Streamers Taking On Twitch's Gambling Meta Is Long Overdue, Hypocritical, And Worrying
Right now, the biggest story on Twitch revolves around gambling. This came to a head over the weekend when former Team Liquid member ItsSliker admitted to scamming over $200,000 from his followers to fund his gambling addiction. Since then, things have only gotten more convoluted, but it's worth remembering how we got here. Back in July 2021, I reported on the gambling streams when Adin Ross claimed to make $2 million a month from them, and signalled them out as a much larger problem than the hot tub and fart streaming categories that were the talk of Twitch around the same time. A year later, in July 2022, I wrote about them again as the gambling streams changed from worryingly popular segments by a handful of streamers into a bona fide meta. Gambling was the new trend. While the hot tub and fart metas were mostly harmless (though not above critique), gambling streams where creators get cutbacks and have a captive, parasocial audience have a clear potential for huge harm. It's a relief that people are finally talking about it, but it's also telling that this is the moment all hands are on deck.
Immediately after the news of the ItsSilker story broke, streamers xQc, Ludwig, and Mizkif banded together to repay ItsSilker's followers. ItsSilker had sold his fans, as well as some other streamers, on the idea that he was suffering from various financial struggles, but most of this money went to fuelling his gambling. That those out of pocket over this are getting their money back is great - that xQc is leading the charge is extremely ironic.
Related: Amouranth Interview: "I Just Work Harder - Full Stop"
xQc was the streamer who took gambling from 'a stream people do sometimes' to 'this is the current meta', and while he
Read more on thegamer.com
