Viewers may have already lost several thousand of dollars due to the Twitch Gambling Meta

Author

SB

Date

Aug, 06.2022

A major source of dissatisfaction for many in the broadcasting community has been the Twitch Gambling Meta. Twitch Gambling has been growing in popularity as more well-known broadcasters have started using the service to play Slots and other forms of cryptocurrency gaming.

Slots surpassed Fortnite last week as the game with the most viewers on Twitch, a title that was previously synonymous with gaming and broadcasting. Slots received 61,881 average Twitch Tracker views over the course of the previous month. When compared to the 55,504 and 55,601 average viewers for Fortnite and DOTA 2, respectively, this is a significant increase.

The internet has been buzzing with a new Bloomberg piece that describes how some Twitch fans were persuaded to start gambling by their favorite streamers. Bloomberg writer Cecilia D'Anastasio recently wrote a relevant news piece about the gaming industry. She stressed in her research how Twitch viewers are becoming addicted to bitcoin gambling as a result of seeing their favorite broadcasters "play" slots during livestreams. The article draws attention to the Twitch gambling issue and tells the stories of some viewers who developed gambling addictions as a result of watching livestreams.

The first tale concerns a hospital accountant from Canada who began gambling after seeing his favorite streamer Felix "xQc" engage in it live. He ultimately used xQc's advertising link to try his luck after seeing the streamer play cryptocurrency slots on sponsored streams for the massive gambling site Stake.com. But things quickly became worse and he found himself spending all of his life savings in a short period of time, leading him to file for bankruptcy. According to the article, large-scale sponsorships from businesses like Stake are having the desired effect because many Twitch users have started utilizing their services to bet online. These sponsored streamers frequently place enormous wagers, which draw a lot of attention. A clip went viral last month which shows xQc losing $170,000 in under two minutes.


The Twitch gambling community is also overrun with slot-only streamers that have huge followings. For instance, streamers who are committed to gambling, such as Ishmael "Roshtein”, receive millions of views each month. There may be some hope because many people have urged Twitch to ban gambling from the platform. Having said that, Twitch's attitude against gambling has been, at best, neutral. However, the platform's restriction on any type of affiliate or promotional link scheme was a significant victory for opponents of gambling. In addition, a Twitch representative informed Bloomberg that Twitch Gambling may be nearing its end since the firm is now analyzing its foundation.