Viewers from Russia Can No Longer See Any Gambling Streams and Clips on Twitch

Twitch users noted that Russian viewers could no longer access streams, video clips, and recordings of broadcasts labeled “Gambling”. A notice stating that the content is “unavailable due to your age and/or region” appears when users from the Russian Federation attempt to open a stream.

Recall that Twitch management declared in the fall of 2022 that broadcasting casinos, sportsbooks (among which are some of the best mobile bookmakers in the market: 888sport, 1xBet, Melbet, etc.), slot machines, and other gambling games on the platform from Russia was prohibited. Then, Russian streamers were started to be denied access to the affiliate program by Twitch. Because of the situation in Ukraine, the platform hasn’t been paying content creators to Russian banks since 2022. Finally, in the spring of 2023, Twitch feeds belonging to the “Virtual Casino” category were forbidden for the audience in Russia.

There are voices from the State Duma (the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia) claiming that Russia will eventually have a Twitch equivalent. They pointed out that the nation’s digital services are developing at a rapid pace, making this conceivable.

Russia in 6th Place for Number of Twitch Users by Country

Twitch is a US-based streaming video platform that focuses on streaming eSports competitions live and video game streaming in general, plus creative content, real-life streams where users demonstrate tips and tricks from popular video games, and music broadcasts.

According to the World Population Review’s “Twitch Users by Country 2024”, right now, the Russian Federation is tied with Spain for sixth position; 10.5 million users, or 4.1% of all users of the platform, are active in each of these nations. With 114 million views in total, as per TwitchTracker, Vyacheslav “Buster” Leontiev and Vladimir “Bratishkinoff” Bratishkin, are the most popular Russian streamers on Twitch.