Have you ever been watching a YouTuber, when suddenly they begin an ad read for a company you have never heard of? Typically, these ads include the promise of a percentage discount, free months of service, or other similar incentives to get you to click on the link in their description. While most viewers just skip through to when the ad read is done, YouTube audiences can be so large that a certain amount of people are bound to use the service or buy the product. It also does not help that YouTubers are incentivised with high dollar amounts to get as many clicks as possible for the product they are promoting. YouTubers are paid a large sum depending on click-through rate and audience size, even being paid upwards of $20,000 for a single video. This begs the question of what happens when these YouTubers begin promoting scams or fraudulent services to their vast audiences. Let’s visit some of the most famous cases of sponsor scams in youtube's history and get you set up and prepared should you ever encounter one.

FTX

Likely the most infamous case of YouTube sponsor scams involves FTX. FTX was a currency exchange market used to sell and buy various cryptocurrencies, in which users could also use the platform as a digital wallet. The platform grew rapidly through a marketing campaign that used celebrity endorsements, Super Bowl ads, and YouTuber sponsorships. FTX came to an end shortly after it was found out that the head of the company, Sam Bankman-Fried, was misusing customer funds. The celebrities and YouTubers who were paid to promote the platform were hit with a $1 billion lawsuit, which was subsequently dismissed due to lack of criminal intent. Even though the case was dismissed, it is still scary to think about how these massive YouTubers can elevate a shady company like FTX to such a high degree through sheer social influence. 

COUNTER-STRIKE GAMBLING WEBSITES 

While the previous YouTubers weren't directly perpetrating the FTX scam, the YouTubers promoting CS:GO Lotto, a weapons skins gambling website, definitely were. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is an online shooter game that boasts over 1 million concurrent players in 2025 and has been extremely popular for years. There is a system in the game where players can unlock skins through opening virtual cases with keys, which has given way to a player-led marketplace. To give a brief description of the Counter-Strike skins market, it is currently valued at over $4.2 billion dollars and involves players trading in-game weapons skins of various rarities for real-world money. This incident occurred back in 2016 when the regulations on these skin gambling websites were non-existent, meaning anyone could access and use CS:GO Lotto without verifying their age. This was an issue as without proper age verification, children were able to gamble essentially real world money in the form of digital skins. Despite this, the YouTubers TmarTn and Syndicate would post videos of themselves on the CS:GO Lotto website, winning large amounts of money by gambling their skins under the guise that their videos were sponsored. The audiences of these two primarily consisted of children who were being led to believe that they could make large amounts of money by a creator they trusted. As it turns out, both TmarTn and Syndicate were president and vice-president, respectively, of the company that owns CS:GO Lotto. They were actively deceiving their underage audience to profit from them. Following the entire ordeal neither TmarTn nor Syndicate were ever formally charged for their involvement in CS:GO Lotto. This was due to there being no precedent in law to charge them for this kind of act. 

HONEY

This time, instead of viewers being scammed, it was the YouTubers who were being targeted. Honey is a Google Chrome extension that finds coupons and deals on websites, usually in the form of codes that you could use at checkout. High-profile YouTubers such as MrBeast, Marques Brownlee, and Linus Tech Tips were paid to actively promote the company, along with many others. In early 2025, it was discovered that Honey was actively stealing money gained from affiliate links. If a user with the Honey extension clicks on an affiliate link, the commission intended for the YouTuber would now get sent to Honey. This was due to Honey swapping to their own affiliate link at checkout without the user realizing, affecting YouTubers and influencers since many of them rely on commissions from these links. Honey users were also impacted since they were actively being deceived. There was no indication that the links were being swapped, so if they thought they were helping someone by clicking their affiliate link, when, in reality, they were just giving money to Honey.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR 

There is no comprehensive solution for avoiding YouTube sponsor scams, but there are ways to avoid being the victim of one. Keep these in mind whenever you encounter one in the wild. 

1. Don't take what the YouTuber is saying as the absolute truth; they are being paid to say what the company wants and nothing more.

2. Do your own research into the company, and scrutinize what they advertise.

3. Look at what others have to say about the company online. Preferably on different platforms and not the reviews on the company's website itself.

YouTubers have a lot of influence in this day and age and they can exert their influence into elevating platforms that probably shouldn't be elevated. This is why it is imperative that you take even what your favorite YouTuber says with a grain of salt. Do your own research, be skeptical of what you see and hear, and take the power into your own hands!