Gambling has made a return to the top of Twitch after xQc began streaming the activity despite apologizing and telling fans he wouldn’t do it again 10 months ago.
This sparked YouTube Gaming streamer Ludwig to chime in and calling upon Twitch to stop allowing sponsored gambling streams on the platform.
In a video uploaded earlier today to Ludwig’s Mogul Mail YouTube channel titled “Twitch Needs to Stop Gambling Streamers,” the former Twitch star said he believes the platform needs to crack down on these types of broadcasts.
Many fans and streamers alike have condemned xQc for his actions, but rather than blaming the Twitch star, Ludwig believes the fault lies with the Amazon-owned platform for allowing sponsored gambling streams in the first place.
“It’s a problem, but I don’t think the onus of whether you gamble or do not gamble should ever be on the streamer,” Ludwig said. “I have a theory where I just think that we shouldn’t rely on humans to have the morality that we are looking for. They should not be the ethical person. It should be the platform. The platform is the one that should dictate what is OK and not OK.”
Ludwig also outlined a straightforward guideline that he thinks would “solve” gambling on Twitch: the platform should simply stop allowing sponsored gambling streams on its site. Ludwig says that it’s too easy to gamble on stream when the money you’re using is from sponsors, but if it’s the streamer’s own money on the line, they would be far less likely to do it.
Ten months ago, xQc got into hot water and faced waves of backlash for broadcasting himself playing slots and exposing the addictive activity to his young audience. Because of this, he told fans he would never live stream gambling again and apologized for his actions. But on May 17, it seemed like the star went back on his word, returning to gambling with a paid sponsorship and saying, “I love gambling, so I’m just going to gamble.”
Twitch has yet to release an official statement about the new wave of gambling on its own site. And the platform’s biggest creator shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. XQc played slots for a second time on stream for five hours yesterday and maintained a steady viewership of over 100,000 concurrent watchers, according to TwitchTracker.
