Twitch deincentivizes gambling streams by restricting promotion

This story about virtual gambling as underage entertainment, boiled down, in 1:38 minutes.

What's the fuss?

Twitch, the online streaming platform, has cracked down on gambling-related streams amidst public outcry to curb the glorification of gambling to young audiences. Many are saying these efforts do not suffice.

The situation

Virtual casinos have existed since 1996, however they have lately seen a surge in popularity concurrent with the normalization of cryptocurrency usage.

• Modern virtual casinos, which are headquartered in regulation-lax regions such as Curaçao, allows almost anyone to get gambling instantly as long as they have a bitcoin wallet.
• In order to attract new users, crypto casinos have spent millions in marketing dollars on popular streamers to stream themselves gambling for their audiences, further incentivizing them by offering referral codes and showing off their gross winnings.

Twitch has taken action against these types of streams by prohibiting sharing links and/or referral codes from these virtual casinos, with the hopes to disincentivize further gambling streams.

• This action follows other popular streamers calling Twitch out for allowing these gambling streams to go live in front of millions of impressionable underage viewers.
• Despite the changes, many are calling the move "a lame half measure" and that it doesn't completely eliminate the problem.

Boiling it down

41% of Twitch's daily audience of 15 million daily active users is 16 - 24 years of age, with 32% being 25 - 34 years old.

• Tens of thousands of this daily audience tune into the "Slots" category of Twitch, where such gambling advertising takes place which can influence these young people's gambling related attitudes.
• It only exacerbates the problem that there are no age and region restrictions on mature content, which resulted in the platform being temporarily banned in an entire country.

Although Twitch has had a record breaking year partly due to COVID-19, the streaming platform has also faced a record breaking year of disgruntled users.

• From the controversy surrounding streaming in hot tubs to discriminatory attacks on various streamers, users are holding Twitch accountable to do better.
• Nonetheless, Twitch is by far the most popular online streaming platform right now, so unless a real competitor appears out of the blue users can only hope for official positive change.

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