After the streamer scandal Twitch who would have swindled 200,000 dollars from his subscribers to finance his addiction to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, prominent personalities, including streamer Pokimanebegan to pressure the live-streaming company to tackle the problem of gambling.
A list of banned sites
Gambling, as many have claimed for some time now, has become a scourge on the platform. Indeed, according to the site Kotakua number of big content creators have been promoting potentially harmful content to their younger fans.
Twitch today released an informational message on social media regarding this new measure.
“Gambling content on Twitch has been a big topic of discussion in the community, and it’s something we’ve been actively reviewing since our last policy update in this area. Today we would like to inform you about our plans. Although we prohibit the sharing of links or referral codes to any sites that include slots, roulette or dice games, we have seen some people circumvent these rules and expose our community to potential harm.
We will therefore update our policy on October 18 to prohibit the streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette or dice games that are not licensed in the States. United States or other jurisdictions providing sufficient consumer protection. These sites will include Stake.com, Rollbit.com, Duelbits.com and Roobet.com. However, we may identify others as we move forward.
We will continue to allow websites that focus on sports betting, fantasy sports and poker.
We will be sharing details of updates to our gambling policy soon, including the full language of the policy, to ensure everyone is aware of our new rules before they take effect on October 18.“
A game-changing decision?
While the new rules don’t completely ban gambling, they do target some of the biggest sites used or sponsored by known streamers.
The ramifications will be huge: gambling is one of the most popular content categoriessince more than 50,000 people watch big names on Twitch play slots, blackjack and other games of chance. Some streamers have even reported earning crazy amounts of money from the gambling businesses they represent.
For the moment, however, the content around the sport betssubject at the heart of the controversy, will remain authorized.