Twitch is doubling down on its decision to ban gambling content by adding more sites to its prohibited list in a policy update.
Gambling streams have been banned from Twitch for just under a year now, and it doesn’t seem like that policy will be changing anytime soon.
Back in 2022, roulette and slots broadcasts were causing quite a bit of controversy on the Amazon-owned platform, leading to big names such as Pokimane demanding that they be banned.
The platform followed through, prohibiting gambling sites that include dice or slots games that are not licensed in the US or provide “sufficient consumer protection.”
On August 2, 2023, Twitch followed up with an update on how its policy had proven successful and added a couple more sites to its ban list.
🧵 Today, we’re adding two additional gambling sites – Blaze and Gamdom – to our list of prohibited sites, and sharing learnings from last year’s policy change.Our goal now, as it was last fall, is to protect our community, address predatory behavior, and make Twitch safer. https://t.co/38I274nXCt pic.twitter.com/RJfm0TqMDa
— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) August 2, 2023
Twitch reveals effects of gambling ban in policy update
In a thread on X, Twitch explained that it was adding Blaze and Gamdom to its prohibited list. Gamdom is an online crypto casino, while Blaze is a standard gambling website.
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“Our goal now, as it was last fall, is to protect our community, address predatory behavior, and make Twitch safer,” they said.
Furthermore, the platform stated that gambling viewership has dropped a whopping 75% since the ban last year. It should be noted that sports betting or sites that focus on games like poker are still allowed.
Since then, we’ve observed some new trends and are updating our list of prohibited sites to better protect our community.It’s important that the policy continues to meaningfully prevent harm.
— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) August 2, 2023
“This meant the change had an immediate impact, and that our community has been better protected from scams and related harms,” Twitch added.
As Twitch continues onwards with its gambling policy, however, rival streaming platform Kick has stepped up to give streamers the option to gamble to their hearts’ content without repercussions.
Kick itself emerged as a result of the gambling ban and the site has wasted no time in recruiting some of Twitch’s top talent, signing names like Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel to very lucrative contracts.