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The official Twitch channel of the UFC often streams reruns of past events and fights. On March 24, one of the battles presented by the channel was a match between Brad Riddell vs. Rafael Fiziev that took place on December 5, 2021. However, there was something amiss about the fight. Viewers noticed that among the advertisements plastered around the octagon was a banner for Stake.com, an online casino that is banned on Twitch.
Although seeing promotions for the online gambling site was commonplace on the platform less than a year ago, its recent stance against promoting such content has nearly eliminated Stake's presence on the Amazon-owned website. The UFC is an official Twitch partner but also has a deal with the gambling site. The latter is the Ultimate Fighting Championship's official betting partner, thus leading to Stake making another appearance on Twitch.
UFC Twitch channel promotes Stake.com
In September 2022, Twitch streamer ItsSliker was accused of scamming numerous fans and friends out of thousands of dollars to support his gambling habits. The individual would eventually be permanently banned from the platform months later, but the more immediate impact of that controversy was a discussion around gambling on Twitch.
Many big streamers would regularly indulge in the act on online casinos, with Stake.com being the most popular of the bunch. Some of Twitch's biggest names, including xQc and Trainwreck, even received sponsorships from the site to promote it on stream. After the ItsSliker controversy, however, the purple platform decided to ban most forms of gambling from its site.
Stake drew a majority of the community's ire, in large part because it was the biggest name out there, excluding major online casinos. Stake also invested heavily in sponsoring Twitch streamers, encouraging them to promote gambling to their audiences, which likely included thousands of underage viewers.
After Twitch's decision, many of the big slots streamers, including Trainwreck, have moved their gambling streams to the purple platform's newest competitor, Kick. There are some loopholes that can be used to feature gambling content on Amazon's platform, such as using the Stake.us website. However, the category has certainly been removed from the forefront of Twitch.
Many viewers were shocked to see the official UFC Twitch channel airing a fight that featured a Stake.com advertisement in the octagon. Others were confused by the presence of a banned site on the stream of a major Twitch partner. However, the fight was a rerun of an event that took place in 2021, and it is unlikely that any sort of ban on the UFC channel will come of this, due to its partnership with Stake as well as the latter's inclusion being a harmless oversight.
