Twitch bans links and referral codes by shady gambling operators on its live streaming platform.
Twitch Will Prohibit All Links and Referral Codes to Gambling
On Wednesday, Twitch, the most popular live streaming platform for gamers, released a Creator Update and has announced that it will prohibit all links and referral codes that link to roulette, dice games and slots on their service. The new regulations would come into effect on Tuesday, August 17th.
Twitch has stated that, to prevent harm and scams by “questionable gambling operators,” the company would ban sharing links or other referral codes to sites that offer dice games, slots and roulette. Twitch will continue to monitor its content related to gambling and continue to update its measures.
Twitch allows legal gambling in the locality of the streamer. In a Wire article in July, video game journalist Cecilia D’Anastasio stated that some streamers leave the US to take gambling sponsorship from companies, like Stake.com, that couldn’t operate legally in the country.
Instead of using a streamer from a place where its activity would be legal, Stake.com turned to streamer from an illegal state. Some legal experts say that this action is the same as promoting illegal gambling and if they are correct, it means that the streamer and Stake.com are breaking the law.
Recently, there has been a discussion on gambling ethics in the community, including scrutiny towards Twitch and its gambling sponsors.
Casino Sponsorship Offer Means “You’re a Multi-Millionaire”
This new policy update comes after numerous streamers called for Twitch to ban gambling with concerns that it promotes reckless behavior. In June, World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold tweeted that Twitch should ban these streams.
Among other popular streamers who also call for a gambling ban on Twitch are Adin Ross, Pokimane (Imane Anys), H3H3 (Ethan Klein), xQc (Félix Lengyel) and TrainWrecks (Tyler Faraz Niknam).
However, around 6% of the top 100 streamers on Twitch, including Adin and xQc, have done gambling deals in the past. For example, xQc issued an apology for gambling and quit his activity on stream this summer. H3H3 pointed out that there are shady online gambling sites.
The most notable gambling critics, including TrainWrecks, xQc, and H3H3, did a 3-hour-long debate on the subject and shared their experience working for the illegal casinos. Ethan went into detail about his own experience with the shady casinos and showed some live research on Stake.com, revealing its small headquarters in Curacao.
In her stream, Pokimane criticizes Twitch partners who take sponsorships for online casinos. She said that getting an offer from a casino sponsorship means that you are already a multi-millionaire. She added, “You need to be a multi-multi-millionaire?”
She also concluded that these streamers have a lot more options for income that are “not so ethically and morally fraught.”