Online casinos have underwent a huge number of changes over the past eighteen months in order to support the growing number of players seeking out online play opportunities and to accommodate the successes that have been found too – many sites have continued to deliver a welcomed online casino experience, but there’s one space that has seen a lot of change with nothing to address the change too, online streaming. The popular streaming site of Twitch has come under fire over the past few months as online gambling, particularly through slots, has become a growing issue – but is it something that needs change?
There has been a big debate on the platform during this period of time – many of the bigger and more influential streamers on the platform have entered into many debates calling for Twitch to ban the ability to stream slots and other gambling services largely through concerns with the audience – Twitch is notable for having a somewhat younger audience and whilst these streams do have an 18+ warning to prevent younger viewers from tuning in, there isn’t any verification process required to watch the streams which has led many to believe a much younger audience have been exposed to these gambling services. The common complaint is that Twitch have a duty of care to the audience that currently isn’t being fulfilled, and the longer that things are left to continue in the uncontrolled way they have, the probability of danger goes up too.
Much of the drama has surrounded one or two different creators, with both gambling hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a short stream period, and millions of dollars over the course of a month – it certainly isn’t something that has promoted responsible gambling and particularly if there’s a younger audience concerned, a very bad habit being shown. Another issue comes with the sponsorship problem, it became a set-in stone rule on Twitch that all sponsored games had to be shown as an advertisement, but leaked conversations had also shown that some of the streamers weren’t disclosing the usage as an ad, whilst also reaping the benefits of playing on the service whilst being paid to do so and as such not at risk of losing any of their own money.
It’s a tricky area to tackle, there are many streamers on the platform that have managed to grow by being a responsible player and by showing in some instances a better side of gambling, and just a few that are threatening to change it all for those, but as Twitch has been silent on the topic so far there’s no certainty whether change is on the way, or even if it is planned at all.