Twitch Plans To Punish Gambling Livestreams Amid Backlash

New York City CNN Business -
Live-streaming giant Twitch on Tuesday stated it will take extra steps to crack down on unlicensed gambling content on its platform after facing backlash from a few of its leading creators.


The Amazon-owned service plans to prohibit gambling sites from streaming on the platform if they are not accredited in the United States or in "other jurisdictions that offer adequate consumer security," according to a business declaration posted on .


"While we restrict sharing links or referral codes to all sites that include slots, roulette, or dice video games, we have actually seen some people prevent those rules and expose our community to prospective damage," the company said in the statement.


The ban takes impact on October 18th. Sites for sports betting, dream sports and poker will continue to be permitted on the platform.


Gambling has discovered a foothold on Twitch. "Slots," where audiences can enjoy banners bet in cryptocurrency in online gambling establishments, is now the tenth-most-watched game on Twitch, according to TwitchTracker. Sites like Stake.com, impacted by the revealed ban, have sponsored streams on Twitch to draw in new gamers and allow them to utilize cryptocurrencies to gamble on their platform.


But there has been restored criticism of betting activity in recent days after one Twitch streamer livestreamed a video to fans over the weekend declaring to have scammed them out of more than $200,000 to money his own gaming dependency.


Top banners have been getting in touch with Twitch to prohibit gaming, with the hashtag #TwitchStopGambling trending on Twitter. Some also discussed a week-long boycott throughout the critical holiday season.


"Gambling is horrible for the platform. Get rid of it," popular streamer and CMO of influencer marketing company Novo Studios Devin Nash, who had more than 150,000 fans on Twitch before leaving the platform last May, wrote in a Twitter thread over the weekend. "Gambling is damaging to young Twitch users, bad for genuine marketers, and lowers the quality of the entire site."