The Impact of Streaming on the Gaming Industry: Twitch, YouTube, and More

The rise of streaming platforms like Twitch has significantly impacted the casino industry — marketing teams have found a new, efficient way to promote their games, and as a result, gambling streams and casino collaborations have become fairly common. However, this has created a lot of issues that still haven’t been fully resolved — from potential scams to concerns about the negative influence on young, impressionable audiences.

Today, we collaborated with Slot.day founder Michael Slot to explain the current state of the industry and the opportunities and risks that come with gambling streams.

How casino games became popular on streaming platforms

As soon as streaming on platforms like Twitch and YouTube gained significant traction, online casinos saw the opportunity for advertising. It is worth noting that the industry, in general, is extremely aggressive when it comes to marketing, which makes sense considering the high level of competition within it.

Streaming platforms offered online casinos something they had never had before — an opportunity to showcase actual gameplay to an interested audience, broadcasting the entire casino experience instead of just a few random parts of it. What that means is that instead of paying for a single banner that is shown on a certain website, casino marketing teams suddenly gained access to a tool that offers hours of non-stop advertisement to thousands of people willing to watch this type of content — a dream-like scenario.

After all, casino gameplay can be entertaining even for viewers who like seeing someone hit a big score during the Eye of Horus free play hours or showcase their skills in more strategic games like poker. It is worth noting that casinos generally don’t try to develop and grow their own channels — they mostly rely on established streamers who will be willing to play some of their games.

Sometimes, these can be gambling content creators, but not necessarily — it seems that casino marketing teams operate under high pressure and try to promote their games using almost any channel available. As a result, it’s not uncommon to see casino-sponsored content on professional gamers’ or variety streamers VODs.

This makes sense considering how casinos are typically used to paying significantly more for their ads and sponsored streams, knowing full well how difficult it is to achieve any visibility with so many people rejecting their offers and the commonly negative reception of casino advertisements.

Streaming has also opened up an entirely new way to enjoy cybersports, and gambling sponsors are among the most influential in the niche. Not only do they provide funds to help tournaments in exchange for extra visibility, but they also go further by creating their own teams and even organizing their own tournaments. To showcase the impact on the industry, two out of sixteen teams during the last Dota 2 International tournament were owned by BetBoom and 1win, which might have been part of the reason why tournament organizers decided to ban any mentions of gambling sponsors during the event.

Players, audiences, and risks

It might be difficult to measure how influential casino streams truly are, but there are still some numbers that can help understand the impact the industry has thanks to streaming platforms. According to Statista, the most popular Kick casino streamer Roshtein has generated almost 14 million hours of watched live content in just the first half of 2023. Coming in second, over the same period, the Twitch channel SlotsMarko got 5.5 million hours watched, while the Kick channel ClassyBeef achieved 4.82 million hours.

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This statistic only shows the number of hours watched on channels specifically dedicated to gambling, but as we’ve already established, casinos manage to find placements on various different channels, meaning that we can safely assume the overall impact on the audience is massive.

Michael Slot adds that bonuses and personalized promotions play a huge part in recruiting new players. Most of the time streamers get special promo codes that offer enticing deals like extra free spins or deposit bonuses, ensuring that more players will be eager to check the casino website out. Slot.day expert opinion: demo versions of free slots and their effectiveness are also out of the debate when it comes to ensuring players stick with a certain casino once they’ve tried it out. What makes promotions even more effective is the fact that they are usually time-limited, adding to the overall FOMO of the viewers.

It is clear how lucrative bonuses and other players’ televised winnings entice viewers, but in reality, there are multiple issues with the industry, and over the years the general trust in these kinds of streams has dwindled due to several big accusations of faking the casino experience to make it seem more appealing than it actually is. Casino steaming is rather problematic because streamers and casino owners have access to multiple ways of deceiving players, and most of these methods are basically undetectable and unprovable.

For example, a casino can simply provide a streamer with a special account that uses fake money and offers a significantly higher RTP, meaning that they will win significantly more and significantly more often while not risking anything at all. Since no one in the audience has access to either the streamer’s personal funds or the software behind the game, there is no way to determine with certainty whether the depicted experience is real or not.

While these practices are unethical in themselves, the casinos that rely on them can at least operate somewhat fairly in theory — they just won’t provide the experience that is even close to the one the streamer showcased. However, matters can get even worse if the streamer advertises a scam website that only exists to steal people’s money and never intends to return any winnings in the first place. With multiple precedents of this in the past, it is easy to see why so many platforms have decided to take action against these practices.

Platforms, regulation, and ethical challenges

Even outside of obvious scams, the generally huge amount of casino content on streaming platforms has caused a backlash, with audiences, journalists, and influencers themselves trying to remove or limit it to make sure it doesn’t affect young impressionable audiences.

As Michael Slot reminds us, in 2022 Twitch prohibited several casino-like websites like Stake.com, Rollbit.com, and a few more to ensure extra protection for viewers. The website also doesn’t allow users to share links or affiliate codes to sites that contain slots, roulette, or dice games. At the same time, the ‘Slots’ category on Twitch still exists and performs well. Kick’s Community Guidelines state that streaming gambling games online is only allowed if it conforms with the laws and regulations of the country in which the streamer is located and as long as minors aren’t involved in it.

While platforms have managed to achieve some success in limiting gambling streaming, casinos are also trying to find new ways to circumvent these limitations. One of the most common examples is developing different types of games with similar core concepts. While the gameplay remains unchanged, the visuals have nothing in common with slots — players can observe an airplane flying through some obstacles, or anything else.

With the increasing popularity of gambling sponsorships, the general idea of collaborating with casinos can theoretically become more and more acceptable — it is completely understandable how difficult it can be to pass up on lucrative casino offers, even if the viewers aren’t happy with it. The more popular creators decide to partner with casinos, the less backlash it might cause — after all, everyone else does it as well.

At the same time, some creators oppose the practice and believe that gambling shouldn’t have a place in the streaming community. Popular Twitch influencers like Pokimane, Hasan Piker, Mizkif, and Ludwig Ahgren have vocally opposed gambling practices and even suggested banning them from the platform altogether. Twitch, however, chose a middle ground, trying to regulate this type of content while still allowing it.

Conclusion

Streaming has opened up a vast array of opportunities for casino advertising, and it quickly took over platforms, making gambling sponsors some of the most influential players. What makes casino sponsors so impactful is the fact that they are willing to pay significantly more than other companies, which results in deals that are hard to pass. While gambling streamers have their own niche, casino games go way beyond that and appear as content produced by gamers, variety streamers, and cyber sports tournaments as well.

Although gambling streams are criticized by audiences and influencers, they probably won’t disappear any time soon, unless platform owners decide to ban them, which doesn’t seem likely at the moment. While there is a certain backlash to the trend, lots of influencers partner with casinos or even focus on creating casino-related content exclusively, perpetuating it further.