AUSTIN, TEXAS: Felix Lengyel aka xQc — as he is known to his fans — is a prominent streamer who has stirred debate for his unconventional behavior, both online and offline. He was quite shocked recently when he noticed that Twitch was airing advertisements for a poker tournament in the midst of his controversial move to Kick.
In the past year or two, Twitch has begun to crack down on gambling streams, outright forbidding streamers from doing them if they use unregulated websites. This has included Stake, the company that supports Kick, a new platform competing with Twitch.
Does xQc support unregulated gambling?
For streamers, gambling has always been a difficult subject, especially for those who have entered into agreements with online casinos and gambling sites. The fact that video games like CS:GO and FIFA have their own gambling aspects with unlockables is sometimes cited as evidence by people who don't find it objectionable. The topic of gambling has once again come up thanks to Kick's success in landing xQc as one of their streamers with a huge contract deal.
The former Overwatch League player has been justifying his choice to transfer because, despite having previously stopped gambling due to enormous losses, he doesn't see many problems with it. As of now, his deal is non-exclusive, which means he splits his time between Twitch and Kick. So, when he was alerted to the fact that Twitch was advertising a poker event, he was a bit shocked. He asked his fans, “This is an ad they have on right now?”
He then added, “Guys, I’m not going to s**t on Twitch overall because I don’t give a s**t about any of this. My take remains the same, I just think maybe, perhaps it’s time to accept the fact that it is what it is.”
xQc's gambling habit had resulted in him experiencing both significant wins and losses in the past. He previously wagered on slot machines, for instance, and both earned and lost thousands of dollars. The streamer lost roughly a million dollars playing online poker on Stake.com in June 2022. His earnings were destroyed by a website error, resulting in a huge loss
'What a moron'
The livestream of YouTuber MuKitty's video 'This Is Why Pokimane Is The Real Mysoginst' was selected and thereby watched by Twitch star Felix "xQc" on June 29, 2023. His recent argument with Imane "Pokimane" and Hasan "HasanAbi" about streamers who accept sponsorships from unlicensed gaming establishments was highlighted in the video. In a snarky remark, the former Overwatch pro said that he feels "really safe" knowing that the government "greenlights" regulated gaming. He said something that suggested he supported unrestricted gambling: "Government equals safe," he said sarcastically.
He then added, "Chat! Remember, chat, it's only regulated if the government says that it is. That makes me feel really safe about the nature of the gamba (gambling) if the government greenlights it. Woo! Yeah, dude! 'Literally yes.' Oh, man!" However, the online streaming community had mixed reactions with xQc's hot take on unregulated gambling. A user wrote,"Gamba bad, capitalism bad, money bad, internet bad, technology bad, civilization bad, life bad". The second user wrote, "What a moron" The third user wrote, "xQc viewers have seen more gambling on Twitch than Kick, that's a factual statement." While the fourth user wrote,"He is out of content already? He is fighting week old ghosts?"
