Update: minutes following the publication of this article, the channel DrakeLiveStake was banned and removed by Twitch.
A week has passed since the new Twitch gambling policy came into effect which, in short, is meant to prohibit “unsafe” casinos such as Stake, Rollbit, and Roobet from marketing their brands on the platform. Has the situation improved since then? We’re here to find out.
Basically, what has happened is that the streamers of the now-blacklisted casinos have either gone into hibernation or jumped ship to competing streaming platform DLive. It also didn’t take long for placeholders to pop up in the slots meta, redirecting viewers to DLive with the promise of giveaways and other incentives for viewers to join. As there is nothing in the Twitch terms and conditions preventing the streamers from doing so, it could prove to be a clever move.
The shenanigans don’t stop there. Recently, a channel called DrakeLiveStake as well as a clone called LiveStakeDrake, has appeared in the slots meta, running replays of the Roshtein/Drake stream for the past 48 hours whilst viewbotting with over 10k viewers. Interestingly, some of the slot streamers who initially went over to DLive, have found their way back to Twitch, with streamers like SpinlifeTV openly streaming crypto casino Gamdom (basically an identical casino to Stake) whilst others are systematically hiding the brand of the casino they’re playing on and redirecting viewers to their websites on which prohibited casinos are actively being promoted.
Trainwreckstv, one of the biggest slot streamers on Twitch with 2.1m subscribers, has stopped streaming slots altogether but made a tweet recently promising to give an update on his plans to build a platform of his own.
Twitch, as it turns out, hasn’t actually completely left the meta to regulate itself, though in an odd twist, Casinogrounds streamer Letsgiveitaspin was recently banned from the platform due to “a violation of Twitch’s Community Guidelines or Terms of Service“. To many, this came as a big surprise given the fact that Letsgiveitaspin is not only one of the strongest voices against fake money streaming, he was also streaming on an MGA-licensed casino at the time of the ban.
Twitch’s inconsistent enforcement of the guidelines has been under fire for a long time, something that was recently brought up by streamer personality Charlie in this video. Letsgiveitaspin’s ban is further evidence of Twitch’s incompetence when it comes to moderating its platform.
As it stands, the slots meta is still a mess and Twitch does not seem to properly enforce its rules at the time being. There is a good chance, however, that new purges and policy updates will come into effect as streamers continue to push their luck on the platform.
