Gambling streams are ‘part of the contract’ for Kick’s newest streamer

theverge.com:

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff recently inked a reported eight-figure deal with Twitch rival Kick. In a recent livestream, the Faze Clan co-owner and popular Call of Duty streamer said that, as part of his new deal, he will be running gambling streams. “The first question I’ve been seeing is like, ‘Nick, are you gonna do gambling streams?’” he said during his first Kick stream. “We’re gonna do some gambling for sure. It’s part of the contract.”

Kick’s head of strategic partnerships clarified that a gambling clause is not in Kolcheff’s Kick contract. According to a post by gaming and esports reporter Jake Lucky, Nickmercs “has a Stake contract alongside his Kick contract,” referencing Stake.com, a gambling site owned by Kick co-founder Ed Craven.

Whatever contract the gambling streams are a part of, Kolcheff’s sudden disclosure lends support to the idea that Kick’s success as a streaming platform is fundamentally tied to Stake’s success as a gambling one.

Nickmercs also said that he “got another place” outside of the US to do the gambling streams, as Stake.com is not licensed to operate in the United States.

Kick.com has proven it’s willing to spend a ton of money to be a major player in the video livestream business. The platform promises an enviable 95 / 5 subscription revenue split and has offered some of the biggest names in livestreaming — Félix “xQc” Lengyel and Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, to name a few — massive contracts to stream there.

Along with other gambling sites, Stake was banned from Twitch a year ago amid concerns from several big-name Twitch streamers and