[HN Gopher] Twitch finally takes action against gambling
___________________________________________________________________
Twitch finally takes action against gambling
Author : marban
Score : 177 points
Date : 2022-09-21 13:22 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jacobwolf.report)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jacobwolf.report)
| mudrockbestgirl wrote:
| Now I just wish that YouTube would remove all "influencers"
| trying to sell you crypto/stocks/etc. But then TikTok is still
| left...
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I find the crypto influencers entertaining. Mostly I like
| seeing how people do affiliate marketing. But I also love
| seeing something so stupid I have to try it. I've already
| doubled my money (10 USD to 20 USD) in 30 days because I saw
| someone do a video on wealthmountain.app XD
| tmpz22 wrote:
| They're actually hilarious. I mostly watch just to keep up to
| date with new crypto technologies. I've already tripled my
| money (50USD to 150USD) in 15 days because I saw someone do a
| video on lolcrypto.app XD
|
| /s
| cwkoss wrote:
| You wont see crypto influencers on Tiktok if you don't engage
| with the videos. A couple "not interested"s and I haven't seen
| one in months.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game
| currency. You can buy in game currencies for real money and
| literally gamble with it inside a game with literally slots or
| loot boxes or whatever, then trade it to others as well, in
| exchange for real money. Every game is different though. I'm
| just struggling to find the difference between crypto and any
| other digital in a video game in regards to gambling. Both are
| code driven and if anything in game gambling seems worse
| because rather than paying a market value where everyone has
| the same risk, you are paying the game creator for loot boxes
| or info and currency which they can print infinitely. Of course
| if they did print too much of an item or currency it would
| crash their in game market and destroy the rarity of those
| items. Anyways it seems like if Twitch is going after crypto
| gambling websites they need to go after in game gambling as
| well.
| wowokay wrote:
| I have to be honest 100% of the games I play with loot boxes
| don't let you trade the rewards. So that is different because
| to me loot boxes are just a different way to get cosmetics
| that I can't buy with real money from other ppl. That means I
| don't view them as having value to anyone but myself.
| spookie wrote:
| Video game "currency" (bought with real money) should be
| considered as dangerous, if not more, as crypto. So, no need
| to differentiate.
| pjc50 wrote:
| My threshold is "is there an intentional/permitted cash out
| to real money?"
|
| Gatcha games for non-transferable characters: probably
| shouldn't be marketed to children, and should be legally
| required to display odds, but not quite capable of triggering
| the full gambling addiction.
|
| Gambling for in-game items which can be resold for real
| money: this is just an illegal casino with extra steps.
| spookie wrote:
| > Gambling for in-game items which can be resold for real
| money: this is just an illegal casino with extra steps.
|
| Yup, it's just a pachinko.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| How is that better?
|
| If I'm spending my money on a slot, I have the chance to
| get my money back. Gatcha takes my money forever and when
| the game is gone, so is everything I spent and won. For
| that reason, Gatcha games and loot boxes are even more
| predatory, because they are giving an advantage to people
| and pumping up their sense of pride.
| LodeOfCode wrote:
| >If I'm spending my money on a slot, I have the chance to
| get my money back.
|
| The risk there is of gambling addicts "borrowing" money
| with the intent of winning back their losses/debts,
| losing and repeating (as claimed with the Sliker
| situation that prompted this all). Throwing good money
| after bad is presumably much less common/excessive when
| you can't cash out
| Ekaros wrote:
| If only I had kept more of the loot boxes I had instead
| of opening them... Not that the ones I have aren't worth
| hundreds of euros... Valve really did something special
| there.
| rjbwork wrote:
| With most in game currency, there does not appear to be a way
| to convert back to a liquid currency such as
| USD/EUR/Gold/etc. Thus, it is understood by all that any
| gambling proceeds are confined to the in game universe. With
| crypto-based video game currencies, especially those based on
| liquid cryptos such as ETH, there is an expectation of
| turning your in-game assets back into real spendable money.
| So, it actually seems to be a roundabout way of operating a
| casino.
| lovich wrote:
| > How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game
| currency.
|
| Being able to use it literally anywhere but that game springs
| to mind as an easy check. If crypto is the same as game
| currency doesn't that invalidate the vast majority of claims
| about the benefits of crypto?
| KaoruAoiShiho wrote:
| You generally can't get your money out of a video game, I
| think that would be gambling. But if it only goes in and
| doesn't come out it's just consumption. If it comes out,
| gambling. Pretty sure that's how it works.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| steam and valve games w trading like csgo skirt this no?
| buy a key for crate, get a say $100 skin, sell on their
| integrated market place and have steam wallet funds. its
| not out but can be as currency on the platform. garbage at
| any rate
| pessimizer wrote:
| > How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game
| currency. You can buy in game currencies for real money and
| literally gamble with it inside a game with literally slots
| or loot boxes or whatever, then trade it to others as well,
| in exchange for real money.
|
| This has been and is still in danger as being banned as
| gambling. So the answer is that you don't bother, and you ban
| that too.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _How do you differentiate crypto from any other video game
| currency._
|
| Don't. Don't differentiate those, and ban them all. Nothing
| of value would be lost.
| Kukumber wrote:
| The crypto people are not on TikTok
|
| You find them on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Twitch and Reddit
|
| I don't understand why people want to make the parallel and
| include TikTok, well, maybe i know why
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| There are crypto shills on TikTok, what makes you think they
| would be on all of those other platforms and not the most
| popular?
| Kukumber wrote:
| They use it to increase their reach, if you close TikTok,
| they'll still share on their main platforms; wich TikTok
| isn't
|
| Do your research
|
| Here for example:
|
| https://crypto.com/nft/brands/ufc
|
| When it is this mainstream, you can't say "oh it's because
| of TikTok", no, it's because of Western companies and
| celebrities promoting it, and using various mediums of
| communication; no legislation, no nothing
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| >After years of silence, Twitch announced on Tuesday that it's
| banning the streaming of unregulated gambling on its platform.
| It's about damn time.
|
| i don't understand the comments here about censorship. is Twitch
| above the laws?
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Eh, there's not _necessarily_ anything illegal about your
| streaming platform showing video of illegal activities.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Now if only they took action against porn next... One can
| dream...
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| interesting definition of porn
| Ekaros wrote:
| Annoying part of this is really if there is need of USA
| regulation. As European I should be allowed freely to view
| content generated in Europe which happens on platform regulated
| in EU. If Twitch want to limit it they can just ban USA based
| viewers.
| sneak wrote:
| Censorship of video streams is the wrong place for this, even if
| you think gambling is bad.
|
| Twitch isn't taking action against gambling. It's censoring
| streamers.
|
| Publishing video of oneself gambling is very very different than
| accepting wagers. They are taking action against the publishing
| of videos of performative gamblers, not against gambling.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
| qsort wrote:
| A platform whose audience is mostly teenagers is the wrong
| place to ban streamers actively promoting gambling?
|
| How is that even remotely censorship?
| causi wrote:
| It is censorship. It's just entirely reasonable censorship as
| Twitch is a private company and can choose not to host
| whatever it pleases.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| It's only censorship in the sense that all rules are
| "censorship" which IMO removes the value of having a
| distinct word.
|
| A meaningful definition would highlight the desire to
| suppress a point of view, and you're going to have a hard
| time justifying "gambling as a point of view", because it's
| not really a position on an issue.
| causi wrote:
| _It 's only censorship in the sense that all rules are
| "censorship" which IMO removes the value of having a
| distinct word._
|
| It's censorship in the sense that things are censored,
| i.e., prevented from being shown or communicated, which
| is the definition of the word "censorship". Putting a
| black bar over someone's genitals or bleeping profanity
| is also censorship. It's just not _government_
| censorship, and therefore has no relation to freedom of
| speech.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| ...I'm trying to explain how that definition is kind of
| useless, as literally every rule is censorship if we use
| it.
|
| The text box here being limited to 5000 chars (or w/e
| size it actually is) would be censorship under that
| definition. The fact that I can't also upload audio to HN
| would be censorship. Does acoustic physics censor me
| because I can't yell loudly enough for everyone to hear
| my views on how to cook pasta correctly (salt, the secret
| is salt)?
