Twitch, the streaming platform whose growth has primarily been fueled by video game content creators, has announced that starting October 18, it will ban streams featuring gambling websites that “aren’t licensed either in the U.S. or other jurisdictions,” due to a lack of “sufficient consumer protection.”
However, the Amazon-owned company also said that it will continue to allow streams that feature sports betting, poker and fantasy sports.
A number of well-known gambling sites have already been named in the upcoming ban, including Rollbit, Stake, Roobet and Duelbits. Twitch has said that those are just the first to be mentioned, and more will follow in the near future.
The company released the following statement via Twitter: “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. 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, and dice games that aren’t licensed in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection.”
Gambling on Twitch has been somewhat controversial for several years now, but the issue reached a boiling point on September 18, when popular streamer ItsSilker admitted to scamming his audience as well as other streamers to the tune of $200,000 in order to pay for his gambling addiction.
Since then, numerous high-profile Twitch users have spoken out about the company’s relaxed stance on gambling streams, with some even vowing to stay off the site through the end of the year as an act of protest.
Others have banded together to raise funds in order to pay back subscribers who fell victim to the scam. Unfortunately, a large number of people have already come forward, meaning that ItsSilker likely perpetrated his scam for multiple years.
Twitch’s existing guidelines already prohibit users from referring viewers to websites that feature slots, dice games or roulette, and they are also banned from offering promotional deals and discount codes from such sites as well.
However, gambling streams are extremely popular on the site, according to data from a site called TwitchTracker. There are believed to be over 50,000 viewers watching gambling streams at any given time, most of which are using cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and etherium to wager. An earlier report from Bloomberg indicated that a large number of viewers have developed signs of problem gambling after watching streams for prolonged periods of time.
According to StreamHatchet, viewers have watched more than 200 million hours of gambling streams on Twitch thus far in 2022, which is more than all of 2020. Slots are the most popular game—in fact, “slots” is listed as the company’s tenth-most popular category, ahead of hugely popular video games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
