Twitch, the popular video game streaming site, recently announced a ban on players promoting or sharing links to online casinos and other online gambling sites. The move is aimed at curbing the spread of problem gambling, particularly among young people. While the move was clearly motivated by a desire to quell gambling addictions, Twitch pointedly did not ban gambling streams as a whole, so it may be a move that’s more for show than real action.
The new casino link ban came in response to an increasing number of gambling streams on the site in recent years. Many of these streams feature players who endorse specific online casinos and/or accept payments directly from those same operators. In fact, Twitch is packed with players like Roshtein who plays online slot machines, while handing out referral codes for online gambling sites.
Twith made the announcement in a recent update saying, “To prevent harm and scams created by questionable gambling services that sponsor content on Twitch, we will prohibit sharing links and/or referral codes to sites that offer slots, roulette, or dice games. We will continue to monitor gambling-related content and update our approach as needed. To give you time to remove this content from your channel, enforcement will be delayed until August 17, 2021.”
It’s worth noting that Twitch did not actually ban gambling streams from its service, so any streamer who still wants to endorse a casino could still say something like, “Check out my website and/or social media account to get a referral code for free play at this or that casino.” So casino referrals may not be as banned as the ban would indicate.