Twitch, the Amazon-owned live-streaming site that receives over 31 million visits daily, has long ignored gambling streaming. Streamers effectively market gambling companies to a young audience: Twitch claims that roughly 75% of its visitors are between 16 and 34.

The National Center for Responsible Gaming reported that 6-9% of young people deal with problem gambling, contrasted with around 1% of adults.

What happened here?

Due to its international exposure and lack of comprehensive oversight over stream content, Twitch effectively enables illegal casinos to exist on its platform. Viewers would be able to enter one of these feeds and place real-money wagers on chance-based games.

This has become extremely popular, with gambling streams accounting for a sizable amount of Twitch’s viewership. The slots genre is one of Twitch’s most popular, often outperforming Fortnite on the platform.

A portion of this streaming is technically lawful under gaming legislation. Still, there were numerous possibilities for streamers to defraud their viewers by accepting illegally processed payments and promoting crypto casinos (which are illegal under US gambling regulations).

Stake.com, hit by the impending restriction, has sponsored Twitch shows, spending ridiculous amounts of money to entice new participants and enable them to wager using cryptocurrency on their platform.

However, there has been increasing criticism of wagering recently when a Twitch broadcaster live-streamed a video to followers over the weekend, professing to have cheated them out of more than $200,000 to fuel his gambling addiction.

Twitch’s prominent streamers have been campaigning for a gambling crackdown, with the hashtag #TwitchStopGambling surging on Twitter. Some have even proposed a week-long boycott over the crucial holiday season.

A streamer scammed fans out of $200,000+?

Yes, and it was closer to $300,000.

ItsSliker, a U.K.-based streamer who rose to prominence in 2019 after participating in game show streaming, was accused of duping Twitch personalities into lending him large sums of money. According to Discord records published on a Reddit thread, ItsSliker stated that his bank account had been locked and that he required assistance.

Several big-name streamers, including Ludwig Ahgren, Mizkif, Lukeafkfan, and Trainwreck, started to come forward with similar experiences about being approached to help ItsSliker with his financial situation under comparable circumstances, including Trainwreck, who claimed that he once decided to give the lesser-known ItsSliker about $45,000.

Twitch’s most-watched streamer in 2021, xQc, has pledged to assist in recouping the funds, calculating the sum to be roughly $300,000.

So, how did Twitch respond?

The half-measures that followed

ItsSliker admitted to having a gambling issue in a video over that weekend, claiming that it all began with placing bets using in-game skins in the legendary game of Counterstrike: Global Offensive. Following that, he began to gamble with money, eventually progressing to sports betting.

Twitch responded to the problem — and threats from some of its largest streamers — by announcing that it will make a policy change in October prohibiting “slots, roulette, or dice games” that aren’t regulated in the United States or other nations with strong consumer safeguards.

Sites such as Stake.com, Rollbit.com, Roobet.com, and Duelbits.com will be blocked under these half-measures against gambling streams.

Twitch stated that it would continue to permit websites specializing in sports betting, fantasy football, and poker, leaving plenty of opportunity for several of the most prominent examples of betting on the platform.

Many streamers rejoiced at the victory over gambling, which they think has no place on Twitch. Others have highlighted that the company’s half-measure would have little influence on the con that sparked the topic in the first place.

Is Twitch being hypocritical?

Twitch’s move was attacked by a well-known and controversial gambling streamer Trainwreck. Twitch’s policy modification was labeled disingenuous by the prominent streamer, who cited the service’s association with sports betting platform DraftKings.

Trainwreck spoke on Destiny’s YouTube show and explained why he thinks Twitch’s decision to forbid gambling is hypocritical. According to the streamer, Twitch enforced its new policy unevenly, only covering types of gambling that were not directly benefitting the platform, noting Twitch’s connection with the prominent sports betting website.

Trainwreck mentioned DraftKings’ agreement with Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, which permits the streaming service to live stream Thursday Night Football.

The enormous amounts of money involved

The Twitch-DraftKings 11-year contract is valued at more than $13 billion, and the season’s opening game attracted thousands of live spectators on Twitch. Trainwreck thought the particular treatment of sports was unfair, especially given Twitch’s interests in perpetuating this type of betting.

Trainwreck launched into a profanity-laced rant about the platform’s inconsistency. However, it’s easy to see why he’s so vocal. He makes a lot of money on the site by encouraging gambling to a mostly young audience, which is, in some senses, unjustifiable.

What does this all mean?

Whether you believe gambling has a home on Twitch or not, the discussion that arose from some interpersonal turmoil amongst streamers is becoming rather murky.

Twitch may have appeased some of its biggest stars by promising to remove a few gambling names, but there’s not much platforms can do when it comes to fraudsters who use regular old social engineering to deceive those around them.

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