|
| I just don't find those things to be in the same category
| as a government arresting protestors, for example, and I
| don't find Twitch banning otherwise illegal gambling
| content to be in that same category, either.
| causi wrote:
| Fair enough, I amend my statement. It's censorship in the
| sense that things are censored, i.e., *deliberately*
| prevented from being shown or communicated based on their
| informational content.
|
| _I just don 't find those things to be in the same
| category as a government arresting protestors, for
| example,_
|
| Correct; that is government censorship. There is not,
| however, a qualitative difference between Twitch deciding
| to ban one behavior from being depicted over another,
| whether it be gambling, nudity, racism, or people doing
| that trick with their spit where they let it stretch down
| several inches and suck it back into their mouths.
|
| _I 'm not seeing a real "point of view" being expressed
| here, which IMO is also an important part of censorship._
|
| Well your opinion disagrees with the dictionary. I don't
| know what to tell you.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| But that's still part of the problem; I'm not seeing a
| real "point of view" being expressed here, which IMO is
| also an important part of censorship.
|
| Because I'm having a hard time believing "watch me gamble
| on sites that I'm not legally allowed to gamble on"
| really qualifies as "a point of view" or "expression" in
| a meaningful sense (though yes, I bet if we pulled out
| our Webster's Dictionaries we could squeeze the
| definition into this conversation somehow).
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| But it's not. You can still show or communicate the same
| things as before, as long as the underlying activity
| isn't actual gambling. Financial transactions aren't
| speech.
| donatj wrote:
| In my eyes, the only thing justifiable to censor in all of
| life is "think of the children" arguments. They are always
| baseless calls to emotion.
|
| A kid watches gambling, what's the harm? They're gambling
| in school, it's a tail as old as time. Magic cards, pokemon
| cards, pogs, marbles. They all have aspects of gambling.
| ciabattabread wrote:
| It technically is, it's just that we normally use censorship
| to describe government actions.
|
| Their platform, their rules.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Well no, they're banning gambling on stream in some regions
| to meet government regulations.
| desindol wrote:
| It's an easy exploitable market you hear a lot arguing to
| open up markets like that under the almighty umbrella of
| "free speech(tm)".
| IncandescentGas wrote:
| Do you have data suggesting twitch auidences are mostly
| teenagers?
|
| According to GlobalWebIndex in Q2 2019, this is an
| approximation of the age demographic on Twitch, ranging in
| age from 16-64 years in age:
|
| 16 to 24 year olds: 41% 25 to 34 year olds: 32% 35 to 44 year
| olds: 17% 45 to 54 year olds: 7% 55 to 64 year olds: 3%
| matai_kolila wrote:
| The stats I found seem to suggest nearly zero under-18 use
| Twitch, which I think we all know is a lie...
|
| From https://www.streamscheme.com/twitch-statistics/:
|
| > In 2022 the age demographic on Twitch is as follows:
|
| > 18 to 24-year-olds: 35.85%
|
| > 25 to 34 year-olds: 32.14%
|
| > 35 to 44-year-olds: 15.33%
|
| > 45 to 54-year-olds: 8.62%
|
| > 55 to 64-year-olds: 4.97%
| xnyan wrote:
| No offense to GlobalWebIndex, but garbage data in garbage
| data out. There's no possible way that 0% of Twitch
| viewership is under 16 (go to literally any school or place
| with children under 16 and casually observe their screens).
|
| Children have been lying about their age on the internet
| since the beginning of the internet. Any service that says
| no children are using it without very sold proof is
| ignorant or lying.
| password321 wrote:
| To be more precise it is censoring unregulated gambling.
| iterati wrote:
| They are coming out against advertising gambling from countries
| with lax consumer protection laws. If you play slots on a US-
| based slot machine, you're free to stream. They previously
| banned posting links to these sites with affiliate codes, but
| they can't police the streamer's Discord or other channels
| where these are shared. Since they don't want viewers using
| affiliate links and codes for these non-US-based gambling
| sites, they are low on options here.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| > they can't police the streamer's Discord or other channels
| where these are shared.
|
| Didn't realize it was Twitch's job to patrol what is posted
| on Discord.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Moral Clauses are common for entertainers.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morals_clause
| causi wrote:
| Frankly I'm thankful for every tiny action Twitch takes against
| any content that isn't related to videogames. Twitch is
| watered-down enough as it is. If you want to thirst-trap or
| stream gambling or do mukbangs there are plenty of other
| platforms.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Why, you want all non-toxic communities off twitch?
|
| Jokes aside, I have no idea what your issue is with people
| singing songs or cooking on twitch. Did they hurt you
| somehow?
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| And here I am watching art streams on Twitch ... I didn't
| realize they were watering down the purity of what should
| be a _gaming stream only_ platform.
| [deleted]
| shlant wrote:
| > Censorship of video streams is the wrong place for this, even
| if you think gambling is bad.
|
| what do you mean by "the wrong place for this"? As in on the
| platform is the wrong avenue to address gambling?
| nullish_signal wrote:
| Maybe next some action against the Prostitutes of "Just Chatting"
|
| Especially those in Bathtubs + Bikinis...
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Maybe don't visit them if it irks you so much.
|
| Personally everyone on Twitch is a prostitute in some way,
| whether it's of their personality or looks.
|
| Or is it only girls you're having a problem with?
|
| It's all panhandling imo...
| password321 wrote:
| Wherever there is gambling, crypto seems to be behind it these
| days.
| birracerveza wrote:
| It sure is being used a lot as a currency despite supposedly
| being terrible as a currency (according to HN, at least).
| jejeyyy77 wrote:
| crypto enables free market activities
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| a fool and his money are soon parted
| iterati wrote:
| And scams. Don't forget the scams.
| max_ wrote:
| Most scams occur with government issued money
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Thats why the bukaneer islands were such a honest gambler
| paradise..
| jejeyyy77 wrote:
| cash & dollars
| riscy wrote:
| the original implementation of Bitcoin had bits of code for an
| online poker game:
| https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/2020/04/08/bitcoin-poker-...
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, it's obvious why. Crypto is much simpler than interacting
| with dollars, and it's easier to bypass gambling laws, many of
| which are quite draconian, when you're not interacting with
| dollars. Crypto casinos can also be "provably fair" to win
| trust from people when they have no track record.
|
| There are more cynical benefits too like how it's easier to
| disappear into the night with people's money, but you don't
| have to go that far to see why it might be useful.
| rafale wrote:
| Probably fair proofs can be used regardless of the payment
| method, crypto or fiat.
| jstummbillig wrote:
| But hey, there is your legitimate (albeit slightly illegal)
| use case for crypto :^)
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Draconian laws? Gambling is nearly the definition of market
| failure. The information imbalance between online casino and
| players is absolute. Without regulation there would be no way
| to even know if the odds online casinos are giving you for a
| given game are true. You could be playing a game you think is
| 49/51, but actually getting 40/60 or 30/70 odds. You have to
| trust the casino to perform RNG in a fair and unbiased way.
|
| The same applies to gambling marketing. Do you know if Twitch
| streamers are using their own money or playing with "house
| money"? Do you know if the casino is giving Twitch streamers
| more favourable odds to make the service look better?
|
| Edit:
|
| > Crypto casinos can also be "provably fair" to win trust
| from people when they have no track record.
|
| Do such casinos currently exist, or is this a hypothetical?
| AFAIK currently existing crypto casinos are opaque.
| fourstar wrote:
| >The information imbalance between online casino and
| players is absolute. Without regulation there would be no
| way to even know if the odds online casinos are giving you
| for a given game are true.
|
| Also absolute: you being unable to comprehend OP's comment
| about what "provably fair" means.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The original comment I replied to was simply:
|
| > Well, it's obvious why. Crypto is much simpler than
| interacting with dollars, and it's easier to bypass
| gambling laws, many of which are quite draconian, when
| you're not interacting with dollars.
|
| It has since been edited with no notice.
