by theygamesWith Twitch growing in popularity, top streamers like Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys and Matthew ‘Mizkif’ Rinaudo are calling on the platform to do something about the presence of Twitch gambling streams, after another streamer admitted to taking money from viewers and fellow streamers to fund their gambling addiction.
Yesterday Mizkif, Pokimane and Devin Nash talked on stream about Twitch’s gambling problem, and proposed a platform blackout where a number of top streamers would remain off the platform during the holiday period in order to get a response from Twitch itself. While trends come and go on the platform, like Twitch hot tub streams, gambling is posing a real problem.
The proposed one week strike over the Christmas period is by no means confirmed, but all three expressed interest in the idea.
“Get a huge streamer like Miz or Poki to get ten to 20 bigger streamers, 10K viewers or plus, to write a joint statement to send to their partnerships and cause Twitch to consider the statement and make a concession on gambling, or else ten or 20 of those streamers will go on a one week strike over Christmas,” says Nash, reading a message from Steven ‘Destiny’ Bonnell on Twitch.
The idea would be to hit Twitch during the holiday season and impact its ad revenue, with all three saying on stream that they’d be behind it.
“I think that you have to make the fruit hang low enough that people want to take it,” adds Nash. “It won’t be that huge of a hit, but it’ll be significant enough to Twitch that they’ll take a look at it.”
“If you really think gambling is that bad you should be willing to take a week off,” added Pokimane, urging other streamers to take the matter seriously.
Following the discussion on stream Mizkif and Pokimane each tweeted out a simple message: “like if Twitch should ban gambling”. Nash also tweeted out that Twitch should have done a platform-wide ban of gambling streams months ago, adding that they left Twitch due to the issue.
Renewed discussion of Twitch’s lack of gambling has stemmed from the news that streamer Sliker was borrowing money from fellow streamers and viewers to fund their gambling habit. Sliker has since apologised and admitted to this (via Dexerto), with more people coming out and talking about gambling addiction and Twitch’s lack of control over the issue on its own platform.
Since then Félix ‘xQc’ Lengyel has said both themselves and ‘Ludwig’ Anders Ahgren “will be trying our best to get money back to those people” that were scammed.
We’ve reached out to Twitch for comment on this story and will update it if we receive a response. It should also be noted that there don’t seem to be any concrete plans from streamers for a Twitch blackout just yet, but it certainly seems possible.
YouTube video credit: Love Twitch