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If your child gambled real money on Stake before they could open a bank account, you are not dealing with a one-off mistake. Eight courts are now examining this platform, and The Schenk Law Firm filed one of those cases. There is no fee unless we recover for you.
The Stake lawsuit most parents are searching for is John Doe v. Stake.com, et al., filed on April 7, 2026, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York by The Schenk Law Firm with co-counsel Seeger Weiss LLP and Rafferty Domnick Cunningham & Yaffa. The complaint alleges the operators of Stake.com recruited the plaintiff into crypto gambling at age 13 through paid influencer streams, and that Coinbase processed his deposits for six years despite red flags, including a bank account labeled "High School Checking."
The Schenk Law Firm's April 2026 announcement
It is one case inside a larger Stake lawsuit wave, tracked in full below. The allegations in each case are claims, not established facts, and every case is ongoing.
The California lawsuit against Stake.us came from a prosecutor, not a private plaintiff. Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto sued the owners and operators of Stake.us in Los Angeles Superior Court (filed August 28, announced September 4, 2025), alleging an unlicensed gambling operation that violates California's unfair competition and false advertising laws. The suit names game suppliers and Kick as accomplices, and it seeks to shut the platform out of California and recover what residents lost.
Every Stake.us lawsuit filed since early 2025 attacks the same two pressure points. The first is the dual-currency model that lets "sweepstakes" coins convert to real value. The second is marketing that reached people who should never have been able to play. Last updated: August 7, 2026.
| State / court | Filed | Plaintiff type | Core allegation |
|---|---|---|---|
| California (federal) | Feb 2025 | Consumer class action | Stake.us operates an illegal casino. Claims compelled to arbitration in June 2025 |
| Illinois (Urdan) | Apr 2025 | Consumer class action | Gold Coins / Stake Cash dual-currency system is illegal gambling and unjust enrichment |
| Alabama (Hall) | May 2025 | Mother + minor child | Illegal gambling operation. Child harmed by household losses from his mother's wagering |
| Los Angeles, CA | Aug 2025 (announced Sep 2025) | City Attorney | Unlicensed casino, unfair competition and false advertising. Suppliers and Kick named as accomplices |
| Missouri (Killham) | Oct 2025 | Consumer class action + celebrities | Drake and Adin Ross promoted deceptive, unlawful gambling as a "social casino" |
| Virginia (federal) | Dec 2025 | Federal class action | RICO claims (treble damages available by statute). Tipping feature allegedly funded music-streaming fraud |
| New York (John Doe) | Apr 2026 | Individual consumer | Underage gambling from age 13. Coinbase named as the financial engine. Negligence and consumer protection claims |
| New Jersey (Nufio) | Apr 2026 | Consumer class action | Stake, Kick, Drake, Adin Ross and DJ Akademiks ran an illegal sweepstakes casino under NJ's 2025 ban |
No. If you are asking "is Stake legal in California," the answer covers both platforms. Stake.com holds no gambling license in any US state, and California's AB 831 (Penal Code Section 337o), effective January 1, 2026, banned the dual-currency sweepstakes model Stake.us ran. The ban passed unanimously and reaches payment processors, geolocation providers and media affiliates that knowingly support unlawful platforms.
The ban does not erase what happened before it. If your child deposited and wagered during the years the platform operated here, that conduct may still support a civil gambling lawsuit today. The Stake lawsuit California families follow most closely is the LA City Attorney action, because a public prosecutor calling the platform an unlicensed casino strengthens every private claim that follows. If you searched for a Stake lawsuit California update this year, that is the case to watch.
The Coinbase lawsuit angle is what separates the New York case from every earlier filing. The complaint alleges Coinbase served as the financial engine of the scheme, the on-ramp that turned a teenager's savings into crypto an offshore casino could accept.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff opened a Coinbase account despite the exchange's 18-and-over requirement, and the Coinbase gambling transfers ran for years despite an identity mismatch and that "High School Checking" account. Each transfer to a gambling wallet allegedly carried red flags a compliance system should have caught.
Families searching for a Coinbase class action lawsuit should know the New York case is an individual action, so each family's claim stands on its own facts. Your child's exchange records, bank statements and wallet history are evidence. Preserve them now and request a free case evaluation before anything is deleted.
The Drake Stake lawsuit filings span three states. Missouri's Killham class action (October 2025) accuses Drake and Adin Ross of fraudulently marketing Stake.us as a harmless social casino. A federal RICO class action in Virginia (December 2025) and the New Jersey Nufio case (April 2026, adding DJ Akademiks and Kick) go further, alleging the platform's tipping feature moved money for a music-streaming fraud scheme.
The complaints describe a repeatable playbook of livestreamed betting sessions, clipped jackpot moments recycled across social feeds, and wagers allegedly placed with house money so the streamer never feels the loss a viewer would. If your teen watched these streams, they saw marketing engineered to look like entertainment.
The New York complaint alleges Stake reached minors through paid influencers on Twitch and Kick, a platform created by Stake's own founders, and through a Discord network distributing pre-verified accounts. The same pipeline runs through sports betting, which we break down in our guide to underage sportsbook gambling.
