Stake Ads on Twitter / X

Submission 282

Part of a series on Viral Marketing. [View Related Entries]

About

Stake Ads on Twitter / X, also known as Stake Ads on Everything, refers to a viral advertising campaign by the gambling website Stake.com on Twitter / X centered on paying engagement bait and gimmick accounts to add the Stake logo onto unrelated memes, videos and clips. The Stake logo was often added to the media's bottom with additional text reading, "This Is An #Ad" or "Gamble Responsibly #Ad." The phenomenon started in August 2024 when the X account FearBuck (@FearedBuck) began placing the Stake logo on clips of streamers Kai Cenat and Adin Ross, among others. After receiving criticism and Community Notes, FearBuck eventually stopped advertising Stake. The undisclosed advertisements (for a gambling website) technically violated Twitter / X's community guidelines and violated FTC guidance, however, the posts remained largely unaffected. Going into September 2024, other X accounts with large followings began advertising for Stake. In turn, the phenomenon continued to generate backlash and discourse online. It then led to ironic memes in which creators made satirical Stake ad posts, making fun of the strange and allegedly illegal ad campaign by inserting the Stake logo into increasingly unrelated meme images and videos to a hyperbolic degree.

Origin

In 2023, Stake.com received widespread criticism on Twitter / X and elsewhere because people speculated that the site was paying for covert, undisclosed advertisements on social media. For instance, many Kick streamers like Adin Ross gambled live on Stake and received posts from large X^[1] accounts like @DramaAlert about how much they won. Many X^[2]^[3] users speculated that the streamers and X accounts were working in tandem to promote Stake.

Stake is also notably owned by Kick's CEO Eddie Craven, leading to more speculation that Craven is astroturfing his gambling website by marketing it to young audiences on Kick and later promoting it via undisclosed ads on X.^[4]^[5]

On August 7th, 2024, X^[6] user @FearedBuck tweeted a clip of Kick streamer Sneako with a Stake logo added to the bottom left corner. The post received over 11.7 million views and 61,000 likes in a month (shown below).

Going into the following days, @FearedBuck posted multiple tweets^[7] with images and videos that randomly included the Stake logo. Other accounts like X^[8] user @scubaryan_ added to the trend.

On August 7th, X^[9] user @HUN2R noted the pattern in a viral tweet that included screenshots of @FearedBuck's post. The user wrote, "Clipper FearBuck is now putting brands on other people's content without permission and running them as ads for Stake," gaining over 12,000 likes in a month (shown below).

On August 8th, a Community Note^[10] was rated helpful on one of @FearedBuck's Stake ads (shown below). It cited @HUN2R's tweet^[9] and a page on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website about "Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers," noting that the ads violated the FTC's guidelines.^[11]

Spread

Going into August 2024, @FearedBuck's Stake ads went dormant but other X^[12] users took the account's place. For instance, on August 24th, 2024, the X^[13] account @CFC_Janty tweeted a football post about FC Barcelona that included the Stake logo with bottom text reading, "This Is An #Ad." The post received over 21,000 likes in a month and also received quote tweets from other X^[14] users who criticized and mocked the Stake ad (shown below).

On August 29th, X^[15] user @brndxix quoted a post that added the Stake logo onto a video of a man crying at his wedding. @brndxix wrote, "stake ad in the bottom left #IKnowWhatYouAre," receiving over 3,500 likes in a month (shown below).

In September 2024, Stake ads took a new form that showed the logo in a black banner (often at the bottom) with additional text reading, "GAMBLE RESPONSIBLY︱#AD." For instance, on September 21st, X^[16] user @ylevi tweeted a video of the Gay Stairs that used the new banner, gaining over 5,200 likes in three days and a community note criticizing it (shown below).

Later on September 21st, X^[17] user @vt1nz quoted the abovementioned post, using a reaction video that had the same Stake logo banner in it, receiving over 150,000 likes in three days (shown below).

On September 22nd, 2024, X^[18] user @Mlickles quoted the abovementioned post, noting the pattern by saying, "Having to put ads on your reaction videos is frying me we are in a new era." Over two days, the post received roughly 57,000 likes (shown below).

Ironic iterations mocking the Stake ads surfaced en masse in the following days. For instance, on September 23rd, X^[19] user @blephin_ posted the Apple's Best Feature engagement bait post with a bottom ad reading, "Sponsored by Raising Canes," gaining over 13,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Also on September 23rd, X^[20] user @NintendoGCN tweeted the "She Just Roasted All of Twitter" video that had a hyperbolic amount of Stake ads added to it, receiving over 710 likes in a day (shown below).