Twitch is cracking down on some betting sites that streamed content on its platform, after a streamer ran a scam worth several thousand dollars.
Over the weekend ItsSliker, a UK-based streamer who gained some popularity in 2019, was accused of cheating Twitch figures into lending him large sums of money. According to Discord records linked to a Reddit thread, ItsSliker claimed that his bank account was locked and he needed help while his account was frozen.
ItsSliker revealed his gambling problem in a video over the weekend, admitting that he has an addiction and explaining that it all started by placing bets while wearing skins in the decade-old game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. After that, he “started playing for money”, moving on to sports betting. Given this, several Twitch influencers began to seek the banning of this type of page.
In a tweet, Twitch stated that it will ban “broadcasting from gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games” in a policy update starting October 18.
According to the post, Twitch’s move does not target gaming in general. There will be an exception allowing sports betting, fantasy sports and poker.
What other changes are there on the platform?
Amazon’s platform is reducing the amount of money it shares with some of its biggest streamers.
Right now, most partner streamers receive a 50/50 revenue share on their channel subscriptions. That means 50% of net revenue goes to Twitch, while 50% goes to the streamer. However, the platform is making changes with the premium subscription terms, where the earnings were split 70/30.
According to the company, the changes will take effect on June 1, 2023 and will affect the largest streamers, as they will now only keep 70% of their subscription income on the first $100,000 earned. After that, participation will be reduced to a 50/50 split.
As they acknowledged, the $100,000 threshold will be calculated over a 12-month period from “the annual renewal date of a streamer’s agreement,” Samantha Faught, Twitch’s director of communications for the Americas, said in a statement to The Verge.
