Sliker reveals true depth of gambling addiction: “I couldn’t control myself” | BeckaTV interview

Kick star BeckaTV sat down with banned Twitch streamer Sliker to speak with him about the true depth and meteoric aftermath of his gambling addiction almost a year after it was exposed to fans.

In September 2022, prominent Twitch streamer ‘Sliker’ was accused of scamming his fans out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Numerous viewers and even fellow streamers came out with claims that they had been approached by Sliker with requests for money — each hearing a different story from him as to why he supposedly needed the funds.

Sliker went live with an emotional apology shortly thereafter, tearfully admitting that he’d scammed many of his fans and fellow creators out of money due to a crippling gambling addiction.

The incident sparked backlash against Twitch for allowing gambling on its platform, with the site facing pressure from massive creators like Pokimane to change its guidelines. While Twitch eventually did tweak its rules regarding gambling, the outrage against Sliker remained.

It wasn’t long before Sliker’s partnership with Twitch was revoked, and the ‘subscribe’ button was removed from his channel. Eventually, he was banned altogether after the streamer claimed he’d been allegedly “hacked” in January 2023.

Sliker appeared to lay low for some time after his channel got the boot, but since then, he’s been quietly streaming on Kick.

Now, nearly a year after the gambling drama took over social media, Kick star BeckaTV got the chance to sit down with the streamer to discuss the aftermath of his gambling addiction and his plans for the future.

Sliker claims he was constantly gambling — even at funerals

During their conversation, Sliker revealed the true depth of his gambling addiction. He claimed that he approached everyone from high-profile streamers, to viewers, and even his own family, lying to them about why he needed money and where the funds were going.

“I was a gambling addict,” he admitted. “I scammed a lot of people to fuel up my addiction, because I would gamble a lot of money every day. I had no money to gamble with — my own money, because I’d already wasted it. I’d go to streamers, every streamer I ever knew. I’d even ask xQc, Mizkif, anyone. My viewers. I’d ask my friends, my family.”

“There were times when I even scammed my parents. My dad …would find out that the money was gone, but I’d lie to him and be like, ‘Oh, I paid taxes, and I’ll pay you back later.'”

Sliker said he was gambling constantly — when he was at the hospital, when he was streaming, and even when he was attending funerals.

“It was weird. What it will do to you is weird,” he explained. “I’d have Bet 365 on the right side and I’d m*******te watching p**n. …weirdly, it would get me h***y, as well.”

“I would go to funerals, hospitals, always on. 24/7. Sh*tting, hospital, showering. …wherever you can think of. Name one place, I’m on it. On the plane to America, there was Wi-Fi 3G, I’m on it, betting on it.”

Sliker reveals effects of gambling addiction on his mental health

Sliker said that his addiction had devastating effects on his mental health. According to the streamer, he’d smack his head against the wall when he lost bets and even had thoughts of self-harm due to his constant need to gamble.

“I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t stop myself. I know I’m an adult, I’m 28 …I know it sounds ridiculous and stupid or whatever, but I couldn’t control myself. I couldn’t. I wanted to do it. I had to do it, you know?”

“Once I would take [out] the money, I would cry, but once I’d jump on and play, the tears would be gone, and I’m on it and I’m excited, because my mind is more of, ‘I’m gonna win. I’m gonna bet, and I’m gonna sit down, and I’m gonna entertain myself.'”

“When reality hits and I lose, I go in my bed and I’m like clenching my fist, and I smack the pillow, smack my head against the wall. At the start, it wasn’t like that. Eventually, I’d go outside and be like, ‘I want to disappear.’ I’d have suicidal thoughts. A lot of suicidal thoughts.”

Sliker says his family doesn’t trust him anymore as a result of his gambling addiction. In fact, he says that his name has been taken off of his home, and claims his family even controls his bank card.

“He lost all his trust [in me],” Sliker said of his father. “The house was going to be under my name. He removed that. When he went abroad, I could hear him on a phone call upstairs, I could hear my dad speaking to my mother like, ‘Make sure you hide the jewelry.’ …ever since then, my sister took control of my bank card.”

Sliker wants to “fix his wrongs”

After his gambling addiction came to light, prominent streamers xQc and Ludwig offered to repay victims of Sliker’s scam — an amount allegedly totaling around $300,000. However, Sliker says that some of his victims wouldn’t accept that money, and wanted Sliker to pay them himself. He also claims that the amount he scammed was “definitely more” than the $300k figure tweeted by xQc.

Although Sliker admitted that he thought of ending his life as a “way out,” he realized that this wouldn’t be fair to his victims — some of whom had “sold their stuff” to get money for him — and that he needed to make things right.

“When I started doing a normal job, and I started sitting down and realized like, damn, I could kill myself,” he told us. “But that’s not what should have mattered. Because the people I took from — people would sell their stuff to give me money. And they could have went through suicide. …they could have went through triple, quadruple, or 100 times more pain than what I did.”

Sliker says that he still owes a few people money, although much of his debt has been cleared thanks to his own efforts and the help of other streamers. In fact, Sliker says he has a document with a list of everyone he still owes on his PC at home, of which he keeps close track.

Kick gives Sliker more “freedom” than Twitch after permaban

After seeking therapy and working to clear his debt, the streamer is now broadcasting on Kick, where he feels he has “more freedom” than Twitch.

“When I was a Twitch streamer, [it was like], ‘I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean that, I’m so sorry,'” he said, referring to Twitch’s comparatively stricter guidelines as opposed to those on Kick. “When you’re on Kick, you don’t need to be worried, because communities are a big thing on Kick.”

Despite his issues with Twitch and claiming the platform exhibits “favoritism,” Sliker says he can’t “sh*t on Twitch,” as the website helped launch his career.

Now, Sliker is looking forward to the future and wants to make things right with the people he wronged before focusing on becoming a full-time IRL streamer.

“Obviously, with my life now, I want to fix my wrongs,” he said. “I know I can do that, because all I think about is negativity toward gambling. When I think of gambling I’m just like, this is what it’s done to me.”

“When I was streaming on Twitch, I didn’t do the things that I could do. And of course, that falls down to me not having money, because [I was] spending it all on gambling and stuff. I wanted to commit myself as an IRL streamer. …eventually, that’s what I want to see myself as.”