Drake loses $1.5 million on World Cup bet as crypto wagering draws billions
Drake lost a $1.5 million bet on Argentina in the World Cup final after placing it through the crypto casino Stake. Spain’s 1-0 victory handed fans another excuse to joke about the infamous “Drake curse.” Funny, sure. But I think the Polymarket figure matters more: traders put $4.28 billion into its World Cup winner contract. That is not niche activity. Crypto betting is now a massive business, regardless of what regulators and traditional bookmakers think of it.
The rapper reportedly backed Argentina at +245 odds and shared the slip with his 140 million-plus Instagram followers before the July 19 final. An Argentina win in regulation or extra time would have returned about $5.175 million, including roughly $3.67 million in profit. Bitcoin.com News covered the wager before kickoff and reported that prediction market traders favored Spain. They got it right. Spain controlled much of the match, although Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez repeatedly kept the score level. Then came the break: a red card in second-half stoppage time left Argentina with ten players and changed the game. Ferran Torres scored 39 seconds into the second half of extra time, securing Spain’s 1-0 win and its second World Cup title.
A celebrity losing a huge bet is good gossip. The scale and visibility of this one are more revealing. Drake put $1.5 million into a crypto casino, then displayed the receipt to an audience of 140 million-plus Instagram followers—larger than Mexico’s population. Why does that matter? Because the post makes crypto wagering look ordinary, perhaps more ordinary than it actually is. Gamblers wagered about $5.5 billion across crypto betting sites before the final. Some of that money came from experienced traders; other bets surely came from people chasing a quick thrill. Either way, users spent digital assets as money instead of simply holding tokens and hoping prices would rise. Most crypto commentary treats celebrity bets as noise. That is only half right. PayPal’s 2020 entry into crypto offers a rough comparison: Bitcoin (BTC) later crossed $20,000 and kept climbing. Drake’s bet cannot produce the same effect by itself. Still, my take is that at least some of the millions who saw it will become future crypto users.
Blockchain records from the final also reveal how much individual bettors were prepared to risk. Lookonchain found a new wallet created ten hours before kickoff. Its owner placed $1.95 million on Spain at odds that implied a 59.1% chance of winning, then made $1.35 million within hours. Another gambler, known as gud.hl, took the other side. They staked $1.23 million on Argentina at 10% odds for a possible $12.35 million payout. That is a staggering long shot. Anyone could inspect the transfers and settlement afterward because the bets appeared on the blockchain, access traditional betting systems rarely provide. Professional firms may value quick settlement. Auditable records help too. But I’ll be honest: neither feature makes gambling safe. Ethereum (ETH) staking now holds more than 26% of the currency’s supply and reflects a similar desire to put crypto to use. The comparison stops there. Staking and sports betting involve very different risks.
For Drake, the loss adds to a public betting record that has been costly, though not quite as catastrophic as the jokes imply. Since February 2022, he has placed 87 tracked public bets worth $38.72 million. Those bets returned $37.17 million, putting him down $1.56 million with a 36.8% win rate. His average stake was $445,080. Since April 30, 2024, his public wagers have lost $5.7 million, including $1.67 million on soccer. Fans call it the “Drake curse,” pretending his support dooms whichever team receives it. Argentina has now joined the list, along with Lionel Messi, who ranked among the final’s poorest performers. Is the curse real? No. The losses are. I find the joke less funny once those dollar amounts sink in. Counter to the usual celebrity-gambling narrative, Drake is not merely generating memes; he is also giving Stake and other crypto casinos publicity that would be difficult to purchase through conventional advertising.
What this means
Crypto betting is no longer a niche market. Full stop. Celebrity users attract attention, but Polymarket’s World Cup winner contract processed $4.28 billion. That liquidity allowed traders to take large positions without stepping into an empty market. Most guides frame prediction sites as future sportsbook replacements. I am not convinced. Crypto prediction sites will not necessarily replace sportsbooks, though they are already competing for substantial sums across gambling and forecasting. Any effect on decentralized finance (DeFi) is harder to pin down. A person who creates a wallet for a World Cup market might later try another crypto product. Plenty will not. MicroStrategy began buying Bitcoin (BTC) in August 2020, attracting corporate attention before a major price rally. Drake’s wager carries far less weight. Even so, the burst of publicity feels familiar.
Regulators are likely to take a closer look, especially in countries with strict gambling laws. Public blockchain records make transfers easier to follow, yet wallets can conceal the people controlling them. That tension complicates anti-money laundering (AML) checks. It also weakens know-your-customer (KYC) requirements. Coinbase (COIN) and Binance are worth watching because smaller crypto companies often take cues from their compliance choices. New prediction market protocols deserve attention as well, particularly if developers connect them to lending pools or derivatives. Yes, that sounds useful—and it can be. Those links might give professional traders practical ways to hedge, but they could also produce convoluted bets that most users cannot properly judge. Is that overkill as a regulatory concern? Not when individual positions already reach $1.95 million. My guess is that regulation will move much faster when the next person to lose $1 million does not have Drake’s bank account.