Andrew Tate’s Crypto Casino Deal Sparks Industry Outrage

• Tate’s Duel.com tie-up ignites debate about ethics in online gaming
• The casino’s silence leaves questions about the depth of the partnership
• Affiliate footage links the influencer’s fight promotion to Duel branding

Controversial influencer Andrew Tate appears to have signed a deal with crypto casino Duel.com.

Several affiliate sites have posted promotional material showing Tate wearing a T-shirt sporting the Duel.com logo while training for his upcoming “Misfits Boxing” fight with TV personality turned boxer Chase Demoor. A video short anticipating the bout flashes Duel.com and the date, December 20. Meanwhile, on November 7, Tate shared the URL Duel.com/tate on Twitter without further comment – an apparent affiliate link.

Duel.com itself has been tight-lipped thus far about the apparent tie-up, other than to re-share Tate’s X post on what appears to be its current official X account. The previous one was suspended in October for reasons that remain unclear.

‘Toxic Masculinity’

While a few industry figures praised the deal on social media, many expressed shock that an operator would partner with a man facing human-trafficking and rape charges in Romania and the UK – a move some said reflected poorly on the state of the gambling sector.

Is this really the industry we want to work within, an industry that praises toxic masculinity?” Brandie E. Black, PR Consultant and co-founder of ESG iGaming, an NGO championing ethical gaming, asked Casino.org. “I am so glad not to be the daughter, wife or sister of any of these so-called men who think this ‘marketing’ move is ‘cool, bro.'”

Tate, a British-American former kickboxer, has been called “the King of Toxic Masculinity” for multiple comments espousing misogyny, including that women should “bear responsibility” for being raped.

For Duel, the short-term gains are obvious – Tate has more than 10 million followers on X. But for Tate himself, who claimed to have converted to Islam in 2022, it’s a less straightforward fit. Since his conversion, he has declared gambling to be “haram.”

He also once proclaimed on X, that “the easiest way to stop gambling is to kill yourself.”

It wasn’t always thus. Tate and his brother, Tristan, once had interests in the “Las Vegas” brand of casinos and slots parlors in Eastern Europe, along with two reputed organized crime figures, the Doroftei brothers, according to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

‘The Monarch’

Duel, which claims to be “the first casino that gives a f*ck,” according to its tagline, is licensed and regulated in the loosest possible sense of the word by the Government of the Autonomous Island of Anjouan.

Duel has been criticized for its marketing strategies in the past, which have included the sharing among X accounts of shock-value videos bearing the casino’s watermark.

Casino.org has reached out to Ketola for comment.