Twitch CEO claims gambling sites need to be “regulated” by governing bodies to be streamed

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy claims gambling sites need to be “regulated” by governing bodies first before being allowed to be streamed on Twitch. 

Twitch and gambling have had a long and troubled history. On October 18, Twitch brought in a new policy that targets gambling streams, with specific sites such as Stake.com and Rollbit.com both barred from the website. 

It was because of these targeted bans that Stake.com would go on to create its own competing streaming site, Kick, which has a much more relaxed stance on gambling streams. 

However, it seems the specific sites and streams were targeted not for the act of gambling itself, rather due to their “unregulated” nature, Twitch’s CEO Dan Clancy outlined in a May 31 interview with streamer Filian. 

Filian first asked Clancy to clarify what sort of gambling streams were banned on Twitch, as she was once invited to a poker event that she streamed, one which left her audience confused, as it is technically gambling. 

Clancy went on to explain how gambling as an act is not the issue, rather, it’s the gambling sites. “The thing that was growing was these unregulated offshore gambling sites… These are sites that there’s nobody overlooking to see, for example, what are the odds on the craps tables, are they tweaking them, do they change them, cause they’re not regulated.”

He also adds that Twitch found a lot of money was flowing from them into these gambling sites, which they did not feel was good for the community.

“The amount of money that was flowing, where our creators were building these communities and connections that they formed on Twitch, to drive people to these sites, it was a significant amount of money to a small number of creators. And we decided we didn’t think that was good for the community, so we banned unregulated ones,” Clancy said. 

However, he reiterated that there is no problem with streaming gambling, but Twitch has a problem with creators who host gambling streams with unregulated sites in focus. 

Clancy was asked if Twitch will ever unban unregulated sites, of which he gave his own personal opinion. 

“If these sites become regulated, and are willing to adhere to the regulations of most major countries, in terms of what they need to do as a gambling site, then of course,” he said. 

However, if they don’t adhere to consumer protection laws, Clancy feels that Twitch should not allow them.