Twitch streamer admits to taking money for gambling addiction

A popular Twitch streamer has apologised for borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars from people for his gambling addiction.

ItsSliker, a Twitch streamer with more than 400k followers, recently posted an apology video, admitting he has a gambling problem and has borrowed an unknown amount of money from a variety of sources to feed his addiction.

Many prominent content creators have come forward, claiming that Sliker “scammed” them out of thousands, or in some cases, tens of thousands, of dollars.

First reported by Dexerto, creators such as Lukeafk and Mikelpee shared videos and statements of Sliker asking for monetary assistance due to his “bank account getting locked.”

In almost all instances, Sliker claimed that he would pay back the funds within a set time period, sometimes with interest.

Since then, a number of other content creators, including Trainwreck who gave Sliker $100,000, came forward to give an account of how much money Sliker was asking for.

Streamer ItsSliker has admitted to taking money to fuel a gambling addiction. Picture: ItsSliker

“I used to gamble a lot of my money. Basically, all my Twitch money,” ItsSliker said in the video. “I would come across streamers and ask them if I could borrow money. I wouldn’t give them the reason, obviously. Because it was gambling, I would lie to them.”

In his video, Sliker thanked streamers for coming forward, stating that “what gambling has done for me…is dangerous. This is the epitome of a f**king gambling addict.”

Twitch allows a category of streaming known as “Slots”, which is ninth in popularity as of this writing, beating out popular games such as Call of Duty and Minecraft.

“Gambling Game” is also available as a tag for streamers to label their games, allowing users to search for the tag and find their stream.

Gambling on Twitch has become a controversial topic in recent months, with high-profile personalities such as Pokimane and Ludwig calling on Twitch to address the very serious problem of gambling on stream.

Twitch streams are often broadcast to children or young adults, and gambling categories being allowed by Twitch can be seen as a tacit endorsement of gambling.

If you or anyone you know is affected by gambling, contact Gambling Help Online or call 1900 858 858.

— written by Junior Miyai on behalf of GLHF