Twitch Plans To Crack Down On Gambling Livestreams Amid Backlash
New York City CNN Business -
Live-streaming giant Twitch on Tuesday said it will take additional actions to crack down on unlicensed gambling material on its platform after dealing with reaction from a few of its top developers.
The Amazon-owned service plans to prohibit betting websites from streaming on the platform if they are not accredited in the United States or in "other jurisdictions that offer adequate customer protection," according to a business declaration posted on Twitter.
"While we prohibit sharing links or referral codes to all sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games, we've seen some people prevent those guidelines and expose our neighborhood to potential harm," the company said in the declaration.
The restriction takes result on October 18th. Sites for sports betting, fantasy sports and poker will continue to be permitted on the platform.
Gambling has found a foothold on Twitch. "Slots," where viewers can watch banners bet in cryptocurrency in online casinos, is now the tenth-most-watched game on Twitch, according to TwitchTracker. Sites like Stake.com, affected by the announced restriction, have sponsored streams on Twitch to draw in brand-new gamers and enable them to use 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 claiming to have scammed them out of more than $200,000 to money his own gambling addiction.
Top banners have actually been calling on Twitch to prohibit gambling, with the hashtag #TwitchStopGambling trending on Twitter. Some also discussed a week-long boycott throughout the all-important vacation season.
"Gambling is awful for the platform. Get rid of it," popular streamer and CMO of influencer marketing company Novo Studios Devin Nash, who had over 150,000 followers on Twitch before leaving the platform last May, wrote in a over the weekend. "Gambling is harming to young Twitch users, bad for genuine advertisers, and reduces the quality of the entire website."