Gambling on Twitch has been one of the biggest controversies the platform has faced in the recent past. The Slots category has become one of the biggest categories on Twitch, but many content creators and viewers have asked Twitch to ban gambling because of the risks it brings. You can read our in-depth article about the rise of gambling on Twitch for more information on this topic.
Well, ask and you shall receive. Twitch decided that it was time to regulate the gambling market on their platform, prohibiting the streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games, and aren't licensed in the US, or “other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection”. These rules will be enforced after the 18th of October.
Websites such as Stake.com, Rollbit.com, Duelbits.com, and Roobet.com will be banned from the streaming platform. The list of banned websites will probably increase, as Twitch said they will continue to add websites to this list if they don't fit the criteria mentioned above.
What lead to Twitch taking action on Gambling
As mentioned previously, a lot of content creators have been against gambling on Twitch for quite some time, but it was the ItsSliker situation that put gambling in the spot line. Streamer ItsSliker scammed multiple fellow streamers and viewers for an amount of money that is said to be around the $300K mark. The streamer would ask for money for various reasons and promise to pay it back in the future. However, in most cases, he never gave that money back. This money was used by ItsSliker for his gambling addiction, as the streamer lost thousands of dollars on sports betting.
In the aftermath of this scandal, Twitch took away his partnership status on the platform, and also removed his sub button. There are many streamers that think this was not enough, and that ItsSliker deserves to be permanently banned from the platform.
This became a very hot topic since it involved a lot of big names in the streaming community, and demonstrated the risks of gambling. Twitch star pokimane became the face of the movement to ban gambling, advocating to the streaming platform that this was the right time to do it. ItsSliker situation showed the problems of gambling, and how it can completely destroy the life of someone. Many streamers and viewers rallied being the cause, and took to social media to show their support.
This is a big win for the streamers and viewers that wanted Twitch to do something about gambling, but it does not eradicate it from the platform. Sports gambling, as well as poker, and fantasy poker will still be allowed on the platform. If there is a website with slots, roulette, or dice games, but that is licensed in the US, or complies with the consumer protection jurisdiction of the specific country the streamer lives in, streamers will still be able to stream that website.
Slots Viewership Stats
Slots are one of the most watched categories on Twitch, and in the past seven days, it was the tenth most watched category on the platform. However, there have been many weeks and months where the category was top five on Twitch. This month, the Slots category has 52K Average Viewers, and is being broadcasted by 170 streamers on average. A lot of the biggest content creators on the platform have started streaming slots in a regular manner. Many just dedicate their entire streams to playing slots and other games such as blackjack.
The fact is that the slots category is attracting a lot of viewers, and in the last seven days wasn't far from being as watched as Fortnite, or Apex Legends, which are the two biggest battle royale games in the world currently. This proves that despite a lot of viewers and streamers being against gambling on Twitch, the category is one of the biggest on the platform, and many viewers enjoy that type of content.
Trainwreckstv is the most watched streamer of the category in the past seven days, with viewers watching his broadcast for 836K hours. Another huge name when it comes to gambling on Twitch is ROSHTEIN. ROSHTEIN has been streaming slots since 2016 had is one of the biggest streamers in the category. In the last seven days, viewers watched his stream for 667K hours.
Twitch megastar AdinRoss is also on this list, has the streamer is one of the biggest names on the streaming platform when it comes to gambling. His loyal viewers watched his stream for 590K hours.
We will have to wait and see how Twitch will enforce this policy in the future, and how that will impact the streamers that were sponsored by massive gambling websites. Streamers like Trainwreckstv, ROSHTEIN, AdinRoss, and others will no longer be able to stream the website they are sponsored from, so this can also lead to them either changing their streaming platform or finding other websites that will allow them to continue streaming gambling content.
