Twitch continues its fight against gambling

With a view to making the platform a safer place, particularly for young viewers, Twitch is continuing its efforts to eliminate lives dedicated to gambling. New sites have been identified and added to the existing list of banned sites. In addition, the streaming giant is taking advantage of this new update to guidelines to ban the sponsorship and promotion of skins gambling.

Casinos partially banned from the platform

On 21 September, Twitch published a press release that caused quite a stir on social networks. It dealt with gambling on the platformThis is a thorny issue that management is taking very seriously. In fact, the organisation had looked into the matter in the past, when it already prohibited the sharing of links or sponsorship codes to all sites that include slot machines, roulette wheels or dice games.

To go further in its fight against these problem streams - the youngest viewers can easily be influenced and drawn into vicious circles - Twitch has chosen to a complete ban on sites dedicated to gambling. In reality, the sites selected are those that do not offer users sufficient protection.

As mentioned at the time, this list was not exhaustive, and was, on the contrary, destined to evolve over time. So it comes as no surprise to see that the American firm is adding two more names to the wall of blacklisted sites, namely Blaze and Gamdom.

Twitch is also taking advantage of this communication to highlight the positive effects of these bans. In a publicationthe company explains that the audience dedicated to gambling fell by around 75%. This is hardly surprising when you consider that many specialist streamers, such as xQcThey turned to other platforms such as Kick.

Twitch tackles skins gambling

The market for cosmetics on FPS games, and CS:GO in particular, is a lucrative market. Some knife skins are currently on sale for almost €1,800, and other coatings have reached record prices. The sale of an AK and a Karambit for over 500,000$ this year is perfect proof of this. So it's hardly surprising that a number of streamers have specialised in opening live cash registers, and that many have teamed up with dedicated sites.

According to the content creator HOUNGOUNGAGNE - who recently published a documentary on the dangers of skins gambling - in the CS:GO category on Twitch, 75% specialist streamers were promoting unregulated games of chance. The problem is that, until now, the regulations governing this type of life seemed rather vague, even open to interpretation.

However, Twitch has reacted. The latest guidelines update mentions a new line prohibiting the promotion or sponsorship of bets with skins. This new rule could have a colossal impact on content creators who have signed agreements with specialist sites. It is even possible that there will be another wave of departures, to other streaming platforms, as was the case after the stream casinos were banned.

The crate system is an integral part of Counter Strike, and Valve itself offers a system for buying and reselling skins via Steam. With all the questions raised recently, and with the release of CS:GO 2 just around the corner, the publisher may be forced to regulate its system more strictly to limit abuses.