| fourstar wrote:
| Whatever. To answer your edited addendum:
| https://funfair.io/ was one of the first to implement
| provably fair gaming in crypto but unsure if they are
| still the same company (guy who made starfox for n64
| started it)
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| Pretty classy "whatever". You remind me of my teenage
| nephew.
| fourstar wrote:
| So you're the "uncool" uncle. Thanks for clarifying.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I think by "draconian laws," they mean that, for example,
| attempting to gamble on the internet in my state is a
| felony. I could potentially be imprisoned for up to ten
| years, treated the same as if I'd committed residential
| burglary.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Yeah, I posted my comment and realized I had blanked on one
| of the more unique aspects of digital gambling.
|
| Provably fair is standard in the popular casinos. Any
| casino that lets you give them a "client seed" is doing
| this. Example: https://stake.com/provably-fair/overview and
| https://www.bustabit.com/help/provable-fairness
|
| Doesn't this address part of your main argument?
| cwkoss wrote:
| provably fair bitcoin casinos have been a thing for more
| than a decade now.
|
| "Satoshi Dice" was probably the biggest one, back in the
| day. Looks like it's still running
| roenxi wrote:
| Gambling is a market failure - classic case of human
| emotions getting tricked into irrational decisions.
| However:
|
| - If you keep track of the wins and losses you'd figure it
| out fairly quickly - a 30/70 game doesn't play like a
| 49-51.
|
| - Why would the casino lie? Someone who is going to take a
| 49/51 bet may as well take a 30/70 bet, if they already
| understand odds they understand that they're paying the
| casino money for their time.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| How is gambling any more irrational than any other form
| of entertainment? Sure, some people are addicted, and
| that's irrational, but others are paying less than they
| would to have an alternate form of entertainment.
| spookie wrote:
| Because the main goal isn't entertainment.
| Tenoke wrote:
| >gambling content on websites that aren't regulated by U.S.
| gambling restrictions.
|
| This effectively kills most poker streaming, no? The US only
| allows a handful of sites in their US-only version so any non-US
| citizens streaming are unable to even use the platforms that are
| approved there. I rarely but occasionally watch a bit of them as
| a cheap way to relive my poker days so I am not too happy about
| this.
|
| Further, it seems like the problem was that a streamer was
| soliciting loans which doesn't have that much to do with whether
| US-approved gambling sites are allowed or not.
| jtokoph wrote:
| Sites like pokerstars are regulated and legal in some US
| states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Michigan
| Tenoke wrote:
| Sure, but only Americans are allowed to play on the sites
| allowed in the US. Some entities like pokerstars have
| seperate sites for the rest of the world but those are very
| much unapproved in the US, and thus only Americans can stream
| poker on Twitch from now on (and they make up a small amount
| of the streamers given the poor rules in the US for playing
| it).
| draw_down wrote:
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Does poker count as gambling in the US?
| DawsonBruce wrote:
| The UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) was
| passed in November of 2006, as part of the SAFE Port Act [0],
| which placed online poker into a legal grey area for most
| U.S. citizens. A lot of major poker sites withdrew from the
| U.S. market as a result.
|
| The legality of both in-person and online poker varies from
| state to state.
|
| [0]: https://www.beatthefish.com/us-poker-sites/uigea-
| unlawful-in...
| mod wrote:
| > A lot of major poker sites withdrew from the U.S. market
| as a result.
|
| That's an interestingly nice way to put it.
|
| In reality, they all flaunted the (bullshit) law, and set
| up all kinds of phony businesses and things to process all
| the payouts, because banks wouldn't do gambling stuff. I
| got a check from a golf shop once. Then the feds went after
| them on fraud and similar charges, and shut down Full Tilt,
| Poker Stars, and Absolute. Seized domains and funds and
| stuff.
|
| That's when they "withdrew from the U.S. market."
| kmnc wrote:
| There will be many loopholes and ways to still stream gambling,
| but the main result of this hopefully is the end of #ad gambling
| streams which are very dishonest and show a glorified version of
| gambling (100k bonus buys, 1k per spin) with absolutely no way to
| know where the money is coming from since it is all crypto.
| Watching someone spin 1k slots knowing they are making millions
| from advertising is very different from watching someone spin 5
| dollar slots of their own money. The excitement level from a
| viewer perspective is also way less.
|
| The danger, and likely future however is sites like DraftKings
| and Fanduel setting up slots and being allowed fully, then
| sponsoring streamers. Basically, the danger with banning the
| unregulated stuff yet still being very supportive of gambling
| (which Twitch and more so Amazon obviously are) is opening a door
| to further normalization and mainstream acceptance of gambling
| (see Poker taking a nosedive due to regulation yet paving the way
| for the massive boom in fantasy sports)... but hey, at least some
| guy in Curacao won't be getting the millions, some CEO and
| shareholders in the US will. Still, it is a good step by twitch,
| and I hope it really does end the #ad gambling streams.
|
| We may see a surge in Fantasy sports betting and e-sports betting
| though. Having xQC watch NFL games on stream while betting
| thousands on regulated sites is probably a future Amazon would be
| very happy with.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > Watching someone spin 1k slots knowing they are making
| millions from advertising is very different from watching
| someone spin 5 dollar slots of their own money
|
| It's not just where the money is coming from but whether the
| odds are different from regular players. The gambling sites who
| sponsor this can very well adjust the odds per user so that the
| streamer gets consistent wins where as real players get the
| real odds which favor the house.
|
| I've seen such gambling "ads" on YouTube, obviously they're not
| presented as ads nor even as _gambling_ , rather they're
| presented as a way of making money, a loophole in the game, all
| the way to saying that there used to be an old version of this
| game but they closed it down due to many people winning, but
| this new game also has a loophole (how convenient!). In the
| "ad", they were consistently winning, in such a way where
| there's basically no way to lose even if you tried it on
| purpose. I very much doubt the video was falsified, rather the
| gambling platform was able to change the odds per-use so that
| their affiliates can get consistent wins so they can promote
| the platforms without requiring video trickery.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| At least for two of the websites listed by Twitch in the new
| policy, the websites themselves don't set the odds. They
| don't even make the slot games. A third party creates the
| games, sets the odds, and provides these websites an API for
| them to use.
|
| Two of those websites, the ones I'm familiar with, use (at
| least some of) the same third party websites. For example,
| Pragmatic Play.
|
| It's a vastly different conspiracy to say that the websites
| listed on Twitch's policy are setting odds in favor of their
| affiliates when it involves at least two different companies.
|
| That's not to say this has never happened before, though.
| There was previously a website called CSGO Shuffle on Twitch
| that was setting odds in favor of their owners and partners,
| but those owners and partners also didn't disclose that they
| were advertising and didn't disclose that they were involved
| in the company.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/21/12246138/twitch-bans-
| phan...
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| >At least for two of the websites listed by Twitch in the
| new policy, the websites themselves don't set the odds.
| They don't even make the slot games. A third party creates
| the games, sets the odds, and provides these websites an
| API for them to use.
|
| Not strictly true. Casino operators have access to the game
| provider tools. Some providers allow you to tweak RTP per
| game or even per player.
|
| Yes, the Casino operator doesn't make the games, but they
| don't need to when the game creators expose all this
| configuration through their tooling and APIs.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| Thank you for the correction. Do you know if this is true
| for the providers commonly used by the websites listed in
| the new Twitch policy, e.g. Stake?
| 111111101101 wrote:
| I think that Stake make their own games. Or at least a
| company owned by the same people as Stake makes the
| games.
|
| From https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/the-secret-
| australia...
|
| > In 2016, the pair set up Easygo which focused on
| developing games for online casinos and helped build
| Stake.com into an online casino powerhouse.
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| Stake started out at bitcointalk with the socalled
| original dice games, this then gree into a new era of
| games usually and still not provided by the classic game
| play providers. These games are now also available as a
| nodeJS package for sale.
|
| However, many of their games are from the classic
| providers.
