In Light of Twitch's Gambling Ban, Will TrainwrecksTV Be Leaving the Platform?
Published Sept. 21 2022, 4:17 p.m. ET
Popular Twitch streamer Trainwrecks' name is circulating again due to his comments on the push by streamers and creators on the platform for Twitch to formerly ban gambling streams.
Trainwrecks, real name Tyler Faraz Niknam, initially gained popularity for his IRL content back in 2015 during Twitch's rise to prominence as the premier live streaming platform. In addition to hosting the Scuffedpodcast, Trainwrecks is also known for his gambling streams, which caused him to move to Canada to avoid U.S. cryptocurrency tax laws, as well as having run-ins with Twitch's moderation team for sexist comments he's made against fellow streamers.
With the current push by creators to remove gambling from Twitch, Trainwrecks has unsurprisingly faced backlash along with many other streamers including XQC, Félix Lengyel, for live streaming themselves gambling and promoting gambling to the younger portion of their audience.
Though Trainwrecks and XQC have both claimed that they don't necessarily promote gambling in their stream, the fact that they both stream themselves gambling and that gambling itself, specifically the slots category, is the number ten ranked most popular streaming category on Twitch, doesn't necessarily support their arguments.
Twitch's move to ban gambling on Twitch comes after a large community outcry against gambling streams on the platform partially in response to gambling streamer ItsSlicker being called out for scamming both his followers and fellow streamers out of tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, to support his gambling addiction.
Trainwrecks, Slicker, and gambling drama on Twitch.
The final straw for gambling on Twtich was Slicker admitting to scamming mass amounts of money out of followers and fellow streamers to fuel his gambling addiction. He was comforted about it by Hasanabi (Hasan Piker) and Mizkif (Matthew Rinaudo) on live stream.
Trainwrecks' response to his fellow gambling streamer coming clean about scamming and the subsequent outcry to ban gambling on Twitch was to admonish "the people scapegoating slots, [blackjack], and roulette" for not exclusively putting the blame on individuals like Slicker, and instead, as he describes it, chasing clout by by pointing out the dangers of allowing gambling streams to continue on the platform.
Is Trainwrecks leaving Twitch?
Currently there are no signs that Trainwrecks is looking to leave Twitch, move to another platform, or quit streaming. While all signs point to Slicker being ousted from Twitch as well as streaming in general for scamming, the state of gambling and slots on Twitch puts many creators on the platform at risk of losing a stable source of content.
Streamers who've molded their content around gambling and slots place in the large Twitch ecosystem's future are in question. Ultimately, the only outcome for gambling streamers, including Trainwrecks, is either that they will have to move away from gambling or move to another streaming site and lose the success they had on Twitch.
