Twitch streamer Adin Ross says "it's fun" to peddle gambling to children
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Twitch Streamer Adin Ross proudly stated that he thought it was fun to promote gambling to underage children in an argument with Ethan from H3 on Monday. The encounter took place on a livestreamed group call between H3H3, Adin Ross, HasanAbi, and Mizkit.
The interaction began when Adin rhetorically asked Ethan if he had a soul since he wasn't smiling much. In response, Ethan replied, "You have no problem peddling gambling to children, that's a more soulless act than not smiling, wouldn't you agree?"
"It's fun!" Adin said with a grin on his face.
"It's fun to make 2 million dollars a month, it is a lot of fun," Ethan replied sardonically.
"I am not telling kids to blow their life savings on it," Adin shot back, defensively.
The interaction demonstrates the cavalier attitude that many streamers have when it comes to promoting dangerous gambling pathologies on their streams, often to young impressionable fans.
The rise of gambling sponsorship meta
Adin Ross is one of many streamers who have wholeheartedly embraced the controversial practice of streaming highly addictive casino games on his Twitch channel. According to a recent WIRED article on the issue of gambling on Twitch, 64 of the top 1000 streamers have engaged in gambling on their stream in recent months.
While some streamers are recognizing the adult nature of gambling and age-gating that content, some, including Adin Ross and Felix "xQc" Lengyel, do not always age-gate their gambling streams. As a result, they expose thousands of impressionable children and adolescent viewers across Twitch to addictive gambling behaviors and reinforce gambling behaviors, while in many cases being paid by the very sites they are using to gamble.
In June, Adin leaked a message from a gambling sponsor revealing that streamers at his level are making 2 million+ dollars a month to promote gambling sites. It was that leak that H3 was referencing when he talked about it being "fun" to make 2 million dollars a month.
Twitch turns a blind eye to dangers of child gambling
The growing gambling meta has drawn criticism from people like H3 or former Twitch streamer and influencer consultant Devin Nash. While Adin, xQc, and other gambling streamers have brushed off criticism of their gambling promotions, the dangers of underage exposure to gambling are well documented.
Nash released a video on Monday, in which he named gambling on Twitch as one of the key reasons he "lost faith in Twitch" and chose to leave the platform entirely.
According to Nash's analysis, while gambling streams may be good for individual streamers and short-term viewership, embracing the gambling meta will have a negative impact on the long-term reputation of Twitch as a brand advertising destination.
In the face of the growing gambling meta, some have called for tighter rules, while others (like Nash) have called for a banning of the content entirely.
For their part, Twitch has done next to nothing to address the gambling meta, beyond confirming that they are "closely monitoring the situation." In a comment to Inven Global, Twitch confirmed that gambling was allowed on Twitch so long as it doesn't violate any specific laws, so it seems they also have little intention to address this issue unless the gambling itself is also illegal.
Even if they did ban gambling, however, many have their doubts on Twitch's ability to enforce such a rule, given the inconsistent and unreliable enforcement of their sexual content rules over the past several months.
Of course, Twitch streamers don't have to wait for the platform to regulate them. They can self-regulate gambling content by age-gating their gambling streams and clearly disclose when a gambling stream is sponsored. But that starts by admitting that promoting gambling to children is a problem.