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| The only difference on rtp between settings in the new
| rtp setting for Germany. Even this is not configurable by
| the operator. No casino can access any rtp settings from
| game play providers, I work with them every day.
| Especially on player level sounds absolutely impossible
| for any reputable provider. I am signing the contracts
| and implementing the bonus engines etc. It is unheard of
| in the regulated market.
|
| I would be surprised if this were true, kindly list the
| providers which do that, I will be happy to eat my words.
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| The trickery is not via RTP, it is by other means, which I
| better not share here, it is a common marketing strategy.
| Rest assured, there is no tricks with rtp, but the tricks in
| use are morally not exactly better than that, the industry
| insiders im high enough positions know. And of course the
| streamers.
| vkou wrote:
| This sort of chicanery is precisely why I'm of the mind that,
| while gambling should not be banned (as that just drives it
| underground) it should be _banned from advertising
| /twitch/etc_.
|
| Let people get into destructive behaviours, but for Pete's
| sake, don't promote the damn thing.
| Ekaros wrote:
| There has been some real loopholes and probably still are.
| Outside outright bugs the promotional offers with free credit
| and certain low variance high return slots allowed in certain
| scenarios for people to make theoretical profit. Though most
| likely ended up gambling any net wins anyway so...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Yes but that was not it. The game that was demonstrated in
| this ad was something called "Lucky Jet" or "Aviator" where
| you bet some money and then there's a multiplier than goes
| up starting from 0 - at some point the multiplier will
| crash and you lose your bet, so your objective is to cash
| out before that. For the game to be profitable you'd need
| the multiplier to sometimes crash before 1, but in his
| video that never happened and he was consistently able to
| cash out in profit. If these were the real odds the casino
| would be bankrupt very quickly. Maybe the casino is crooked
| in a different way and just finds excuses to never let you
| withdraw your winnings, so they can really give you good
| odds knowing you'll never actually be able to withdraw your
| winnings.
| fckgw wrote:
| The casinos do not set the odds on the games, the game
| providers do. You can play the same games across many online
| casinos, much like how you can play the same slots across
| many Vegas casinos.
|
| They cannot adjust odds of the slots, that's not how that
| works. The casinos can cover any losses of slot streamers
| however.
| omgomgomgomg wrote:
| This comments is unfairly downvoted.
|
| I am a head of operations in an online casino. I am
| responsible for gameplay provider integrations, psp
| integrations and many things more.
|
| The slots rtp is absolutely set by the game play providers,
| even the aggregators just pass it on. It is not
| configurable in any way, not on user level, not on casino
| operator level, it is always global scope.
|
| The game play providers earn by rev share, they are the top
| of the food chain and it would be economical suicide to
| provide different APIs, they have some settings depending
| on some GEOs, but these are things like no auto play, stake
| limits etc.
|
| Any regulated casino is using these, the audience is not
| naive, of course, there are some fly by night operators
| using pirate games, but this gets detected fast and is
| often the reason for these casinos having bad rep online,
| amongst affiliates who will not have them listed etc. These
| are operated by incompetent people.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| It sounds like you're talking about real casinos in well
| regulated jurisdictions. But a big part of the problem is
| "totally-not-a-casino" casinos which pretend to be
| something else because most of their clients are children.
| fckgw wrote:
| Online casinos are, in fact, regulated.
|
| Also why does this "children" thing keep coming up?
| Casinos don't want children to play their games, they
| don't even have money to spend!
| Ekaros wrote:
| They might steal the credit card one or two time. And
| even then the gains are less worth than the hassle from
| charge backs or possible legal action.
| 111111101101 wrote:
| There are casinos aimed at children but instead of
| playing for money they play for game skins which can be
| sold for money.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Any _regulated_ casino is the key. The "ad" I saw was for a
| gambling site based in Eastern Europe that actually geo-
| blocked me as I was in the UK, so I wouldn't be surprised
| if regulations there are much more lax if not completely
| absent.
|
| From a technical perspective, even if we assume that the
| operator indeed can't adjust the odds, it would take an
| engineer only a few hours to mock out the API endpoints the
| front end calls to return consistent wins and then it's
| just a matter of using a browser extension or a proxy to
| redirect all traffic to the fake server to be able to film
| such a video (still much easier than faking the video
| itself).
| ajross wrote:
| > opening a door to further normalization and mainstream
| acceptance of gambling
|
| Meh. I don't know that that's resolvable. The fundamental
| desire for this in the market is real, the job of regulation is
| just to keep a lid on the worst excesses. Given the choice
| between a very large regulated market for a good and a somewhat
| smaller but completely unregulated black market for the same
| good, most people would prefer the former even if there are
| sharp edges.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Big-business gambling is no less damaging (or no less
| "excessive") than small-business gambling. The real
| difference between big and small is whether the people
| pocketing the profits tithe a portion of them to political
| campaigns or not.
| ajross wrote:
| Unregulated black markets breed auxiliary crime, they
| always do.
|
| If you don't have the option to sue people to get back
| money you're owed, you're forced to resort to less savory
| options. And on the other side of the incentives calculus,
| people who defraud and steal from regulated businesses and
| their customers tend to go to jail. Rip off a fellow
| criminal and most of the time no one cares.
|
| The solution is legalization and regulation, and to the
| extent society can't bring itself to do that, it's
| tantamount to declaring its willingness to tolerate the
| black market replacement.
| alexb_ wrote:
| I really do not understand why people are saying twitch is
| banning gambling when they are banning gambling that is _illegal
| in the country it operates_. This was very clearly done as a
| short-term way to get out of regulatory scrutiny - gambling laws
| are starting to be repealed across America, so soon this action
| will just allow for gambling again (once legal entities don 't
| pay attention to it anymore)
| [deleted]
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >I really do not understand why people are saying twitch is
| banning gambling when they are banning gambling that is illegal
| in the country it operates.
|
| As a poker player, this is very good news as far as I'm
| concerned. There is a lot of quality content on Twitch from
| poker players, especially during big events like the World
| Series of Poker.
| jyriand wrote:
| Is poker considered gambling?
| mod wrote:
| Not only considered, it meets the criteria very well. It's
| definitely gambling.
|
| If you're a pro (or better than your competitors), it's
| kinda like being the house in a blackjack game, except a
| lot less variance, because the edge is greater.
|
| But still a lot of variance. Poker is gambling, and it
| feels like gambling.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Gambling is impossible to win at and involves you slowly
| losing money to the house. Poker is a game with skill
| involved where you can make money off other players.
| mod wrote:
| That's an incorrect definition of gambling, although it
| is an accurate portrayal of most gambling.
|
| Poker is a good reason why your definition is incorrect.
| Poker is gambling, but it doesn't resemble you slowly
| losing your money to the house. I mean, that happens too,
| but it resembles slowly losing your money to the other
| players.
|
| Unless you're in the small % of winning players, then it
| looks like gambling where you slowly win money from the
| other players.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| How could it not be? Most players lose money over their
| lifetimes. It's played in Casinos. There's skill involved,
| sure, but it's still gambling.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| well a game of skill with betting seems less harsh and way
| more fun to watch at any rate. havent seen many slots
| strategy breakdown videos
| mod wrote:
| Slots can be played profitably. Not just any slot, not
| just anytime, but some slots become +EV when the jackpots
| get high enough. Some other games have been profitable to
| play in the past, after careful analysis by players.
| "Advantage players" seek these games out and monitor them
| for profitable situations.
|
| In other cases, there are strategies to just lose less
| money.
|
| Anyway, all that to say, there's definitely slot advice
| videos and all that out there.
| yetiofparis wrote:
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Is this censorship? Where is the outrage like in the kiwifarms
| threads?
| Spivak wrote:
| Unless you can make a compelling case that gambling is speech
| I'm not really sure you could call it censorship unless you
| really stretch it. I think the best you can say is that it's a
| private company enforcing gambling rules in their little
| fifedom that are more strict the laws of their enclosing
| regulatory environment.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Preventing a company from choosing what to publish would also
| be censorship, would it not?
| splitstud wrote:
| [deleted]
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| is it censorship if its illegal in the country where your
| company is based?
