Despite desperate warnings from her chat, Twitch streamer Jinny fell victim to one of the oldest scams in recorded history during a visit to Berlin — and lost 100€ in the process.
JinnyTTY is a popular IRL streamer on Twitch and took to the streets of Berlin during a recent broadcast. While riding a bike around the city she encountered a street performance and decided to interact, despite her chat warning her the whole thing was a scam.
On the side of the road was a man operating his own version of the “Shell Game,” which is a scam that’s literally been recorded since ancient Greece. You’ve probably seen it in one form or another yourself. It’s where a person puts a ball underneath one of three cups, mixes them up, and has people guess where the ball is.
The Shell Game is also infamous for being a swindle or a scam, as the person running the show can easily play tricks and throw people off with some sleight of hand.
When she first approaches she pulls out 50€ (about $60) to play, only to be informed by the gentleman running things that it’s actually 120€ to play. Chat was already freaking out with cries of “Scam” and “get out of there” but they fell on deaf ears.
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Either the streamer wasn’t reading chat, or she decided to go all in on this content, either way, things didn’t work out in her favor. She makes her guess, and picked wrong, losing all her cash to the tricky man on the street.
Only after she’d lost her money did a TTS dono come in, warning her to run away from the obvious scam. Sadly, she didn’t get it in time, but at least that $3 donation is the start of her making the money back.
Jinny might be wise to steer clear from any gambling for the remainder of her trip, based on how this experience went. If anything, it goes to show why curbside gambling like this is actually illegal in a lot of countries. One thing’s for sure, she shouldn’t have ignored Twitch chat, at least in this case.