Kick reportedly blocked in Greece for “providing unauthorized gambling services”

Fledgling Twitch rival Kick has reportedly been blocked in Greece by select ISPs for “providing unauthorized gambling services” to local users. 

Update June 21: A Kick spokesperson reached out to Dexerto shortly after this news circulated. They provided the following statement: “We are experiencing a temporary problem with access to the platform in Greece and we are working with Greek ISPs to resolve the issue. An individual channel appears to have been blocked by a specific ISP resulting in the whole domain mistakingly being blocked.”

The original story continues below.

Despite being owned and founded by Stake, a gambling site, and freely allowing livestreams of gambling on the platform, Kick is not inherently a gambling website, nor does it directly provide gambling services. 

However, the new Twitch rival, one that recently gave xQc the biggest contract in streaming history, is reportedly banned in Greece due to “providing unauthorized gambling services.” The site has been added by the Hellenic Gaming Commission, specifically to their blacklist of unauthorized gambling sites. 

In a video by n3lswn, they showed a video of a Greek user attempting to access Kick’s main page before being redirected to the Hellenic Gaming Commission, where the site informed the user they were trying to access a website on their blacklist. 

In addition to the video, a recent post made on the xQc subreddit also pointed out that Kick is indeed banned in Greece, and could only be accessed by using a VPN. With the OP saying they are based in Athens.

According to the Hellenic Gaming Commission’s newly updated blacklist posted on June 20, Kick.com is listed as one of the blocked websites. In particular, they list Kick’s recently removed section, “slots gang”. 

Kick.com is listed on the Hellenic Gaming Commission’s Blacklisted sites

However, through our own testing, upon attempting to access Kick using a VPN for a Greek IP address, the platform is still accessible. This suggests the ban comes from Greek ISPs specifically, restricting it in accordance with the blacklist, rather than a regional IP ban. 

Stake, Kick’s parent company, is also part of the blacklist. With their domain, stake.games, similarly being blocked in Greece at this point in time.

Greece, and by extension the EU, has some of the strictest restrictions to online gambling today, with only a select few sites and countries allowed to operate legally as long as they are EU-compliant.