Twitch speaks out on gambling controversy, confirms it will be banning gambling as of October 18th
After recent gambling controversies have taken center stage in the Twitch community, the streaming service announced that it will ban any type of unlicensed gambling site in the United States, including slot machines, roulette or dice games, starting October 18. While they announced a small number of sites to be included in this ban, it is said that more can be added if they are determined to be harmful.
All of this comes after some of Twitch’s most prolific content creators joined forces to launch a new hashtag #TwitchStopGambling. A streamer named Sliker was recently named by the community for his gambling tendencies after he admitted to borrowing more than $200,000 from his fans and other content creators without paying them back. He first started gambling with the Counter Strike: Global Offensive skin before moving to real money games. Slack has since apologized for his actions and said he is seeking help to resolve his gambling addiction.
While many of the major casino attractions you’ll see have been banned from Twitch, this won’t affect sports betting, fantasy sports, and poker games on the platform. The included tweet states that Twitch will disclose more information about the changes to its streaming gambling policy on its website before the changes take effect on October 18.
You can still see gambling streams on the service before the ban arrives, although that is expected to decrease rapidly as the end date approaches. Even today, with the announcement, you can still find streaming categories related to slot machines and other gambling games among the most popular streamers on Twitch. The hope is to help alleviate and eliminate the possible gambling addictions that are spreading in the Twitch community that can end up being very harmful.
