As the furor over gambling content on Twitch rages on, with streamers and viewers debating its place on the platform, veteran streamer Summit1g believes a ban is unlikely to happen, as it’s not as simple as people think.
Following news that streamer Sliker allegedly scammed hundreds of people for money to fund his gambling addiction, there have been calls from streamers like Pokimane and Mizkif for the platform to ban it entirely.
Others such as Trainwreck and m0E have disagreed, sparking a debate on the topic. Summit1g, however, does not expect a blanket ban on gambling to come into effect, nor does he think it is the answer.
Summit disagrees with total gambling ban on Twitch
Summit recalled a rule that Twitch implemented during the height of CS:GO skin gambling, where streamers were not permitted to gamble for more than 30 minutes on stream.
“So, there have been some things that they tried to do, and regulate, but realistically, at the end of the day, at some point in time, I think [Twitch] was just like ‘f**k it dude.’
“Poker is a whole category, you’ve had broadcasters on the website for years that have played poker. What do you do about poker? Is poker not gambling? You can argue it very much is, whether it has skill involved or not.”
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“It’s just not as easy as being like ‘yeah, just ban it!’ That’s all I’m saying,” Summit continued.
“It should not be that easy for you, just because it’s a group and not an individual, and not an individual with a name, to just rip their earnings away from them, and them have nothing after something like that.”
Summit argued that because Twitch has allowed it for so long, there will be many creators who have built a living on that content, and the solution can’t simply be “gambling bad, just remove it.”
Twitch is yet to comment publicly on the calls for gambling to be banned from the platform, and generally has avoided responding to the gambling issue overall. However, in August, they said they were “in the midst of a deep-dive look into gambling behavior on Twitch.”
