Crypto-gambling livestreamers are winning thousands from off-shore sites banned in the US – Times News Express

XQC streaming slots on Stake.com

xQcOW/TWitch

Streaming platform Twitch is currently seeing a rise in slot-machine gambling content.

Over the past two months, some of Twitchs most popular content creators have been playing with virtual slot machines for audiences of tens of thousands of viewers, watching them win big payouts: most of the time, with cryptocurrency.

Though slot machine streamers have previously had audiences on Twitch popular streamer Chance Morris, known as Sodapoppin, has been playing Blackjack since as far back as 2015 viewership has recently increased.

According to Twitch Tracker, a website that tracks metrics on the platform, under 100 streamers with around an average of 18,000 viewers were streaming on the slots category of Twitch as of August 2019. But in May 2021, over 175 streamers have been playing slots to an average of 47,000 viewers.

A large collection of these streamers use Stake.com, a crypto-gambling site owned by the company Medium Rare, which is based in Curacao. Users can input their Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, or Ripple values to gamble on the site, which can be displayed in their US dollar conversion value.

Stake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Viewers tune in to watch these content creators gamble on brightly colored slot machines, throw down money on virtual Blackjack tables, or spin the wheel on roulette, all from the comfort of their computer. They press a single button over and over or just let it play automatically, winning or losing depending on the sites algorithm.

But the ethics of these streams are being questioned, as these gambling sites are not permitted to operate in the US, and Twitchs viewers skew young.

One of the more popular Twitch streamers to use Stake is Tyler TrainwrecksTV Niknam, a streamer known for his Scuffed Podcast series where he discusses online drama with other popular content creators.

During his streams, Niknam regularly puts in hundreds of dollars per spin in slots in attempts to win big. On a May 30 stream, he won $720,000 on one pull and on May 24 won over $400,000. Niknam did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Niknams streams feature the #ad hashtag, implying that he was offered monetary compensation to stream. He also has his own creator code for fans to use on the gambling site.

Beyond Twitch, gambling streams have also become popular among some creators who livestream on YouTube.

Paul Denino, who runs his channel Ice Poseidon with 750,000 subscribers, began streaming slots four months ago and told Insider that he won $5,000 in one stream and lost $10,000 in another. Though hes tried other gambling sites, he believes that Stake is the best because it has the best games and best player odds.

Viewers like it because its exciting when you win and funny when you lose, Denino said in an interview.

Streamer Felix XQC Lengyel has over 5.8 million followers and regularly streams a variety of content ranging from Mario Kart to Grand Theft Auto V roleplay. But since late April, Lengyel has been streaming himself playing blackjack, roulette, and slots, wagering tens of thousands of dollars over the course of multiple hours.

His first stream on the site on April 23 had a concurrent viewership of around 125,000 people and the archived stream has over two million views.

Lengyel It was not sponsored, though he did appear to have a promotional creator code for Stake, the crypto-gambling site, offering instant VIP rakeback, according to automated messages sent to the chat by a bot created for the stream.

Other content creators who use Stake have also been given promotional codes to share with their viewers, including a popular slots gambler called Roshtein, who advertises a code on his website.

But Lengyel received backlash from some members of his community who called him a sellout for collaborating with a gambling company and encouraging the behavior.

Lengyel responded to the criticism in an April 25 stream about his collaboration, saying that he got more hate than any of them combined, referring to other streamers who were sponsored.

On Wednesday, Lengyel said on Twitch that he was done with gambling streams because he gets addicted to things very easily, and that his brain is kind of going crazy.

Lengyel did not respond to a request for comment.

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 prohibits gambling sites that involve the use of the Internet from operating in the US.

As TechRadar reported, though its illegal for online gambling companies to operate within the US, American internet users can place bets with websites run outside of the US.

Stake, the site most popular with streamers, is not permitted to be used by American users, according to its Terms of Service. But its possible to access sites in prohibited territories through a VPN, which hides your location by encrypting your computers information. These programs have become increasingly popular over the past few years, with some companies, like SurfShark and NordVPN, sponsoring creators through their own promotional codes.

Viewers and streamers alike have questioned the ethics of these streams. Political commentator and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker criticized the practice of gambling in a recent stream.

I think gambling is not to be fed with, you will destroy your life and your familys life, Piker said. Its not just any kind of addiction behavior, there are safeguards behind this stuff, but this sort of online gambling doesnt really have that kind of safeguard.

But people are also criticizing the streams for showing gambling, an addictive activity, to a largely young audience. 21% of Twitch users are aged 13 to 17, according to data shared publicly by the Amazon-owned company.

Gambling with such large wagers and winning big and making clickbait content out of it promotes gambling in a dangerous way, a Twitter user named Ollie Ring said in a May 28 thread.

On YouTube, users can turn on restricted mode to limit viewers access to mature content on the platform. Insider created a Google account registered as under 18 years old to confirm that restricted content is unavailable to those users.

But on Twitch, where streamers like Niknam use a mature tag for these streams, accounts registered as under 18 could still view the stream, Insider found.

Still, Denino, the Ice Poseidon YouTube streamer, said that the streamers job is only to entertain and that it is kind of on those watching to protect themselves.

Streamers arent parents and shouldnt have to police what kids watch, Denino told Insider.

Twitch and YouTube representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

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Crypto-gambling livestreamers are winning thousands from off-shore sites banned in the US - Times News Express