Twitch caves to pressure from CS:GO community to take a clearer, harder stance on skin gambling

Following some ambiguity, Twitch has made its stance on using the streaming platform to promote CS:GO skin gambling crystal clear: it’s a no-go.

As plenty in the Valve shooter’s community have now noticed, Twitch has updated its streaming guidelines to include the commonly asked question, 'Is sponsorship of skins gambling, such as for CSGO skins, allowed on Twitch?'

“No, promotion or sponsorship of skins gambling is prohibited under our policy.”

So, what got us here? Promoting anything akin to skin gambling fell foul of Twitch’s guidelines prior, though it was rarely enforced when it came to CS:GO, so people carried on with it. In a statement issued to Dexerto, the streaming giant points to a recent surge of interest as the reason for further clarifying the rules.

“There’s been renewed interest in CSGO gambling broadly, so we’ve added clarifying language to our FAQ to make clear that promotion/sponsorship is not allowed on our service,” they say.

CS:GO skin gambling has made the headlines several times in recent months, though the latest was due to a video from content creator Houngoungagne, who estimates that around 75% of the top 300 CS:GO Twitch streamers have skin gambling sponsors. 

Twitch reaffirming its guidelines comes at a time when Valve is cracking down on skin traders associated with gambling sites. The developer, not unlike Twitch, updated its Code of Conduct earlier this year to expressly mention gambling as a prohibited way of using your Steam account. Since then, several prominent CS:GO skin merchants have been caught up in ban waves, with a recent one leaving over $2m in skins in permanent limbo. 

Basically, if you get a neat CS:GO skin you might fancy just keeping it for yourself, as a treat. Especially with Counter-Strike 2 around the corner.

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