Nickmercs to Offer Gambling Streams as Part of New Kick Contract
As Twitch has warned its streamers about promoting certain forms of gambling, Kick has opted to fill the void.
Nick “Nickmercs” Kolcheff confirmed he signed an eight-figure contract with the Twitch rival. Gambling promos are ‘part of the contract', according to the Call of Duty streamer.
Kick’s head of strategic partnerships clarified that a gambling clause is not in Kolcheff’s Kick contract.
There is no gamba clause in the Kick contract. @JakeSucky https://t.co/D2DFWg6mMs
— Santamaria (@Svntvmvriv) October 30, 2023
"We're not gonna do a shit ton, but we're gonna do some gambling for sure," Nickmercs said. "It's part of the contract, you know. With that being said, we got another place. Because you can't do it in America."
Nickmercs had long stated he would stick to Twitch. He's amassed 70,000 viewers on that platform and is estimated to have earned $6 million in 2019. Nickmercs was the 10th highest earning gamer that year.
In August, Twitch announced it would explicitly begin banning sponsorship and promotion of CS:GO skin gambling sites, specifically naming online casinos Blaze and Gamdom.
At the time, Tyler Faraz Niknam (AKA Trainwreck) claimed to have made $360 million over a 16 month period promoting Stake.com via Twitch.
In a statement to Dexerto, Twitch said: “There’s been renewed interest in CSGO gambling broadly, so we’ve added clarifying language to our FAQ to make clear that promotion/sponsorship is not allowed on our service.”
Interestingly, it was streamers themselves who pressured Twitch into getting rid of gambling due in part to a series of well publicized scam allegations.
“Our goal now, as it was last fall, is to protect our community, address predatory behavior, and make Twitch safer,” the company said.
Twitch claimed viewership of said content was down 75 percent since the ban.
- Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com
