A US federal judge has paused a proposed class action accusing Drake of running a bot operation to inflate his music streams via the online casino platform Stake.us. Judge Leonie Brinkema ordered the entire case into arbitration after granting a motion from Stake operator Sweepsteaks Ltd, meaning the claims against Drake cannot proceed while the underlying dispute with Stake is resolved through individual arbitration. This effectively stalls, for now, one of several legal challenges scrutinising the authenticity of Drake's record-breaking streaming numbers.

The suit, filed in December 2025 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 safe while funnelling player money into a "bot army" to boost Drake's play counts, and cited claims that Drake earns $100 million a year promoting the site. Stake has dismissed the allegations as "nonsense," and Brinkema found that none of the plaintiffs had opted out of Stake's mandatory arbitration terms, as required within 30 days, consistent with four prior rulings against Stake. Drake, who Spotify ranks as its most-streamed artist ever with over 120 billion streams, has not been served in the case or publicly responded, and a separate California lawsuit alleging billions of fake Spotify streams inflating his numbers was dismissed in June 2026 without naming him as a defendant.