Twitch CEO opens door for banned gambling sites to return to platform

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has said unregulated gambling streaming was “not good for the community” but has refrained from an outright ban on the sector.

Speaking to streamer Filian, in a Youtube interview published yesterday, the CEO detailed his thinking behind the ban of unregulated operators last year.

Filian had pressed Clancy on the matter after she was invited to a poker event that she streamed on Twitch, which left her audience confused. 

Clancy explained that the act of gambling itself was fine to be streamed on Twitch, as long as it was regulated.

He said: “The thing that was growing was these unregulated offshore gambling sites, these are sites that there’s nobody overlooking to see, for example, what are the odds on the craps tables, are they tweaking them, do they change them, because they’re not regulated.

“The amount of money that was flowing, where our creators were building these communities and connections that they formed on Twitch, to drive people to these sites, it was a significant amount of money to a small number of creators.

“And we decided we didn’t think that was good for the community, so we banned unregulated ones,” he added.

However, Clancy did confirm there was a potential route back for currently unregulated operators to Twitch.

He added: “If these sites become regulated, and are willing to adhere to the regulations of most major countries, in terms of what they need to do as a gambling site, then of course [they can come back].”

Following the rollout of the ban of unregulated casino sites on Twitch in October 2022, a series of high-profile streamers moved to rival streaming platform Kick.

Kick is owned by Easygo, the parent company of crypto-first operator Stake, which was one of those sites that was removed from Twitch last year. Other sites banned included Roobet, Rollbit and Duelbits.

Regulated operators are still allowed to stream content on the site.