YouTube are clamping down on poker content
Several high profile poker YouTubers including Andrew Neeme and Jaime Staples are seeing their accounts wiped of content.
A very worrying weekend for the industry as several notable YouTubers have reported poker content being removed from their channels. In particular Jaime Staples at the time of writing has bared the brunt of this, with over 100 videos removed:
Poker YouTube Pocalypse update. 134 videos gone. 24 vlog channel, 110 poker channel.
— Jaime Staples (@jaimestaples) June 1, 2019
I also just had one of my videos removed today. Getting pretty concerned here. https://t.co/ZawHfHqUbn
— Andrew Neeme (@andrewneeme) May 31, 2019
Feeling pretty lost and scared right now about my @Youtube Channel
After 10 years of hard work and no violations, overnight Ive received 2 strikes and am at threat of getting 2 more overnight and losing my entire channel?
Please advise @YTCreators This is my livelihood here 🙁 pic.twitter.com/KCnsyPsUmM
— Evan Jarvis | Holistic Poker Coach (@GripsedPoker) June 2, 2019
Es posible que a lo largo de los próximos días mi canal de Youtube cierre, a otros Youtubers de poker les están también tirando los vídeos 😥@TeamYouTube El poker es una actividad tan digna como trader, inversor o gamer, hemos puesto años de trabajo en nuestros canales. https://t.co/KHwP3vvVvS
— ZeroS (@ZerosPoker) June 1, 2019
Poker has always been a grey area for content platforms like YouTube, and Staples confirmed that his content violated YouTube's 'Sale of Regulated Goods Policy'. This states that online gambling products cannot be promoted on YouTube.
— Jaime Staples (@jaimestaples) June 1, 2019
For the most part the content that has been removed has been footage of the creators playing at an online poker room, which could be deemed something of an 'infomercial' for the site in question. In the case of Staples, he was an ambassador first for PokerStars then for partypoker, so to some degree he was promoting the site he played on. However, he has also had videos where he didn't play poker removed. The one video removed for Neeme (who has a mostly live poker based channel) was related to PokerStars Platinum Passes.
The fact that so many YouTubers have been hit all at once suggests that the policy is now being more strictly enforced and we can probably expect more of this in the future. It likely also means prominent content creators like Staples will move more of their attention to Twitch, where poker has been embraced unambiguously by the platform.
While those of us in the industry understand poker as a game of skill as well as chance, a platform like YouTube clearly makes their job a lot easier by whitewashing any content that can be perceived as promoting gambling. Much like the video game Red Dead Redemption recently prohibited it's in-game freeplay poker game to certain jurisdictions even though it's not possible to wager real money. Removing poker entirely is much easier than exploring the nuance of the game itself and how promotional each individual video is.
Have you seen this effect anyone else? Let us know in the comments:
