Adin Ross Has Equity In Kick

Adin Ross, a controversial figure on the internet, is one of the most popular and richest live streamers worldwide. He started off with his NBA 2k gameplays, later he pivoted to variety live streaming on platforms like Twitch and YouTube.

He has a combined social media following of over 20M across YouTube, Instagram, X, and TikTok. One event that increased his popularity was when basketball legend LeBron James connected with him on a call. He uploaded the clip on Twitter which soon went viral.

Adin was banned 7 times from Twitch before he was permanently banned in February 2023 due to violating the platform's terms of service by employing offensive slurs and symbols, resulting in several warnings and temporary bans.

These actions were deemed a breach due to "Unmoderated hateful conduct in chat," as disclosed in the warnings. Adin Ross clarified that the issue stemmed from showcasing a Kick chat box on a Twitch stream, inadvertently containing offensive slurs.

He moved to Kick and became the first person in history to achieve 1 million followers (on Kick). Since then, he has been going out of his ways to promote Kick in a bunch of different ways:

1. Switching to Kick as his official platform (his personal brand too)

2. Streaming on Kick

3. Endorsing Kick on social media

4. Collaborating with other content creators

5. Engaging in public discussions about Kick

But how is this deal structured? How can Kick buy access to such huge distribution through Adin, it just can’t be cash right? What does the incentive look like? Does Adin Ross really own 30% of Kick?

Kick was seen signing creators left right and center since its launch in October 2022. The reported $200M two-year non-exclusive deal with xQc, giving Drake $20M, Adin Ross having equity in Kick, and Trainwreck gambling on Stake’s casino literally skyrocketed their growth bringing 150M unique viewers to their website in 6 months.

These are all inflated valuations, it is a combination of cash+ equity+ some incentive based on the number of viewers you can bring to the platform. It’s still significant though, how a 6-month-old company finance all of this?

Well, Kick is started by Stake.com (an online gambling platform that offers sports betting and casino games). Founded by Bijan Tehrani and Eddie Craven with the goal of creating a creator-friendly platform that ensures a fair revenue split for content creators, aiming to rival other streaming platforms by recognizing the value of live streaming. But is it actually that?

Fair, Kick does understand the value of creators/streamers: their revenue split being 90-10 for all irrespective of whether you’re a partner, Kick is going to launch their creator program (in beta) and offer a base paycheck to each even if one has 500 viewers - Adin Ross

But Kick’s business model is not “ads” or even “revenue-split”. Stake was banned in the US due to regulatory issues. The platform is not licensed or regulated by any US gambling authority, which is a violation of US gambling laws. However, stake.us still operates by sidestepping gambling regulations by using “sweepstakes”.

You're not betting real 'money'; instead, you're betting sweepstakes tickets. These tickets come as a bonus when you purchase social coins. The prize involves redeeming any 'won' ticket from gameplay for an equivalent amount of cash, but the ticket must first be played through a game before it becomes eligible for redemption.

It’s “sweepstakes”, not “gambling”.

Kick started because Twitch banned gambling on their platform, the strategy they are using to funnel viewers to Kick from Twitch is having creators play some of the game on Twitch and play the REAL game on Kick (migrating viewers & breaking viewing habits).

Stake was using Twitch as a distribution platform, then they created their own Twitch (Kick) to funnel even deeper.

Kick is the top of the funnel for Stake; they are losing money on this distribution business to make sure Stake generates a lot of cash. Their main objective is not to become a profitable streaming platform and beat Twitch (maybe that is a goal) but to funnel the viewers to gamble in their inner casino.

I think Stake will continue to grow in size, Kick eventually become a diversion or distraction.