|
| do you not follow the laws of the country where your company is
| located?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Simple: Gambling is illegal by law in many countries outside of
| very strict regulations. Running a forum like Kiwifarms (sadly)
| is not.
| root_axis wrote:
| The KF story is more contentious because it's rooted in a
| culture war battle.
| matai_kolila wrote:
| Can you be more specific about this expected outrage?
|
| I think for something like this, most folks don't generally
| care, because it's a pretty specific niche of people who watch
| Twitch streams for gambling content (relatively speaking
| anyway, those people are probably not here).
| jdmdmdmdmd wrote:
| Twitch isn't a necessary prerequisite to being online. (And it
| isn't being done at a time where people are actively trying to
| silence speech such as by DDOSing.) Twitch has very strict
| rules for what is allowed, more so than even YouTube. To answer
| your question, this is censorship but it isn't total
| censorship. CF enacted _total censorship_ of KiwiFarms: but
| only from an online perspective. KiwiFarms can still operate by
| mail or by in person gatherings. So it 's only total censorship
| online. The acceptable degree of censorship was what sparked so
| much outrage. The degree seen here is an everyday occurrence.
| It's just Twitch updating thier censorship rules.
| s-lambert wrote:
| Twitch already censors a lot of other content and also this
| isn't just people streaming, they're making money off of it.
|
| I don't think this is comparable to other sites like Twitter
| banning users because Twitch isn't a communication platform,
| it's an entertainment one and only allowing certain kinds of
| entertainment is par for the course.
| Spivak wrote:
| > Twitch isn't a communication platform, it's an
| entertainment one
|
| I feel like this is hard to argue in general. Twitch really
| isn't all that different than live streams on TikTok,
| YouTube, or Facebook which are general communication
| platforms where creators can get partner status and share ad
| revenue.
|
| The thing that ties Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, Cloudflare,
| Wordpress, Facebook all together is that they're broadcasting
| corporations available to the public at large. The value prop
| to their users is the megaphone. How it's accomplished from a
| tech perspective shouldn't really matter.
| fallingknife wrote:
| > and only allowing certain kinds of entertainment is par for
| the course
|
| It's the legal issue, though. I personally think that laws
| against gambling are none of the government's damn business,
| and if Twitch is doing this only because of laws, then I
| don't like it, but blame the government, not Twitch. If
| gambling were legal, and Twitch decided to ban it anyway, I
| would hold it as equivalent to them banning porn on their
| platform, and totally legit, at least as long as Twitch was
| not a monopoly.
| vdnkh wrote:
| Twitch is explicitly not a free speech platform:
| https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/twitch-isnt-a-free-spe...
|
| "Twitch prioritizes minimizing harm to our users over freedom
| of expression, and we will limit some expression with the goal
| of preventing, protecting users from, and moderating hateful
| behavior and harassment."
|
| This may come as a surprise to the average HN viewer, but not
| every tech company strives for a libertarian ethos
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Gambling isn't a form of speech. If they were also banning
| people from playing no-stakes social poker or even talking
| about gambling, you might have a point.
| platz wrote:
| The type of gambling Slicker was engaged in was regulated sports
| betting. So, the ban on unregulated gambling doesn't even cover
| the Slicker situation.
|
| Twitch has several large contracts with sports gambling on their
| site as wll.
|
| Makes you really wonder about the true motivations of the
| selectivity of the ban.
| stefan_ wrote:
| What if.. the two are entirely unrelated and you only make the
| connection because your $STREAMER is involved in pointless
| drama?
|
| Power law, folks.
| philippejara wrote:
| pretty sure said $STREAMERS are some of the biggest ones in
| the platform, and said pointless drama was started due to
| some of them asking twitch to ban said gambling. Occam's
| razor and all that, especially when you have headlines like
| these that do a pretty good job of making twitch look good
| while not actually banning gambling really.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Coffeezilla did an entire series[1] around this and specifically
| Robet. Pretty interesting and crazy how much money the casinos
| made. After watching his series even I was thinking in the back
| of my head: "I should start one of these".
|
| [1]:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbYLxrM5NdU&list=PL4qw3AkxFD...
| Eyght wrote:
| It can be lucrative and fun, until you're confronted with the
| trail of human wreckage in its wake.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's surprisingly easy to make money if you have no soul or
| ethical qualms about anything.
| TLLtchvL8KZ wrote:
| That entire twitch site seems like pure brain rot, from what I
| understand it's entirely giving people money to watch them play
| games or for women to say your name. The whole thing seems
| unhealthy from the get-go.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Twitch is hardly pure brain rot, there are plenty of things
| worse, but the growth and commercialization of streaming have
| created a lot of problems for parts of the platform. There is
| some really amazing content on there and as far as I have seen
| most watchers have Twitch going on with something else. For the
| really, really massive communities, it does seem like a
| crapshoot. Whats the point of chat that streams by at a million
| miles an hour? Then again...you get to see modern day
| celebrities interacting in real time...for many that is a cool
| thing to experience.
| [deleted]
| chowells wrote:
| You are describing a very small percentage of streamers. If you
| avoid people with over 100 concurrent viewers, you find
| thousands of streamers who aren't doing more than trying to
| build communities around a common hobby. And it was my
| impression that that's seen as a good thing.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Honestly, I don't think it is necessarily any worse than
| let's say sports. You are watching other people playing a
| game with some people commenting over. Acceptable past time.
|
| Now, as it grows and as certain content becomes more popular
| it becomes rather less murky and clean. Still I wouldn't call
| it all bad.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| The faux-friendship interactions with chat I think can be
| pretty unhealthy for sensitive viewers (shut-ins and
| teens). Like many shitty sites, if you go to the places
| with fewer people, it isn't so bad. Stick with people with
| a few hundred viewers, avoid simp-magnets and loudmouths.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| All of the streamer/"community" chatter interaction is god
| awful, low effort, low quality, waste of time. Every content
| creator I love who has spent more time on twitch ends up
| gearing their content for the 12 year olds in chat and that
| ruins it for those who don't want their content filled with
| "pogger" and other hyper niche fads in the twitch chat.
| scifibestfi wrote:
| Does this mean they're taking action against games with loot
| boxes? That's gambling minus the possibility of making money.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| > That's gambling minus the possibility of making money.
|
| Lootboxes are extremely scummy, but doesn't the fact that you
| can't make money from it make it not gambling? Otherwise
| wouldn't places like Chuck-e-Cheese with ticket prize arcades
| be considered gambling? Or card games like MTG and Pokemon? In
| those cases you can even sell your prizes to other people for
| real cash.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| You absolutely can make money if the games allow transferring
| assets, or you can transfer an account to someone else.
|
| See: the whole CS:GO lootbox fad. On top of the value of the
| cosmetics which could be traded, "Creators" were making
| enough money streaming lootbox opening to be able to afford
| hypercars.
| Loughla wrote:
| Honestly. Baseball cards are a very well known, very popular,
| very mainstream and socially accepted loot-box/gambling. Is
| is the picture and statistics that make it okay?
|
| Why do video game loot-boxes get extra scrutiny?
|
| For context, I hate any game that implements them and believe
| they're the largest reason that mobile gaming continues to
| suck.
| spookie wrote:
| Both are bad, but one has existed for longer than the
| other. So, it isn't as normalized for anyone over 16yo.
| jdmdmdmdmd wrote:
| >For context, I hate any game that implements them and
| believe they're the largest reason that mobile gaming
| continues to suck.
|
| Can you explain how this contextualizes your above
| statement and questions?
| Loughla wrote:
| I'm not trying to defend loot boxes at all. Maybe I
| should've said 'reference' instead of 'context'.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| No. No it doesn't.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Some of the more popular games do have significant resale value
| on skins that can be turned into steam credits. So its op par
| with gambling. And no gambler makes money trough their spins,
| unless you count games like poker where better players can edge
| out somewhat of an advantage.
| treis wrote:
| The article wasn't very clear about this. Is this people watching
| streamers gamble or are they somehow gambling through Twitch?
