Gambling on Twitch has been a controversial topic for a long time and seems to have reached a peak. After a scandal broke that Twitch streamer ‘ItsSliker’ had been scamming mods and viewers out of an alleged $300k to fun his addiction, several heavy content creators began exerting pressure on the Amazon-owned streaming platform to take action and do something about the bigger, underlying issue. Gambling, many have been arguing for a long time now, has become a hot topic on the platform, as an ever-growing number of streamers promoted potentially harmful content to young fans whilst pushing unlicensed crypto casinos know to ignore age restrictions. To the frustration of many, Twitch appeared to just ignore the problem for a long time; but that seems to have changed now. The company just announced a massive change in regard to gambling streams that will have consequences for creators and viewers alike.
In a news update on Twitter, Twitch writes:
Gambling content on Twitch has been a big topic of discussion in the community and something we’ve been actively reviewing since our last policy update in this area. Today, we want to update you on our plans. While we prohibit sharing links or referral codes to all sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games, we’ve seen some people circumvent those rules and expose our community to potential harm.
So, we’ll be making a policy update on October 18th to prohibit streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games that aren’t licensed either in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient customer protection. These sites will include Stake.com, Rollbit.com, Duelbits.com, and Roobet.com. However, we may identify others as we move forward.
We will continue to allow websites that focus on sports betting, fantasy sports, and poker. We’ll share specifics on the updates to our Gambling policy soon, including the full policy language, to ensure everyone is clear on our new rules before they take effect on October 18th.
Whilst the new policy changes don’t ban gambling outright, they do take aim at some of the largest gambling sites that are either favored by Twitch streamers or sponsor them. And the consequences will be big; not only is gambling one of the most popular categories on the platform, with big names such as xQc and Trainwrecks partaking in the activity, they have also both stated that they make over a million a month from the casino brands they feature on-stream.
It remains to be seen what this will mean for casino streamers in general and if they will be able to continue streaming their slots sessions. We’ll keep our readers up to date with the latest news as soon as we know more.
