Could Twitch Help Promote US iGaming Legislation?

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Wednesday, October 21st, 2015 | Written by Stephen Smith

What started off as a website for promoting online and video gaming has become one of the hottest places to watch poker online. Twitch, a video streaming service that allows people to broadcast videos of game play, is spurring interest in poker and leading young Americans to wonder why they’re not able to legally play poker online in the country.

The Interest in Twitch Poker

In early October, Twitch user Jason Somerville had 37,000 people watch him play a PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) event. The 28 year-old pro subsequently reached the $700 buy-in tournament’s final table, eventually finishing in 6th place for $22,673, which added to the nine bounties he collected worth around $15,000, meant he took home more than $38,000. At that time, more people had been watching Sommeville play than any other platform on Twitch, which was unusual as that honor is usually reserved for video game streamers, thus demonstrating that interest in watching poker on Twitch is on the rise.

In fact, at the end of September poker was the 16th most popular game on the Twitch rankings, with roughly 30,000 people regularly watching poker streams, and 765,000 total hours of poker footage having been watched. This means that more people are watching others play poker on Twitch than are playing at PokerStars.com during peak prime time hours, as PokerStars has not reached more than 30,000 cash game at any one time since at least late April.

A Winning Partnership

The online poker industry has been waning since Black-Friday, when the US DoJ shut out PokerStars from the country’s unregulated iGaming market. Since then, many changes have taken place in the way operators manage their business, one prime result being that fewer poker pros are now offered lucrative sponsorship deals. Bucking the trend, however, has been Jason Somerville, whose use of the Twitch platform has been hailed as a possible game-changer for iPoker, which is in desperate need for a new, younger audience to take up the game. Explaining that poker operators now expect a greater level of ROI on their investments, the US pro provided further insights into the changing industry by explaining that:

“Poker sites have smartened up to that. Being good at poker is only part of the equation. It’s much better to be mediocrely good and a super hard worker and be able to drive value to your partner. That lesson I learned at Ultimate Poker and have always viewed my relationships with all my partners, what value can I add?”

Why the Interest?

So what is making people flock to Twitch to watch others compete in online poker? Without a doubt the entertaining nature of Jason ‘Jcarverpoker’ Somerville’s broadcast accounts for a fair share of its rising popularity. However, that is just part of the story, especially with other popular characters in the game providing broadcasts of their own, including Phil Hellmuth, Liv Boeree, Daniel Negreanu and Bertrand Grospellier. Therefore, here are a few other reasons for Twitch poker’s increasing popularity:

1. Viewers are interested in watching games where people are playing for a significant amount of money.

2. Many viewers are interested in learning how to play poker and want to see how those who are able to win big are strategizing. Twitch is interactive, so viewers can actually ask players why they made decisions that they did.

3. Some of the players that viewers are watching are big names in online poker. Twitch makes it possible to interact with them directly.

4. Many of the streamers on Twitch have free Home Games that let their viewers play with other subscribers. Normally, the games include prize giveaways, making them legal for U.S. residents to participate in.

Questions Arising Among Twitch Fans

As more and more people in the United States are tuning into Twitch to watch streamers play, questions are arising as to why the majority of U.S. residents can’t legally play poker online. If you tune into a Twitch vehicle, you’re almost certain to hear an American who is watching for the first time ask where they can play only to be told that they can’t. You can tell that most people are shocked to learn that online poker isn’t legal in the United States, outside of the three regulated states of Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey.

What Twitch Could Mean for Online Poker Legalization

While Twitch players themselves may not further the legalization movement, grassroots organizations that are fighting to get their states to introduce legislation can use Twitch to their advantage. The site provides proof that there is a genuine interest in online poker in the United States, particularly among millennials who typically do not frequent casinos. It can be argued that legalizing online poker will provide additional revenues for the state from people like these Twitch streamers without drawing away business from land-based casinos and racinos, which often try and oppose online poker legalization.