Twitch bans CS:GO skin gambling sponsorships and promotion

Streaming platform Twitch has updated its Community Guidelines to explicitly state that the promotion and sponsorship of skins gambling sites for the likes of CS:GO is prohibited.

The move further solidifies Twitch’s recent clampdown on gambling content, particularly unlicensed sites. 

Under the newly updated guidelines, Twitch has highlighted in an FAQ for its prohibited gambling content section that “promotion or sponsorship of skins gambling is prohibited under our policy.” 

Twitch has yet to publicly address this change in its community guidelines, so it is not clear how stringently these rules will be enforced. Despite the change seemingly coming into effect yesterday, there are still Twitch streamers promoting skin gambling sites. 

It is worth noting that this change seemingly should not impact CS:GO skin trading sites that do not have gambling offerings. 

This isn’t the first time in 2023 that CS:GO skin gambling has been under the spotlight, with European esports organisation G2 Esports signing a partnership with CSGORoll in May 2023. Given Twitch’s new guidelines, it is unclear how this partnership will be affected, considering CSGORoll is featured on the jerseys of G2’s CS:GO team. In May, CSGORoll was also banned in Australia following an ACMA investigation.

The removal of skin gambling sponsorship and promotion could have a significant commercial impact on streamers. In a recent video, content creator HOUNGOUNGAGNE claimed that 226 out of the top 300 highest watch-timed CS:GO streamers this year on Twitch have a CS:GO skin gambling sponsorship.  

Late last year Twitch made significant strides in its attempt to crack down on unregulated gambling content on its platform, following criticism of the platform by prominent streamers that it wasn’t doing enough to prevent illegal gambling. 

This included updating its policy to ban the streaming of slots, roulette or dice games that weren’t licenced in the US or other jurisdictions with strong gambling legislation.

CS:GO developer Valve has also looked to limit the CS:GO skin betting market. In May 2023, Valve’s code of conduct was updated to state that gambling is now a bannable offence on Steam. This may heavily affect third-party CS:GO skin gambling websites that use Steam’s API.