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A slew of Twitch streamers have come under fire over the past few months due to gambling on the platform, but it came to a head yesterday after ItsSliker admitted to scamming over $200,000 from followers to fuel his addiction. Now, other streamers are calling on the platform to ban gambling altogether.
On stream, Pokimane, Mizkif, and Devin Nash discussed an early plan to make a statement and hold a strike during the holiday season. That’s when Twitch boasts peak ads, so the three are aiming to hit its bottom line to make themselves heard. They also took to Twitter to address the controversy directly, with Pokimane stating, “like if twitch should ban gambling”. 239,000 people seem to agree.
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“The issue of gambling on Twitch should have resolved months ago with a platform wide ban”, Devin tweeted. “I left Twitch over this issue and still feel the exact same as eight months ago when I originally took that stand. Gambling is horrible for the platform. Get rid of it… Gambling is damaging to young Twitch users, bad for legitimate advertisers, and brings down the quality of the whole site… We shouldn’t let the behavior of ‘gambling addicts’ off either. Every streamer is accountable for their own platform.”
Pokimane, Mizkif, and Devin Nash talking about early plans to make a joint statement with other top streamers that unless @Twitch takes action on gambling, they will hit them economically during the holiday season (peak ads).#TwitchNews #TwitchStopGambling pic.twitter.com/pyQPINTOu3 — Zach Bussey (@zachbussey) September 19, 2022
ItsSliker came under fire for stealing over $200,000 from fans and followers to fuel his gambling addiction, while also reaching out to other streamers to ask if he could borrow money. Though he never stated why, admitting that he lied to them. Streamer Lukeafk admitted to lending ItsSliker over $27,000 which they have yet to get back.
However, streamers Ludwig and xQc – the latter of whom has previously come under fire for gambling streams, propping up the meta – claim that they are working together “to pay everyone back who got scammed by sliker”, while Ludwig also added, “It’s time Twitch does something about gambling streams”.
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