A Stake in the future
The casino is paying for the internet
Parody logo generated by ChatGPT.
Stake is everywhere online.
The logo for the online, crypto-based casino appears everywhere: on streams, sports highlights, clip-farm accounts, and the endless slurry of short-form video content. The videos often have nothing to do with gambling.
The online streaming platform Kick, where streamers go after being banished from the more “respectable” Twitch, is one of the most watched video platforms in the world. It was created to funnel viewers onto Stake’s online gambling site. Your teenage son’s favourite content creator is a man sitting in his bedroom losing thousands of dollars a day on the site (using the house’s money).
There are still small oases. YouTube banned the promotion of some gambling sites like Stake. But Stake is escaping into the real world too, sponsoring a Formula 1 team, a Premier League club, and esports teams. Its logo was plastered across the octagon at the UFC fight on the White House lawn.
The old promise of the internet was that creators would no longer need television networks, record labels, or publishers to reach an audience. Well, we got our wish. Gambling sites have swallowed the entire chain, from the people making the content, to the accounts sharing it, to the platforms hosting it.
On the modern internet, the casino foots the bill.