Drake's Stake.us case turns on a New Mexico fight over discovery

A federal judge in Virginia paused a proposed class action accusing hip-hop star Drake of running a bot operation to inflate his music streams, ordering the case into arbitration, Music Business Worldwide reported. Judge Leonie Brinkema granted a motion from Sweepsteaks Ltd., operator of online casino platform Stake.us, to compel arbitration and stayed the case, meaning claims naming Drake will not move forward in court while the underlying dispute with Stake proceeds individually. The suit, brought by eight Stake.us users led by LaShawnna Ridley and Tiffany Hines, accused Stake, Drake, streamer Adin Ross, George Nguyen and platform Kick of misrepresenting Stake as a "lawful and safe gambling experience" while using player money to fund a "bot army" that inflated Drake's streams. Stake denied the allegations: "Stake.us does not have a tipping function that could be used in this way," a spokesperson said. "This is a nonsense claim and we are not concerned about this lawsuit."

A separate New Mexico case remains far from resolved. According to an August 13 joint filing reported by AllHipHop, plaintiffs Nathaniel Torres and Rory Michie asked Chief US District Judge Kenneth Gonzales for another 90-day pause or court-approved discovery into how Drake's Stake promotion reached New Mexico residents, while Drake and Ross want part of an existing stay lifted so they can refile dismissal motions. "Without discovery, Plaintiff cannot ascertain the exact number of New Mexico residents that have subscribed to Drake's Kick.com channel," the plaintiffs' lawyers wrote, arguing "the Court can reasonably infer from Drake's substantial follower count and widespread influence on young people nationwide" that at least one qualifying transaction occurred in the state. Drake has countered in an earlier declaration that he never "directed, tailored, or targeted" his Stake.us content "specifically to New Mexico residents or to the New Mexico market."

The jurisdictional split extends beyond these two cases. Stake has already won arbitration in a similar South Carolina case, while a Minnesota judge refused arbitration in another, a ruling Stake is appealing to the Eighth Circuit. Gonzales has not yet ruled on the New Mexico requests; if he grants a 90-day extension, the plaintiffs have proposed a status report by Nov. 11.

The Stake litigation adds to a broader run of scrutiny over Drake's streaming numbers, an artist Spotify lists as the most-streamed of all time after he passed 120 billion streams on the service in September 2025. A separate case, covered in Rapper RBX refiles lawsuit accusing Spotify of ignoring streaming fraud, centers on similar stream-manipulation allegations tied to Drake, though he is not named as a defendant in that suit. Drake has also been on the other side of a bot-streaming dispute: in November 2024 his company Frozen Moments LLC petitioned to accuse UMG and Spotify of inflating streams of Kendrick Lamar's "Not Like Us," before withdrawing it and instead suing UMG for defamation, a case dismissed in October 2025 that Drake is now appealing.

None of the allegations against Drake in the Stake litigation have been proven, and he has not publicly addressed them. The complaint alleges he has publicly acknowledged receiving $100 million a year to promote Stake, whose own site describes him as a "long-time member of the Stake community."