Kick updates gambling policy to protect young users going into 2025

Imago

Streaming platform Kick has reported that it will be updating its gambling policy to make sure that only gambling sites that carry out age verification will be allowed on-site. 

Kick announced on X, that from 1 February 2025 gambling-related content can only be streamed from gambling sites that use ID to verify users are 18+.

The new change has come in order to protect younger streamers and to make sure those gambling are of legal age.

This change is particularly significant given that gambling is Kick’s second-largest streaming category, trailing behind Just Chatting.

However, since its rival streaming platform Twitch banned high-stakes casino streams, big operators such as Stake moved over to Kick. Eddie Craven, owner of Stake, is also the owner of Easygo which is the company that powers both Kick and Stake; making some streamers think that Stake streamers will receive more traffic than other streamers who promote different brands.

Popular gambling streamer Xposed responded to Kick’s X announcement theorising that Kick just wants its users streaming Stake specifically: “The sole purpose to create kick was for a place for gamblers to have the freedom to stream wherever they want and have a home to stream at. Now these guys at Stake are losing streamers by the day and were forced to provide an extra level of KYC check to the website. 

“All this shows is control over their website entirely and to make everybody come back to Stake and promote only their product. On top of that, any streamer that is streaming other gambling websites viewers are deflated and they are not allowed to be shown on the front page or on the recommended section of Kick making them more difficult to be discovered which hurts the streamers who aren’t streaming Stake and backing them into a corner. 

“Anybody that streams Stake = inflated viewers + on recommended and front page. Anybody that doesn’t stream Stake = deflated viewers + not on recommended or front page also sometimes notifications don’t go out to those that follow. Twitch 2.0.”

As well as introducing a new gambling policy, as of the 1 February 2025, streamers will also have more control over bots in their chats. Kick has now created a feature where streamers can customise their chat to avoid bots taking over and can restrict the chat to viewers who have only been registered for a certain amount of time.