Twitch Joins War On Gambling; Offenders Prohibited From Broadcasting

It seems online gambling has lost a lot of ground since the activities of two content creators over at YouTube were outed for using deceptive tactics in order to lure users to their gambling website. In the weeks that followed, the spotlight was shown over the industry worth several billion dollars, and Valve responded to the scandal by taking steps to destroy any gambling sites that used their titles or services. Now, Twitch has joined the fray, reiterating their commitment to prevent the broadcasting of any material that violated the service agreement of any game.

As Engadget pointed out, Twitch already had a pretty strict set of rules when it came to any content streamed that infringed on service agreements. These included pirated copies of games, streaming via unauthorized servers, and even streams that had to do with cheating on multiplayer titles.

As such, the video game streaming site is basically just reiterating the guidelines that streamers have had to abide by. Then again, this statement from Twitch does have the effect of highlighting just how severe the stance of big brands is when it comes to online gambling.

It also reminds streamers as well as viewers that if Steam is against something, it’s more than likely that Twitch is against it as well. This is also an indication that the life cycle of skin betting, money pools, and match gambling is close to ending if Valve succeeds.

On that note, Valve has been receiving a lot of flak for not responding to the problem in the first place, as Kotaku noted. Online gambling involving “Counter Strike: Global Offensive” as well as a bevy of other titles by the company have been around for practically as long as Steam has. So Valve taking action against gambling site has been long overdue.