Twitch’s ban of “unsafe” gambling site streams goes into effect

Twitch, the Amazon-owned streaming platform, has introduced its previously announced ban on streaming involving certain gambling sites.

From 18 October, sites that include slots, roulette or dice games and “aren’t licensed in the US or in other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection” have been officially barred.

Prohibited sites include Stake.com, Rollbit, Duelbits and Roobet, which are all crypto gambling operators, but Twitch said it may identify other sites going forward.

The ban applies to all domain extensions of these sites and includes free-to-play social versions.

Initially, streamers may receive warnings or suspensions for flouting the new rules “in order to be fairer to streamers who may have not understood the change yet”, Twitch said.

On the amended policy, Twitch wrote in its updated Community Guidelines: “We consider many factors in determining whether a site is allowed, including whether the site includes safety protections, such as deposit limits, waiting periods and age verification systems.

“We also take into account whether streamers use or encourage VPNs to evade geo-blocking, and whether the site is licensed in the US or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protections.”

Last year, Twitch banned the sharing of referral links and referral codes to casino sites in order to “address scams and other harms stemming from questionable gambling sites”.

However, the platform says it subsequently discovered it was clear some people were circumventing those rules, and so further steps were necessary.

The rules state that Twitch users must not share a referral code to a slots site with their chat, nor must they include banners or links to roulette games or verbally refer to dice games in their chat.

Twitch was under increasing pressure to ban gambling streams after it was discovered streamer Abraham ‘Sliker’ Mohammed lied to content creators and fans and borrowed a total of $200,000 to fund his gambling habit.

While Twitch hasn’t gone the whole hog and eradicated gambling completely from its platform, blocking sites not licensed by top-tier regulators will be a relief to operators such as PokerStars which has more than 300,000 followers on its Twitch channel.

However, the likes of Stake.com and Duelbits could argue they are licensed in the UK – which presumably would be covered by the “other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection” – through white-label deals with TGP Europe.

Isle of Man-based TGP Europe is used by a number of Asia-facing bookmakers to gain access to the UK market and legally advertise their logos on Premier League shirts.

Rollbit and Roobet don’t have UK Gambling Commission licences, nor licences in any US state.

Chris Grove of Eilers & Krejcik Gaming previously tweeted that Twitch’s updated rules were a “big move that will have a material impact on the named sites and others like them”.

Twitch audiences watched 224 million hours of gambling streams in the first six months of 2022, according to Stream Hatchet.