| alexb_ wrote:
| Online gambling sites illegal in the US such as stake.com would
| pay streamers millions of dollars a month to move to Canada so
| they could legally wake up, play slots for 20 hours in a row
| for tens of thousands of viewers, and then go to sleep.
| pjc50 wrote:
| This is an absolutely insane activity on every level. Can't
| people find excitement of their own?
| Ekaros wrote:
| I used to watch youtube videos of slots for bit kinda
| interesting. But if I want to see gambling why wouldn't I
| just go online casino and use the demo version. Set max
| bet, roll until out of play money. Refresh repeat until you
| get few nice bonuses.
|
| All for free.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Presumably so that other people, using VPN's, would then
| visit those same gambling sites.
|
| So the logical fix is not to do anything about the streamers,
| but to catch the sites offering services to US people via
| VPN's.
| alexb_ wrote:
| Given how much Twitch is moving to advertisers for income
| (they've bumped up ads to 3 minutes/hour), I think there's
| also a risk of losing people willing to advertise on Twitch
| due to not wanting an association with "illegal in the us"
| activities.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Streaming services also resent "hashtag sponsored hashtag
| content" in general. They're advertising-supported
| platforms, so hosting sponsored content is advertising
| money that's going directly to the streamer rather than
| though their system where they get a cut. But they've
| accidentally ended up in a situation where their own ad
| rates are so bad that their creators couldn't survive
| without effectively promoting their own competitors, so
| there's no way for them to forbid it without destroying
| their own business model. Thus, they're likely to jump on
| any excuse to ban particular kinds of sponsored content
| whenever they arise.
| treis wrote:
| What a world we live in
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Time to ban the softcore porn too ("hot tub" streams), and then
| the platform will be reasonably clean.
| Ekaros wrote:
| And treat the creators equally, be it IRL or avatar users... Or
| partners or not... I really expect Twitch to be lot more
| proactive. Like for example they should have instantly shutdown
| streamers showing copyrighted tv series...
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I agree. The redistribution of copyrighted material through
| "reaction" (but not really) streams is also ridiculous, and
| they need to get on top of that.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Interesting that sports betting is allowed.
| rockostrich wrote:
| Not really. Online sports betting is legal in like 20 states at
| this point and I think most others have some kind of
| legislation pending or proposed to make it legal soon.
| [deleted]
| jgrowl wrote:
| I WONDER WHY
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-08/-thursday...
| mudrockbestgirl wrote:
| Isn't that regulated?
|
| > Twitch said it will bar all gambling content on websites that
| aren't regulated by U.S. gambling restrictions
| philippejara wrote:
| Gambling is a problem regardless of being regulated, if
| anything else being regulated only makes it easier for the
| audience to get addicted to it, random viewer #2345 from the
| US isn't gonna gamble on some dingy underground casino if
| there's an openly available one to do it in.
| elfatizer wrote:
| 31 states have legal channels for retail/online sports
| betting. If DraftKings can officially sponsor the NFL, low
| chance it will be knocked down by Twitch.
|
| I think this line mostly refers to the U.S. because there are
| large streamers who stream gambling sites from Canada or
| elsewhere due to lighter local restrictions.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This post accurately mentions the events of the last week but
| doesn't really capture the full scope of what's going on with
| Twitch and the gravity of the situation.
|
| On the streaming front, Twitch has made a number of changes in
| the past few months. Typically Twitch Partners had to exclusively
| live stream on Twitch. They've relaxed these restrictions to
| really soften the blow for what's coming. A big change (just
| announced today) is that subscription splits to 50-50 in almost
| all cases. A lot of mostly bigger streamers were grandfatheered
| into better deals (ie 70-30).
|
| If you don't follow Twitch, the $5/month subscription (and Twitch
| Prime that came later for Amazon Prime members) really did create
| a way for smaller creators to be able to survive where they
| otherwise couldn't on ad or sponsorship revenue alone.
|
| But Twitch has been trying to move away from subs because
| advertising scales so much better _for Twitch_. The general
| guideline for ad density now is 3 minutes per hour and you could
| get 6 ads of pre-roll on joining a livestream. It 's kind of
| crazy how much they're pushing it. This really gives the
| impression that Twitch is desperate for revenue now they're owned
| by Amazon. In today's announcement about the sub split changes
| they basically said 200 hours/month of live streaming costs them
| $1000/month. That might well be the retail cost on EC2 but it's
| nowhere near the true cost (which is much less).
|
| Now in the last 2 years or so, gambling has really started to
| dominate the platform. This is quite literally people playing
| slots on auto-roll for hours every day, sometimes for $1500/spin
| where each spin may well be 6 seconds. This has been driven by
| largely unregulated crypto casinos like stake.com. I say "largely
| unregulated" because stake.com for example is registered in
| Curacao.
|
| The likes of xqc and Trainwrecks (2 of the biggest streamers on
| the platform) were getting paid in excesss of $1 million/month
| each to play slots on stake.com. That's how big this is.
|
| Twitch announced yesterday that most pure luck gambling (eg
| slots, dice) that weren't registered and legal in the US (because
| of greater regulation) would be banned from the platform.
|
| It's hard to say why the timing of this is now. Some speculate
| this is because of the streamer ItsSliker being exposed for
| scamming $300k+ from other streamers and even viewers over 1-2
| years to fund a sports betting addiction (note: the Twitch ban
| doesn't apply to sports betting).
|
| Gambling has been controversial on Twitch and this blew up with
| the Sliker drama, which led to an entirely separate issue being
| raised: the alleged cover-up of a sexual assault of one streamer
| by another. This event was allegedly covered up by a big streamer
| (Mizkif) who is a member of a large organization called OTK. It
| was announced there'd be an independent investigation of this and
| he was suspended from the org yesterday.
|
| These are of course serious allegations and should be treated as
| such and they may well have criminal consequences. It's worth
| noting that the cover-up accusations came from Trainwrecks after
| a fresh round of gambling criticism (including by Mizkif) in the
| wake of the Sliker scamming drama. The victim has since spoken
| out on the issue and said Train made that public accusation with
| her blessing and support.
|
| All of this has really rocked the Twitch world and, if anything,
| should just show you how much money there is in gambling, how
| damaging it is and how much it corrupts.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| I'm not convinced that the changes to Twitch's Partner programs
| have anything to do with this gambling ban. I think the two
| events just happened to coincide.
|
| The real question is "why did it take Twitch so long to ban
| non-US gambling?" Like you mentioned, the controversy from
| these gambling streams is not new. Did Twitch decide that the
| controversy finally outweighed the revenue they generate from
| these streams? Did Twitch fear that they faced potential
| liability for hosting these streams? Or did someone at Twitch
| leadership suddenly develop a conscience?
| jmyeet wrote:
| The change in sub split is entirely unrelated to the
| gambling. I don't mean to imply otherwise. That's been coming
| for awhile.
|
| I only bring it up because it's part of larger Twitch changes
| this year. It's going to hit streamer revenue. The banning of
| crypto slots is another massive blow to a lot of streamer
| revenue.
|
| To be clear, I 100% support the crypto slots ban on Twitch.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Now in the last 2 years or so, gambling has really started to
| dominate the platform. This is quite literally people playing
| slots on auto-roll for hours every day, sometimes for
| $1500/spin where each spin may well be 6 seconds.
|
| What I don't get: who the fuck watches this kind of stream, and
| why? Are the viewer counts actually real or is all of this just
| a massive scam where everyone is inflating counts with the
| endgame of defrauding advertisers?
| KVFinn wrote:
| >What I don't get: who the fuck watches this kind of stream,
| and why? Are the viewer counts actually real or is all of
| this just a massive scam where everyone is inflating counts
| with the endgame of defrauding advertisers?
|
| I was confused too, but I tried watching a stream and
| discovered I do actually get a strange dopamine hit just
| _watching_ somebody spend $200,000 on a single slot machine
| pull over and over. I somehow thought you 'd have to be
| risking your own funds to activate those neurons but it
| totally works just seeing somebody else do it.
