YouTube Bans Creators From Talking About Some Gambling Sites

YouTube is going to curb the promotion of online gambling sites that have become increasingly popular in recent years. Under the new rules, creators will be prohibited from verbally referring to gambling services not approved by Google. Uploaders are also banned from displaying logos or links to them in videos. “We believe these changes are a necessary step in protecting our community, especially younger viewers,” the company said in a blog post.

YouTube will only allow references to online gambling sites that “meet local requirements,” which suggests some wiggle room. It also excludes videos that show online sports betting or in-person gambling, so all the sponsorships for ESPN BET that pervade sports videos will remain unscathed; YouTube is really targeting the shadier online slot machine websites. Either way, all gambling-related content will be age-restricted to users 18 and older, and not accessible to logged out visitors. YouTube will begin using AI to try and proactively estimate a user’s age.

Online sports betting has become incredibly popular in recent years after a 2018 Supreme Court ruling struck down a federal ban on state authorization of sports betting. Companies, including Disney, have launched their own online betting products as a new stream of revenue, and insiders say that betting brings in more engaged views to sports, though critics say not in a positive way. When money is tied up in the outcome of a game, emotions can run high. Horror stories paint a dark picture of individuals becoming addicted to online sports betting and digging themselves into deep holes to try and recover steep losses.

Websites like Stake that offer online slot machines operate in more of a legal gray area, taking advantage of state-level laws regarding sweepstakes in order to bypass gambling laws. However, Stake is not available nationwide, as some states have air-tight language in their laws preventing any workarounds.

Some say that gambling itself is not bad per se, but the move from in-person to online gambling has made the activity too easily accessible. It does not help that celebrities, including Drake, have been paid big dollars to promote Stake to impressionable fans. The stock trading app Robinhood briefly launched sports betting “contracts” earlier this year only to pause the rollout following concerns raised by the CFTC that the product may not be legal.

Sites like Twitch already restrict the promotion of online gambling, and X has similar restrictions in place, but it is still common to see viral images on the site watermarked with the logo for Stake, apparently a surreptitious way of sneaking past X’s guardrails to promote the gambling platform. In 2022, Stake’s founders launched a competitor to Twitch, called Kick, specifically as a livestreaming platform that would not prohibit the promotion of online gambling.