Twitch has become a popular platform among gaming enthusiasts and live streamers over the last few years.
View count is considered a key success metric on the platform and a channel gaining over 20,000 viewers is a huge achievement for streamers.
Streamers who achieve this milestone with their channels usually have to put in years of hard work, build relationships and build up their channel following.
However, recent discoveries show Twitch’s casino section may have become a breeding ground for a number of suspicious channels. The section plays host to streamers who place bets though online gambling sites hoping to win at games such as blackjack, jackpot and slots. Twitch’s casino section has been enjoying a high view count over the past few months, which brings it near the top of the platform’s gaming list.
At the moment, the casino section has had more than 51,000 viewers – that compares with only 28,000 viewers for Overwatch. Several channels have been on Twitch as far back as 2016, gaining thousands of followers since their streaming debut. CasinoDaddy for example, now has more than 60,000 followers who interact and chat with each other while placing wagers on online games.
Over 20,000 Views In One Day
But in recent weeks, new channels have popped up with unknown users. These channels feature nothing else other than a video feed of online jackpot games. They also do not display casino ads or offer bonuses, contrary to what other channels like CasinoDaddy do to entice subscribers. What’s more suspicious are the seemingly fake followers who do not speak and interact with each other.
These relatively new channels easily climb up to the top of the casino section. Casinoblast for example has been streaming on Twitch for just a few days and has surprisingly gained more than 25,000 concurrent views for its début stream only showing a jackpot game playing by itself. The channel only has 20 followers despite the alleged thousands of views when it started streaming.
Twitch Users Suspect Viewbotting
The number of views is dubious considering that long-time channels like CasinoDaddy with more than 60k followers, only pulls a maximum of 3,000 concurrent views. This has come to the attention of regular Twitch users who suspect someone may have been viewbotting to be at the top of the casino section, raking in the dough. The channel’s chats are also full of bots according to one Twitch user.
Video game website and blog Kotaku contacted Twitch to raise the issue but the platform wasn’t keen on dealing with the suspected anomaly. Some of these suspicious channels have since been banned but big ones are still operating. Unless Twitch initiates action to stop these crooked channels, this modus operandi will likely continue.
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