Trainwreck calls out Twitch for still allowing gambling streams
Tyler “Trainwreck” Niknam has been critical of Twitch for a long time, eventually causing him to leave the streaming platform for Kick. Now, Trainwreck is calling out Twitch for continuing to support gambling content.
Trainwreck previously felt that Twitch would only punish bigger names, like himself, for gambling on stream. Meanwhile, Train added, smaller streamers will still get away with broadcasting gambling content. It now appears that Trainwreck was right in this assumption.
In a recent stream, Trainwreck showed his viewers the state of the gambling situation on Twitch. He pointed out that there were still streamers playing slots under the categories of Slots and Virtual Casino. Between these two categories, Train noticed that they both had 300K viewers a day on average.
“We’ll revisit this in six hours and you’ll see 15K, 6K, 4K, 4K [on streams]… It’s crazy, bro. And nobody gives a f—,” Trainwreck complained.
Trainwreck said that people had accused him of being “delusional” for feeling targeted by Twitch when the platform decided to ban gambling. But he felt this proves the haters wrong. Smaller streamers have continued to get away with gambling, while larger streamers had to move to different types of content to avoid punishment.
This was ironic to Train, who felt he was gambling in a responsible way. He explained that he was always transparent about the dangers of gambling and warned his viewers that they would lose 99% of the time. Either way, Trainwreck won’t be gambling on Twitch any time soon.
Why did Trainwreck leave Twitch for Kick?
Late year, big streamers like Imane “Pokimane” Anys started becoming quite vocal about their disdain for the amount of gambling on Twitch. It seemed like big gambling streamers like Felix “xQc” Lengyel were encouraging young fans to use online slots while they themselves were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on those same sites.
As the pressure mounted, Twitch finally caved and announced that gambling was banned from the entire platform. While the streaming community was pleased with the new regulations as a whole, some successful gambling streamers, like Trainwreck, were disappointed. He was reportedly making $360 million from gambling streams at the time.
Trainwreck was sponsored by Stake.com last year, so he was obligated to gamble on stream. So when Twitch announced the gambling ban, Trainwreck told fans that he was moving to a start-up streaming platform called Kick. One of the streaming site’s investors is the owner of Stake.com.
“Somewhere along the line, Twitch lost its grasp on reality. Twitch used to feel like a place made for us, by us. But Twitch built their empire off our backs and then forgot about us. They lost the reason Twitch became number one in the first place. Kick’s team and I have a vision to make a livestreaming platform that’s actually built first for creators,” Trainwreck said in a TwitLonger.
One of the big differences between Twitch and Kick is the gambling guidelines. Kick is a lot more lenient about gambling content being streamed, but Trainwreck also got involved due to some future plans from the streaming platform. This includes a 95-5 percent subscriber split, with 95% going to content creators, a response to Twitch’s refusal to revert the 50/50 percent split.
For now, the Slots and Virtual Casino categories are still on Twitch — and thriving. But this could change in the future. Gamblers may have to move to alternative sites with looser gambling policies, like Kick. Only time will tell.
Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.
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