Kind of relevant to the discussion, but someone on youtube was showing his audience how to manipulate youtube to boost a channel's chances at appearing on the algorithm and so-so, but he talked about gift memberships here
https://youtu.be/SeJVya3TBwg?t=7183tl;dr, youtube has a priority system with gift memberships so that the people who get gifted members are more likely to be the ones who interact/engage with the stream. So if you're someone who talks in chat a lot or watches the stream often, you're more likely to receive one than say, some troll.
Still doesn't help the issue of it accidentally being in the hands of shitters, but at least the general selection of people are probably just poorfags who watch a lot
