When Twitch announced in October that it would "ban (open in new tab) the streaming of gambling sites, including slots, roulette, and dice games," Tyler 'Trainwreck' Niknam was one of the loudest voices against the decision. For Trainwreck, the second highest earning slot streamer, the decision was a major blow. After months of frustration, he announced that he was moving to an entirely new streaming site, Kick. The Problem" The people behind the site appear to own Stake.com, a major crypto casino.

Trainwreck was terribly tight-lipped about this fact on his Twitlonger (opens in new tab), denouncing Twitch for having "inconsistent policies." He accused the platform of cutting salaries "where they have no right to cut" and lamented its 50/50 revenue split. He added, "Where Twitch has failed creators, we will work with their team to help creators.

Twitlonger promised more. These include 100% tipping directly to streamers, a Terms of Service "designed to be fair to streamers with clear rules about what is OK and what is not," and "not to lie to viewers about the reality of gambling losses."

Twitlonger has also made a number of other promises. He urged streamers and viewers to "be patient with kicks and give them time to develop," and concluded with another scathing critique of Twitch. Somewhere along the way, Twitch lost its grip on reality. Twitch once felt like a place created by us, for us. But Twitch built an empire on our backs and then forgot about us.

He continued: "Kick's team and I have a vision to create a live streaming platform built for creators. Not just for the huge Twitch creators who have paid contracts, but for the small and medium sized creators who are the foundation and backbone of all live streaming platforms. We will return live streaming to what it was before Twitch lost its way."

A very hopeful sales pitch, but critics soon emerged and tore apart Trainwreck's Twitlonger, with Twitch co-founder Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham calling the kick a "sham" and "full of red flags." He said in a tweet thread, "There are so many contradictory statements and elements on Train's Twitlonger that anyone with platform experience in this field would look at and think "that doesn't make sense." I'm all for chasing dreams, but I'm not in favor of collateral damage to creators."

Graham further asked, "Why would a crypto gambling site fund, support, and launch its own live streaming service? He also questioned how it would be creator-first, "not gambling-first."

Twitlonger of Kick and Trainwreck, fellow streamers Ludwig (open in new tab) and Coffeezilla (open in new tab) The two were further criticized by the The former said it was "really bad that Train didn't disclose" that Kick was part of Stake, while the latter said it was "embarrassing" that Trainwreck supposedly tried to hide the connection.

Trainwreck later confirmed to The Washington Post (open in new tab) that Kick had ties to Stake through the crypto-casino owner. He told the Post that Stake co-owner Eddie Craven was an investor and "involved with Kick," but claimed that Stake itself was not an investor.

The whole situation is a bit of a mess, likely the result of Trainwreck's frustration at losing the freedom to distribute its various slots and gambling content on Twitch; Kick itself is very similar to Twitch, with the same layout and the same site color It is distinguished only by the scheme changing from purple to green. Despite the criticism, the site has already attracted 200,000 sign-ups (open in new tab) in 24 hours. It remains to be seen whether this traction will last, or whether Trainwreck will come back to Twitch with its tail between its legs.