Twitch’s tortured relationship with casino streamers

This week, Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch announced a major crackdown on users streaming slots, roulette games, and craps without permission. But the controversy over streaming slot machines has been around for years. iGB explains the full history of Twitch and casino streaming.

2016

As game streaming site Twitch, and the streaming sector in general, has exploded in recent years, early casino streamers have started to take advantage of the opportunity. CasinoDaddy and Roshtein (some of the most popular streamers at the time the ban was lifted) both started streaming slots in 2016. CasinoGrounds, which has become a hub for many slot streamers, also started as a community for people streaming casino games in 2016.

"The casino streaming scene on Twitch was a warm and intimate space for all video slot lovers," Roshtein said in the "About" section of his site. "There were only two casino streamers who welcomed me with open arms and encouraged me to pursue my passion (...)."

Betting with in-game items in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was the first gambling that Twitch faced a major crackdown on.

But at the same time, Twitch tried to crack down early on on skin betting, a form of gambling. After Valve, the developer of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, sent cease and desist notices to skin betting sites, Twitch warned its users to stop streaming to promote those sites.

2018

Interest in casino games began to reach a critical mass towards the end of the year. In September 2018, the platform created a specific category for casino games, which initially consisted of 18 channels and attracted around 4, 500 viewers per day according to analytics site TwitchTracker.

Then in December 2018, the company created a separate category for slots, which quickly attracted more than 10, 000 viewers per day and nearly 5 million hours of total viewing this month.

Twitch created its own slots category in late 2018

Already, the module has been a source of controversy, with a Eurogamer article pointing out that it contains little age-rated content and promotes several unlicensed operators. Meanwhile, a Kotaku article in October 2018 noted that some casino-focused accounts look very suspicious, drawing overnight viewership growth that many users said couldn't have come from organic means.

2019

The flow of casino gaming has begun to increase, and the monthly viewing time has doubled in the past year. With Pokerstars introducing client integration that can link a Twitch account and a Pokerstars account, the dominance of major games has begun to increase.

But the controversy continued. Casino channels ranked highest on the rapidly growing channel on the platform, and some channels have gained more than 500, 000 new followers in 30 days, but fans are numbers. I noticed that it showed a clear sign that was swollen by the bot.

2020

Casino stream has made a leap at an unprecedented speed due to the large COVID-19 epidemic. Due to the lack of other entertainment, the field of online casinos and the streaming world, especially online casinos, grew greatly.

In April, Kim Hultman, hosted by the Letsgiveitaspin channel, collected $ 47. 00 and worked on Cavid in a 2 4-hour streaming challenge.

On the other hand, a survey published in July 2020 said that 4, 1 % of the respondents of 1. 081 adults in the United Kingdom were playing online in the past 12 months. I answered.

Slot machines have become more popular in 2020 and early 2021.

At that time, there were few clear signs of gambling crackdowns. At the end of the year, Twitch introduced a free function called "Twitch Predictions", and users were able to bet points on the results of the broadcast game.

Early 2021

Both a wide range of streaming communities and online casino worlds have begun to focus on the opportunities for casino games.

Super Affiliate Acroud has announced that one of the new acquisition channels has announced plans to create a new streaming community and provide an al l-i n-one service to streakers who want to grow channels.

At the same time, popular game streakers such as Felix 'XQC' LENGYEL and Tyler 'TrainWreckstv' Niknam have agreed to sponsor with the cryptocurrency casino.

June 2021

The controversy over the distribution of casinos on Twitch has become ful l-fledged. Lengel announced on June 28 that it would stop gambling distribution, and told gambling that he was a little addicted, even if he was not in the middle.

Many content creators, on the other hand, discussed the public secrets using the funds provided by the casino, otherwise the risks were incorrectly explained. Niknam has argued that many content creators use "fake balance" to "eliminate the risk of losing their money."

At this point, Stake. com is a crypto casino that was only approved in Curacao, but accepted customers from other wide markets and became the most advertised gambling business on Twitch.