|
| I never thought I would get sucked into gambling. Especially
| slot machines. In fact I used to make fun of slot machines
| even being considered 'gaming' when there' literally no human
| input to the result. But I kind of understand it now even
| though on a higher level it should be boring.
| jmyeet wrote:
| To be clear, I 100% support the crypto slots ban. Regulation
| is one issue. Another is the general young age of Twitch
| viewers. But the biggest reason of all is just how
| destructive gambling addiction is.
|
| It's also worth noting that not all slots streaming is what's
| called "cash balance", meaning the streamer is betting real
| money. A lot are betting fake money where their losses aren't
| real but neither are the winnings. It's never advertised that
| this is the case. But this is an even worse level of
| deception.
|
| That all beiing, I too am fascinated with the psychology of
| watching someone else play slots. It does seem to be real.
| Watching someone quite literally lose $100k+ in an hour has a
| certain fascination. There are big wins too. Trainwrecks for
| example has spun a $7m+ win.
|
| You could more generally ask why people watch other people
| play video games. I never understood why (years ago). But it
| makes sense. You get to exxperience someone else playing
| something for the first time (which you can never do again).
| You get to get a lot of the psychological "pay off" for
| playing a game without the investment.
|
| I imagine slots is similar. If you read about gambling
| addiction, it's not the wins that are addictive. It's not
| even the losses. It's that period of not knowing the outcome
| after you press the spin button. That's what people get
| addicted to.
|
| So a viewer can get that same pay off from watching someone
| else hit the spin button.
|
| At least that's my guess. Once you get over the fascination
| of watching money disappear that fast (which for me didn't
| take that long), it doesn't appeal to me at all.
| lesuorac wrote:
| Heh, a streamer named Trainwrecks does a lot of gambling. The
| world certainly does have a sense of irony.
| Kukumber wrote:
| Misleading title, they won't
|
| > to prohibit streaming of gambling sites (..) that AREN'T
| licensed in the US or other jurisdictions
|
| That mean, it is to promote the gambling sites that are licensed,
| and to discourage people from promoting sites that are not
| licensed
|
| Anyone who says "they take action AGAINST gambling" are full of
| shit and are part of the problem
|
| But you get the society you deserve
| unixbane wrote:
| I don't see how being a "gaming" [1] video streaming service
| implies that you need to take action against gambling that is
| implemented via it. They will just move somewhere else. Seems
| like an ultra tunnel visioned political "issue".
|
| 1. One which barely has anything to do with gaming other than
| having 3 lines of code to store a game identifier with a stream
| to say which game the stream was mainly streaming. They even have
| entire streams that do non gaming shit and that's what all the
| top streamers do most of the time.
|
| In other words, this is outrage porn against streaming services
| (I think, as like with counter strike go loot boxes[2]. i don't
| understand your culture though [not that i cant, i just dont
| care] so I could be entirely wrong). This is no different than
| when cameras or VHS came out and people complained about piracy
| and whatever. Whatever political takeaway we're supposed to be
| getting here is invalid. Twitch is just a streaming site. If I
| make my own streaming site (which I'll never do, because the web
| is horse shit), I shouldn't have to hire people to purge gambling
| on it.
|
| > but you are profiting from them looking at your ads while they
| gamble
|
| And VHS profited from mass piracy. Get a grip.
|
| 2. yeah, loot boxes are fucking cancer, i don't care for making
| them illegal though as that requires paying more tax and they
| will just come up with different cancer. you cant fix bad
| developers
| hi5eyes wrote:
| only after a huge streamer gets outed forr scamming fans/other
| big streamers leading to streamers tweeting outrage
| technonerd wrote:
| It's been a interesting past couple of days of drama but the
| article fails to mention that twitch employees were accepting
| large amounts of money from gambling streamers live on stream.
|
| https://twitter.com/ostonox/status/1572264800616599552
|
| https://nitter.rawbit.ninja/ostonox/status/15722648006165995...
| scifibestfi wrote:
| Is that what triggered this action now? It's odd because any
| category of streamer could be paying employees large sums of
| money to recommend them. A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot
| Tub streams are being recommended despite only watching game
| streams. Now that's probably because they have high engagement
| and sub activity, but they or any category could just as well
| be influencing employees.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being
| recommended despite only watching game streams._
|
| Some hot tub streamers regularly get 10k+ viewers. If that
| viewer base overlaps with $your_favorite_streamer, then you
| will get hot tub streamer recommended. That said, I
| personally don't see problem with hot tub streamers; it seems
| like incredibly puritanical moral panic for some reason and I
| don't know why that gets so much attention in 2022.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| A lot of gaming culture is quite misogynistic so whilst
| bikini streams make up a tiny percentage of the overall
| viewership bar a couple of bigger names it annoys them no
| end. See also the constant bringing up of one girl who had
| sex on stream and the worship of Andrew Tate.
|
| It's basically convenient whataboutery that fits their
| politics.
| scifibestfi wrote:
| Speaking of whataboutery, he's not even a Twitch
| streamer. And you can just as well claim gaming culture
| is misandric.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| What? I didn't say he was a Twitch streamer so your reply
| is a bit of a non-sequitur.
| fknorangesite wrote:
| > for some reason
|
| Misogyny? In _my_ gamer community? It 's more likely than
| you think(tm)
| scifibestfi wrote:
| A lot of kids use Twitch. I can see why Amouranth maybe
| shouldn't be recommended to 10 year olds watching Fortnite.
| lwansbrough wrote:
| Whoa hold on there, Fortnite has an ESRB rating of Teen,
| which is intended for audiences 13+. Should Twitch be
| recommending Fortnite content to 10 year olds?
| nemothekid wrote:
| You can, as others have, about any platform that allows
| salacious content. It's not different than banning trying
| to ban GTA because 10 year olds have playstations. Why is
| softcore content the line and not GTA which has a mature
| (17+) rating? Why is Amouranth a problem and not Grand
| Theft Auto. Even Fornite has an ESRB rating of 13+. It's
| straight up moral panic (and IMO, moral panic directed at
| women who are making money from doing "nothing").
|
| My barometer for this issue is why is this content a
| problem on Twitch, but not on Instagram which has a
| _much_ higher penetration amount kids and teens, and is
| way more brazen about it.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Should Twitch be showing ads for fruit-flavored alcoholic
| "seltzer" - aka soda with alcohol - to children?
| fknorangesite wrote:
| Just wait until we find out they've got beer ads on TV.
| bakugo wrote:
| Some of us like to use twitch to see people playing games
| (you know, its original intended purpose) and when half of
| the front page is glorified camgirls, it undermines that.
| More and more streamers are abandoning games and going for
| boring IRL garbage instead because that's what Twitch
| promotes.
| williamscales wrote:
| I don't have a horse in this race, but Twitch's "original
| intended purpose" was not just gaming. It was called
| justin.tv and over time the gaming category became very
| active. Later they refocused on gaming.
| iotku wrote:
| Twitch's original purpose was splintering off the gaming
| section of justin.tv (a general streaming site) onto a
| separate website specifically for gaming content.
|
| They never refocused on gaming as that was the entire
| focus of the site's creation. During the early days any
| non-gaming content was strictly prohibited on Twitch.
|
| For a while justin.tv and twitch coexisted, with
| justin.tv for general content such as "social streams"
| (equivalent to "Just Chatting" on modern day Twitch) and
| largely streams of copyrighted content such as tv shows
| (an obvious liability).
|
| Prior to Amazon purchasing Twitch, justin.tv was shut
| down and a lot of the general "social" content started
| becoming allowable on Twitch over time.
| SadTrombone wrote:
| Hot tub streams are in their own category on the Twitch
| site that you can avoid entirely if you want to, this is
| pretty disingenuous.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _and when half of the front page is glorified camgirls,
| it undermines that._
|
| Half of the front page has never been glorified camgirls.
| This is just more moral panic. Amouranth is practically
| the only streamer who is pulling enough numbers to be in
| the top 10 of any section. The featured section of twitch
| has never featured hot tub streams. Of the top 5 hot tub
| streamers, as of writing, the top one with 800 viewers
| are otters (like the animal), 1 is a vtuber and another
| is a man.
