Notice: To display this embed please allow the use of Functional Cookies in Cookie Preferences.
Twitch has banned promotion and sponsorship of skin gambling in streams, a move that could have ramifications for some of the most popular Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) streamers.
As noted by Dexerto, Twitch’s Community Guidelines page has been updated to reflect the seemingly new policy.
In an FAQ section detailing the policy on prohibited gambling, a new question asks: “Is sponsorship of skins gambling, such as for CSGO skins, allowed on Twitch?”
“No,” reads the reply, “promotion or sponsorship of skins gambling is prohibited under our policy.”
In a video released last month, Counter-Strike YouTuber Houngoungagne published a video called ‘The Dark Reality Behind CSGO’ in which he investigates the proliferation of skin gambling sites and their promotion by Twitch streamers.
As part of his research, he put together a list of the top 300 CSGO streamers, based on total watchtime since the start of 2023, to see how many were being sponsored by skin gambling websites.
“I checked how many of them are promoting that kind of stuff,” he explained. “Out of 300 [streamers], 226 are currently sponsored by at least one of them. Some have up to five.
“We are looking at 75%. Three out of four streamers are currently promoting these websites live on Twitch.”
At the time of the video’s publication last month, Houngoungagne noted that Twitch’s Community Guidelines said it didn’t “allow users to share links or affiliate codes to sites that contain slots, roulette or dice games”, and that he reached out to Twitch for further clarification but they declined to comment.
It would appear, then, that the update to the Community Guidelines explicitly stating that sponsorship of CSGO skin gambling was added this past week.
It reamins to be seen how vigilant Twitch will be with this new policy – given Houngoungagne’s findings that around 75% of the most popular CSGO streamers are now violating the policy, they will either have to drop their CSGO skin gambling sponsorship or risk Twitch sanctions.
In March, it will be releasing Counter-Strike 2 this summer. The announcement led to a surge in CSGO players, smashing the game’s previous record for concurrent players.