Not everything is perfect yet, but Twitch is taking a step in the right direction. The streaming platform, owned by Amazon, announced this Wednesday, September 21, its intention to ban the broadcast of certain gambling games. An announcement that will be followed by actions from October 18th. And the mobilization of certain popular videographers has something to do with it.
“We will update our policy on October 18 to prohibit the distribution of gaming sites showing slot machines, roulette games or dice games that are not authorized in the United States or in other countries where consumer protection is effectivecan we read on the press release of the platform. This concerns Stake.com, Rollbit.com, Duelbits.com, and Roobet.com”. Twitch indicates that others may be identified in the future, but that the platform will continue to allow the broadcast of poker games, sports betting or fantasy games like Sorare, for example.
In practice, access to some of these sites is already restricted in several countries. In France, as our colleagues from the Worldthe online gambling authority, has already been preventing access to Stake.com since 2021. Most of the time, these sites also work with cryptocurrency payments.
On September 18, the famous streamer Pokimane spoke about it in a live. “If Twitch still hasn’t banned gambling streams by Christmas week, we should get a group of streamers together and go on strike”, she dropped in front of her many spectators. On Twitter, his message “like the tweet if you think Twitch should ban gambling” had for its part collected more than 300,000 likes.
The rumble of some streamers was not insignificant either. Some videographers who are fans of slot machines and other roulettes are suspected of being paid by online casinos to encourage spectators to register. Twitch previously prohibited sharing links to these sites in broadcast chat, but the platform’s action seems to prove that the measure was not enough.