|
| The issue is incredibly overblown. Amouranth is the only
| one doing numbers regularly.
|
| > _More and more streamers are abandoning games and going
| for boring IRL garbage instead because that 's what
| Twitch promotes._
|
| That has nothing to do with hot tub streamers. Kai Cenat
| and Adin Ross are some of the largest growing streamers
| in the past year, and they are primary Just Chatting
| streamers. This really just feels like you are
| complaining about Eternal September. It sounds like you
| just don't like that the world is changing. "Old man
| yells at cloud".
|
| > _Some of us like to use twitch to see people playing
| games_
|
| Some of the largest streamers on Twitch don't play games.
| Expecting twitch to remain some "insider only country
| club for video games" is ridiculous. No one is forcing
| you to watch hot tub streams. Getting recommended a titty
| streamer won't kill you. It really just comes across that
| you are mad that there are women on the platform doing
| stuff you don't like. It's arbitrary censorship; I doubt
| you would accept this kind of censorship on any other
| platform. And even then, when you look at the hard
| numbers for these titty streamers it's incredibly hard to
| take the moral panic seriously. Amouranth is only one
| doing numbers (and she is literally an outlier, I believe
| she is like top 10 on onlyfans as well) and the rest have
| fewer viewers than a Zoo's livestream.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| It's definitely the case that streamers focusing on their
| bodies are not large in aggregate: Twitch streamers are
| overwhelmingly male, and even among female streamers
| they're a minority . However, "hot tub streamers" (by
| this I more broadly mean streamers whose main content is
| clearly meant as titillation) are significantly
| overrepresented among the top female streamers. Amouranth
| is the top female streamer by a long shot, with an
| audience twice as large as the next largest female
| creator on the platform.
|
| There's definitely a moral panic component, but there are
| nonetheless negative aspects to having this content on
| Twitch. Women on the platform report feeling pressure and
| an expectation of producing this kind of content, because
| so many other popular women on the platform do it.
| There's also the idea that this juxtaposition spreads the
| message to viewers that men gain attention by exhibiting
| their skills and women get attention by exhibiting their
| bodies.
|
| I do support the ability of people to produce this kind
| of content - or even explicit streams, for that matter -
| but I'm sympathetic to the idea that twitch should spin
| it off into something like lifestyle.tv in the same vein
| that twitch.tv was once a gaming spinoff of justin.tv.
| blep_ wrote:
| > Women on the platform report feeling pressure and an
| expectation of producing this kind of content, because so
| many other popular women on the platform do it.
|
| That's kind of ridiculous. You don't get to tell people
| they can't voluntarily do an optional thing just because
| you don't want to do the same optional thing.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| It's not telling them to voluntarily do an optional
| thing, just that they can't do said optional thing _on
| that specific platform._ The fact that people are
| appearing side by side with creators making this content
| is what leads to the assumption that this is the kind of
| content women are going to create. It 's the adjacency
| that's the issue.
|
| Twitch already bans content like pornography, but people
| are free to do what they want on OnlyFans. These creators
| should be entirely free to produce "hot-tub streams" and
| other such content, just relegated to "lifestyle.tv" or
| something to keep a barrier between softcore-erotic
| content and typical creators.
| Fatnino wrote:
| Can we have a link for these otters?
| stale2002 wrote:
| > It's odd because any category of streamer could be paying
| employees large sums of money to recommend them.
|
| No, they couldn't. That is nonsense. I am a former twitch
| employee, of 4 years, and the recommendation algorithm is a
| complicated service, managed by whole teams of people.
|
| A random employee couldn't just take a bribe, and get someone
| recommended.
|
| The closest that someone could _maybe_ do, is submit someone
| internally, to be hosted on the front page carousel for one
| specific day, for a few hours.
|
| But even these manual requests are reviewed by a team of
| people, who especially make sure the front page people are
| brand safe. So the idea that they would put a "hot tub"
| streamer, on that manual hosting list is absurd.
| debacle wrote:
| It came out recently that a streamer exchanged lewd photos of
| herself for a ban on one of her "competitors."
|
| Twitch has some serious, serious problems.
| lucideer wrote:
| For this particular category I think there's going to be a
| lot more contributing variables than for gambling. Not only
| would it have high engagement and sub activity but:
|
| - a lot of the streamers also game
|
| - even if they don't, there are streamer cliques and social
| groups which are primarily gaming, of which they're a part
|
| - a lot of viewers who only watch gaming will watch some
| streamer within the aforementioned clique/social group and be
| exposed to crossovers
|
| - a lot of the viewers of that category also watch gaming
| streamers, so this will put those streams in the "people who
| watch this also watch" algorithmic bucket
|
| None of the above are significantly the case for gambling
| except maybe the last one, and even then much less so.
| rstat1 wrote:
| >A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being
| recommended despite only watching game streams
|
| In my experience, Twitch recommendations seem to be based
| heavily on what you watch, so if that's what they're seeing
| its probably because they watched it at some point.
| boesboes wrote:
| Not if you don't use twitch much I think.
|
| I've only ever watched MTG tournaments and a handful of
| replays of factorio & pokemon streams. I too get the hottub
| streams recommended from time to time. Stopped after I
| reported it as porn a few times, but that might be a
| coincidence.
| steveklabnik wrote:
| My understanding is that this is _not_ the catalyst. The
| catalyst involves a bunch of drama between various streamers,
| which led to the revelation that a particular Twitch streamer
| had fraudulently asked to borrow something like $350,000 from
| various other streamers and viewers, and had gambled it all
| away.
|
| Once that happened, a bunch of influential streamers started
| to suggest that they may do a strike if Twitch didn't address
| the issue, and that was the final straw.
|
| TechCruch's writeup is pretty good
| https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/20/twitch-sliker-gambling-
| dra... (though also, the article itself covers this, so, you
| know...)
| throw101010 wrote:
| You are right about this event being the catalyst. The
| funniest part is that the person who scammed and alledgedly
| spent it all on gambling did it on sports betting... which
| is specifically excluded from the ban on gambling by
| Twitch.
|
| And the very likely reason for the exception is that Twitch
| has signed a 13 billion deal with a famous sport betting
| company tied to the NFL. This is peak hypocrisy from Twitch
| and it seems to get very little media coverage.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| The decision happened literally live while Hasan was talking
| about how terrible it is that gambling content is still
| allowed on Twitch in front of an enormous audience so I'm
| inclined to believe this exposure forced their hand on a
| decision they were already considering making, probably for a
| while.
| plandis wrote:
| This was the give away to random people in chat that happened
| months ago?
| randac wrote:
| Yes. IIRC there were two low level Twitch employees who won
| something in the giveaway, but I believe they were entered
| because they performed chat moderation (yes, using the same
| mod tools normal channel moderators use) for the streamer in
| question (Trainwrecks). It's being made out like this was
| some form of bribe, but that seems disingenuous given they
| have (had, one died, one left the company) no influence over
| Twitch policies, and the decision to accept gifts (or not) is
| their responsibility as an Amazon employee either way.
| Perhaps they have colleagues who they could sway who are
| involved in policy setting, but that feels like reaching to
| me.
|
| However take this with a pinch of salt too, I wouldn't like
| to bet on being fully correct! ;)
| blint_carton wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if that's against a "Twitch/Amazon code
| of conduct", but that fact at face value doesn't mean anything
| nefarious. These could call center employees, qa testers,
| developers, etc that have no connection to the internal
| politics of deciding what is allowed on the platform.
|
| If they are in fact the decision makers or able to influence
| policy, yes that' doesn't seem right.
| zzixp wrote:
| According to what I've seen on /r/livestreamfail (take
| everything with the finest grain of salt possible), it was only
| one twitch employee who took money, and they have since passed
| away.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _it was only one twitch employee who took money,_
|
| Ha. Take that with a global annual production of salt.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| (We know so far)
| legohead wrote:
| Supposedly it was a raffle created by the streamer, which the
| employee should not have joined. But I wasn't there so again,
| hearsay.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-21 23:01 UTC)