A bizarre scuffle took place at Gamescom where a trio of Twitch streamers clashed over their views on gambling and whether this is appropriate content on the Amazon-owned streaming giant. While Twitch has remained silent on the matter and discreetly introduced a “Slots” category to make sure this type of content is kept separate, gripes about gambling have continued.
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A petition signed by prominent entertainment names also called for pulling the plug on sponsored gambling streams on Twitch as well and a while back, Jeff Ifrah from Ifrah’s law, told Wired that streams of gambling content with “unlicensed” casinos could face a potential legal action from the US Department of Justice in particular.
The altercation that erupted at Gamescom between Tanzverbot, Orangemorgange, and Scurrows though had little to do with legalese and more so with strong moral objections by Tanzverbot blasting his fellow streamers in the weeks leading up to Gamescom for their choice to promote such content.
He has called both streamers out on their decision to promote gambling products, claiming that young audiences were induced to gamble themselves. According to Orangemorgange, though, it was Tanzverbot who acted aggressively in person and who elicited a physical response from the other two. He said that Tanzverbot had been coming at him, so he reacted.
I fought back by throwing a plastic cup in his direction and pushing him. I hit back, but without hitting. In retrospect, of course, this annoys me, but at the end of the day, it was my right to defend myself.
Orangemorgange
The tussle quickly involved other people with quiteLola stepping in, trying to break up the scuffle, but ending up pushed to the ground herself. Tanzverbot openly called Scurrows a “loser” for “hiding behind MMA friends. Scurrows clapped back saying that it was he who had the intention to start a fight, but somehow Tanzverbot ended up the one being the aggressive party.
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Scurrows meant this sarcastically and said that he did not want to provoke a fight of any sort. Twitch has so far not responded. Gambling on the platform has become an increasingly controversial issue with many fans turning off from watching their favorite streamers. This has not stopped either xQc nor Trainwreck from slowing down, with both streamers admitting that they loved gambling and did not feel bad about streaming the product they loved.
xQc even suggested at the beginning of the month that Twitch is unlikely to ever act on gambling content in the sense of imposing bans.