Nearly every online casino lawsuit against Stake turns on the same failure. Verification systems exist on paper and collapse in practice, and the complaints allege all three protective layers failed.
Stake.com states it does not serve US customers and blocks American IP addresses because it holds no US license. Geo-blocking is the platform's own admission that Americans cannot lawfully play there.
The New York complaint alleges the workarounds were an open secret. VPNs masked location, mirror sites replaced blocked domains, and pre-verified accounts traded through Discord skipped signup checks. A 13-year-old allegedly used all three without proving his age.
Know Your Customer (KYC) rules require financial platforms to confirm who a customer actually is. The complaint alleges the KYC layer failed twice. The casino never verified age, and the cryptocurrency exchange ignored signals that its customer was a high school student. That double failure is the backbone of the Stake lawsuit negligence theory.
Underage gambling through crypto casinos is a mainstream problem, not an edge case. A 2026 National Council on Problem Gambling and Harris Poll survey found 65% of young adults gambled before turning 21. Stake.com reportedly draws roughly five million American visitors a month despite claiming to block US users, per the New York complaint. And the bipartisan coalition of 50 state attorneys general that petitioned the Department of Justice in August 2025 cited industry estimates putting illegal online gambling above $400 billion a year. If your child found these platforms, they are one of millions who did.
Four actions shape how courts and regulators treat the platform, and each earlier Stake.us lawsuit gives a new gambling lawsuit more precedent to build on.
Hall v. Sweepsteaks Ltd., Case No. 3:25-cv-00345, was filed May 2, 2025, in Alabama federal court by Laura Hall and her minor child. It alleges an illegal gambling operation in a state where gambling is constitutionally prohibited, with the child harmed by household losses from his mother's wagering.
Brayden Urdan's Illinois class action alleges Stake.us is a copy of the real-money casino Stake.com, and that the Gold Coins and Stake Cash system unjustly enriched the operator through prohibited gambling.
This Stake.us lawsuit is the first brought by a public prosecutor, and it extends liability to game suppliers and Kick as alleged accomplices. The full breakdown sits earlier on this page.
On August 5, 2025, all 50 state attorneys general asked US Attorney General Pam Bondi to pursue injunctive relief under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, seize offshore operators' domains, and cut off their payment processing. Regulators now treat offshore crypto casinos the way courts once treated offshore poker.
Behind every Stake US lawsuit headline is a family ledger. The New York plaintiff, per the complaint, gambled from 13 to 19, drained his savings, charged his father's credit card without permission, and withdrew from Indiana University within a week because the money was gone. He now lives with compulsive gambling disorder and panic disorder, and his father manages his finances. Benjamin Schenk described the scale of this crisis when he was featured in the New York Post on America's teen gambling crisis. If parts of that story sound like your household, the harm is real and it may be compensable.
An underage gambling addiction lawsuit is built on records you may already have:
Screenshots taken today preserve what a platform update deletes tomorrow. A gambling addiction lawsuit rarely fails for lack of harm. It fails for lack of records.
The Schenk Law Firm helped start this litigation, filing the New York Stake lawsuit alongside two national trial firms with deep mass-tort experience. An underage gambling attorney at the firm personally reviews every family's inquiry, and we handle these cases on contingency, so you pay nothing unless we recover for you. If compulsive scrolling preceded the betting, our social media addiction lawyer team can review that claim in the same conversation.
What you do in the first weeks matters most. Four steps protect your family's claim:
Call (858) 424-4444 or start online. The consultation is free and confidential, and there is no fee unless we recover for you.
Start Your Free Case EvaluationNo. Stake.com holds no US gambling license, and AB 831 banned the Stake.us sweepstakes model effective January 1, 2026. Money lost on either platform before the ban can still support a civil claim.
The Stake lawsuit is John Doe v. Stake.com, et al., filed April 7, 2026, in New York, alleging the operators of Stake.com and Coinbase enabled a minor's six years of illegal gambling. It sits within a wave of at least eight state and federal actions since early 2025.
Possibly. Several filings are proposed class actions, and if a court certifies a class you may receive notice automatically. Families with underage losses often have stronger individual claims than a Stake US lawsuit class would offer. One conversation with an attorney tells you which path fits your facts.
The Coinbase lawsuit claims sit inside the New York case, where the complaint alleges Coinbase processed a minor's crypto purchases and transfers to gambling wallets despite clear red flags. Unlike a Coinbase class action lawsuit, these are individual claims tied to one family's records.
A gambling addiction lawsuit seeks compensation from a platform whose unlawful or negligent conduct fed a compulsive gambling disorder, such as illegal operation, failed age verification, or marketing aimed at vulnerable users. Underage cases carry particular weight because minors cannot legally consent to gamble at all.
There is no Stake lawsuit payout yet. No case has settled, no verdict has been reached, and every filing is in active litigation. Potential recovery can include gambling losses and other damages allowed by state law, but no outcome is promised or implied. A free consultation is the fastest way to see what your claim could include.
Licensed to practice in California. We file underage gambling lawsuits nationally with co-counsel. This website is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Prior results do not guarantee future outcomes. Attorney advertising.