Many of the Twitch communities have begun to show off the rise of casino games on this platform. On Twitter, World of WarCraft's streamer Zack "Asmongold" BREEN calls for completely prohibiting casino games streaming, and the Imane "Pokimane" Anys, one of the most popular users on the site, is also a casino promotion. He criticized the number of popular streamer to choose.

July 2021

Adin Ross randomly streams his instant messages, making users feel how much money they have in the casino streaming world. Ross's message with Cryptocasino Duelbits indicates that the operator claims that it offers $ 1, 600, 000 per month, and that Ross's reply to those messages has "gained more" than ROOBET. I revealed it.

The offer to the slot streamer was over $ 1 million per month until 2021

Later, Niknam said in a stream that he earned $ 1 million a month on gambling sites.

August 2021

Twitch has cracked down the gambling. On August 17, links and referral codes to all sites that offer slots, roulette, and dice games.

"To prevent damage and fraud due to suspicious services that support content on Twitch, we will prohibit linking to links and referral codes to sites that provide slots, roulette, dice games," Twitch said in the creator's update. 。

Some early game business took the benefits as soon as possible. The Kafe Rocks Group's affiliate site Time2Play has launched a new streaming platform and has a function to protect players and other players so as not to face the same problem as Twitch Saw streakers faced.

"It's clear that there is a desire for the content created by the streamer gambling," said Kafe Rocks Simon Pilkington. "What we want to do is to help the appropriate people in the right context to make them look reliably to the appropriate people."

Immediately afterwards, LiveSpins began, providing streaming directly on the operator's site and the function of viewers betting with the streamer.

Late 2021

The ban had a direct impact on slot streams, but the species certainly did not die out. Slot streams hit their threshold in October 2021 with 18. 3 million hours of viewing.

From there, viewership slowly began to recover.

Spring 2022

Slot watch hours on Twitch hit an all-time high of 36. 3 million hours in March, surpassing levels before the link was banned.

Lengyel's return to his streaming slot in May has brought the segment even more scrutiny. This month, the following changes were reported:

Sykkuno, a League of Legends streamer who moved from Twitch to YouTube in April, brought back the "gambling meta" on Twitch in May, coining what would later become a buzzword.

June-August 2022

Casino streams became one of Twitch's top 10 categories, overtaking Call of Duty: Warzone and just one spot behind esports phenomenon Dota.

Hip-hop superstar Drake has become the big man to enter casino streaming. In his second stream, he had a peak concurrent viewer count of 112. Within two months, a subsidiary of Casino. org claimed the rapper had already cleared over $1 billion.

Stake. com partnered with Canadian rapper Drake, who streamed casino games on Twitch.

But the genre continues to receive more scrutiny, with Breen telling Bloomberg that "we're currently doing a deep dive into gaming on Twitch." Meanwhile, Breen has reached out to U. S. Senator Ted Cruz, lobbying the Republican heavyweight to push for a gambling ban on the platform.

September 2022

The controversy over gambling on Twitch is escalating into a whole new scandal. Abraham "Slicker" Mohammed admitted to getting addicted to betting on esports games and scamming at least $200, 000 from fans and other content creators.

Although Mohammed did not operate casino games, the news sparked a bigger backlash against the accusations. A group of streamers led by Anys threatened to boycott the platform if it didn't do something about the prevalence of gambling, and Anys regularly called for new regulations on Twitter and discussed the issue on his stream to an audience of more than 9 million followers.

Amid this latest controversy, Twitch announced a new crackdown on slots, roulette and craps games, banning streams of these games if they were played on unauthorized sites like Stake. com.

The future

The new ban will be enforced next month, and it will be affected at that time. However, before the effectiveness, the platform promises to clarify the details. At the moment, it is not clear what is appropriate or counted as the first casino site, which can cause uncertainty.

At the same time, other companies in the streaming field hopes that this ban will grow new streaming platforms specializing in gambling, creating opportunities to provide better equipment to deal with problems that are suffering from Twitch. It may be. < SPAN> A new ban will be enforced next month, and it will be affected at that time. However, before the effectiveness, the platform promises to clarify the details. At the moment, it is not clear what is appropriate or counted as the first casino site, which can cause uncertainty.