Twitch Updates Its Gambling Policy To Prohibit Which Kind Of Sites Can Be Streamed

If you’ve managed to be away from the public conscious for the last 10 years or so then you might not be aware that gambling and the United States have a much different relationship than it once did. After decades of being considered a taboo that was only legal in places like Las Vegas, the limitations on gambling have been going away over the years. It’s easier than ever to gamble, and as such, it’s easier than ever to show yourself gambling online.

What better place to show yourself gambling online than a site like Twitch? The site is best known for video games, but over time, it has grown a very dedicated group of streamers and viewers gambling. It even has a handful of influencers that focus entirely on gambling, and those influencers have caused some problems for Twitch recently. With so many people watching gambling streams, and influencers being paid to basically promote their gambling streams, people are, of course, doing it themselves because it looks fun. The result has been a gigantic gambling problem growing across the site, with one notable streamer becoming so addicted to gambling he began scamming their own viewers to feed it.

The results of the widespread gambling have led to other major streamers threatening to strike against the platform if something isn’t done to protect viewers from harmful gambling streams. All of this finally came to a head on Tuesday when Twitch announced that it will update its gambling policy to prohibit certain websites from being shown on stream. Some of the sites they used as an example were ones where users gamble with crypto, such as Bitcoin.

Gambling and Twitch have had a rocky relationship going back years. Nathan Grayson, a reporter for the Washington Post and formerly Kotaku, has been reporting on its presence on Twitch for some time and how it quickly became normalized. He explained in a pretty informative Twitter thread how Twitch reached this point where it had to ban these specific kinds of streams.

As for how this will impact viewers that do enjoy gambling streams, they will still be able to watch people play games like poker or discuss something like sports gambling, but you’re going to see a lot less of it coming from sites that Twitch deems as shady. It’s not a perfect fix by any means, but it’s certainly a start.