Are Kick's Top Streamers Abandoning Stake Casino?

Dr. Annelies De Vos · 2026-03-27

Picture this. A star player for your favorite sports team gets fed up with their contract. They decide to jump ship, but not to just any team. They sign with your team's biggest rival. That's annoying enough, right? Now imagine if that player kept using your team's stadium to practice for their new club. That's the awkward situation Stake, the crypto casino, finds itself in right now. Stake created the streaming platform Kick back in 2022. It was a clever workaround. Twitch had just banned streamers from promoting unregulated casinos like Stake. So, Stake built its own stage. Top gambling streamers could play high-stakes slots live for their audiences, all while promoting Stake. It was a perfect partnership. But now, some of those same stars are starting to drift toward other casinos. And here's the kicker—they're still using Kick's platform to do it. They're essentially promoting a competitor's product on the very stage Stake built for itself. Even Trainwreckstv, a key collaborator in Kick's creation, is publicly questioning his future with Stake. So, what's going on? Is this the start of a major shift? ### How Did We Get Here? To understand the present, we have to look back. Major streamers like Trainwreckstv and Roshtein became huge on Kick. They each boast over a million followers. Their content? Playing real-money slots, often with massive bets, exclusively on Stake. The casino paid them hefty sponsorship deals, and in return, Stake was the only casino you'd see on their streams. Then, in October 2022, Twitch dropped a bombshell. They banned all content featuring unregulated casinos. Overnight, the slot gambling category on Twitch lost 97% of its viewers. Crypto casinos were suddenly locked out of their biggest promotional channel. Trainwreckstv had an idea. He wanted to build a new, streamer-friendly platform. Stake stepped in to help make it a reality. That platform was Kick, launched in December 2022. Train declared that Twitch had "lost its grasp on reality" and promised Kick would be better, offering streamers a 95% revenue share from subscriptions. ### The Rush to Kick The appeal was instant. Roshtein and Xposed switched over quickly. They were soon followed by a wave of other big names. - **Adin Ross**: This controversial star, with over 7 million followers on Kick, joined in January 2023. He felt more welcome on the free-speech-friendly platform compared to Twitch. - **xQc**: One of Twitch's biggest stars, with over 12 million followers, signed a monumental deal with Kick reportedly worth $100 million in 2023. That's a contract on par with LeBron James' Lakers deal at the time. - **Other notable signings** included chess grandmaster GMHikaru, top female streamer Amouranth, and gambling streamer Cuffem. For a while, it was a win-win. Streamers had a new home, and Stake had a direct line to millions of potential customers. ### The First Cracks Appear The harmony didn't last forever. Xposed, a Canadian streamer whose real name is Cody Burnett, was one of the first to make a move. In March 2024, he announced he was leaving Stake to return to Roobet, the casino where he started his streaming career. He commented on the move, hinting at receiving a message that made him reconsider his partnership. This move was significant. It showed that even streamers who helped build Kick's audience were not permanently tied to Stake. The platform Kick had become a neutral ground, a tool that could be used to promote any casino, not just its creator. This puts Stake in a tricky spot. They invested heavily to create a solution to Twitch's ban. Now, that solution is being used by some to potentially undermine them. It's like building a mall to house your store, only to see your competitors move in and thrive using the foot traffic you created. The big question now is whether Xposed is an outlier or a trendsetter. With Trainwreckstv himself expressing doubts, the industry is watching closely. Could a mass exodus of streamers from Stake be on the horizon? Only time will tell, but the first domino may have already fallen.