabbit, Club Chedda, Tyceno. Timeline video clips from Adin Ross and N3on, via YouTube and Kick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David and many people like him \u2014 young and chronically online \u2014 have been enticed by crypto casinos, an expanding realm of online gambling where longstanding guardrails are often ignored. The sites have spread across social media, taking advantage of the borderless nature of the internet. They offer hundreds of games, including blackjack, sports betting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[20413,14894,4398,16280,20414,1186,2583],"class_list":{"0":"post-36624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-casinos","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-crypto","11":"tag-gamblers","12":"tag-livestreamers","13":"tag-online","14":"tag-recruit"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u2018Largely Unregulated, Largely Wild West\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
\u2018We Can\u2019t Keep Up\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n