- Gambling promotions at Twitch will start disappearing starting August 17 if they are promoting unlicensed websites
- Legitimate streamers who promote licensed gambling brands can still push their products
- Streamers on Twitch open up about having mistakenly endorsed illegal gambling content and how shady the entire practice appears to be
Streaming giant Twitch is now focusing on clamping down on illegal gambling on its platform. Facilitating and promoting illegal websites will not be tolerated.
Twitch Brings Down Ban Hammer on Illegal Gambling Content
Amazon-owned streaming giant Twitch is coming down hard on streams and content creators who endorse or promote gambling on the platform. In a freshly-released Creator Update on Wednesday, the company said that it would no longer allow any referral links related to roulette, slots, and dice games, and specifically originating from unlicensed platforms. The measure is coming into effect on August 17 and will be enforced strictly.
A company statement detailed Twitch's opposition to such content as an attempt to prevent harm and scams by questionable gambling services that have been continuously sponsoring content on the platform. “We will continue to monitor gambling-related content and update our approach as needed,” the company explained, giving an early warning to anyone who thinks they may slip through the cracks and carry on.
The update has been delivered in the wake of a discussion broached by some of the platform's biggest streamers, including xQc, Trainwrecks, Adin Ross, Pokimane, and H3H3. In a live session between H3H3, xQc, and TrainWrecks, the streamers voiced a passionate opposition against clandestine gambling services that reached out to new audiences via Twitch.
Not Shutting Door on Regulated Gambling
Stake.com, a hugely popular crypto gambling website that reportedly paid millions to keep streams going, is one of the main companies that will most likely take a hit from the new update. During the session, H3H3 showed a Google Street View picture of the Stake.com headquarters, which seemed to be a house that did not communicate much confidence.
However, Twitch doesn't seem to be ostracizing the entire industry but rather focusing on those streamers that represent companies with no proper license or that are not fully allowed to operate on the territory of a given jurisdiction.
Jeff Ifrah, an international gambling law attorney, commented in a recent article posted on Wired that people who were streaming and promoting those products in the United States, for example, could also come into the cross-hairs of regulators and the prosecutor's office. Authored by Cecilia D'Anastasio, a hard-hitting esports journalist who investigated the alleged culture of sexual misconduct in Riot Games, the piece argued that some streamers had left the United States to sign a partnership with dodgy websites.
Presently, gambling streamers account for 6% of Twitch's 1000 top content creators are focusing on gambling. xQc was one of the streamers to engage with gambling, but he dropped it in July and issued an apology.
