Twitch will update its gambling-related policies on October 18, according to a statement the company posted on its Twitter account, acknowledging the recent spike in debates and discussions. about gambling on this platform.
“We will be implementing a policy update on October 18 to prohibit the streaming of gambling sites including slots, roulette or dice games that are not licensed in the United States or other regions. other legislation that provides sufficient consumer protection,” the statement read. These sites will include Stake, Rollbit, Duelbits, and Roobet among others that Twitch “may identify” as the policy is implemented. The statement notes that sites focusing on sports betting, fantasy sports and poker will still be allowed.
The statement comes after popular content creators including Pokimane, HasanAbi and Asmongold called on Twitch to ban gambling content on the platform; The hashtag #TwitchStopGambling started trending on Twitter earlier this week. While direct, Pokimane, Mizkif and Devin Nash also discussed boycotting the platform if it didn’t ban gambling, in the form of a week-long content strike during the peak Christmas advertising season.
On Monday, news emerged that a popular streamer, Slider, had scammed viewers and fellow streamers out of more than $200,000, as estimated by his colleagues and reported. reported by Kotaku, Reference pointand The Verge. Slider, who is famous for playing Valuable substance and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, admitted in a Twitch stream that he misappropriated viewer donations and instead used them to fund gambling addiction. In the video, he explains how he started gambling on the skin in CS GO.
Twitch has taken a number of measures to tackle gambling; In 2021, Twitch updated its policies to try to prevent streamers from sharing referral codes’ links to sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games. However, this did not stop the proliferation of gambling across the entire platform.
According to a report from Bloomberg, gambling is thriving on Twitch because gambling sites sponsor streamers to gamble online. Advertisers enjoy streaming xQc games regularly to the tune of about 70,000 viewers and already have deals with crypto gambling sites. At the time of publication, Category Twitch Slots to be tenth most popular category on Twitch and had more than 86,000 live viewers.
