Several prominent Twitch streamers, including HasanAbi, are calling out fellow streamer ItsSliker after he allegedly scammed them out of money to fuel what he describes as a gambling addiction. Over the weekend, streamers took to Twitch and Twitter, sharing voice messages, videos, and DMs in which the UK-based streamer begged them for money. He used well-known financial scamming strategies, claiming that his bank account had been frozen and that he needed funds to pay bills and otherwise stay afloat until his bank would release the funds. Sympathetic streamers then sent him large sums of money with the expectation they would be paid back, but it would take months or sometimes years for the money to be repaid, if it was at all.
“Seek help,” wrote Lacari, a Texas-based streamer who shared screenshots of Discord messages from 2021 between him and Sliker in which he’s asked for $1,000. Lacari sent the money and then, a year later, requested Slicker pay him back. Sliker appeared to repay the money, but Lacari messaged Sliker later, saying the payment never went through. Under Lacari’s tweet, several other streamers shared similar experiences of Sliker begging for, receiving, then failing to repay money, with some instances of Sliker sending and subsequently canceling repayment.
wait, no shot – he asked me for 1000 GBP as well nearly two years ago talking about the same thing. took a year of back and forth for him to send it “back” and after seeing this tweet i check again and see its cancelled LOL what’s going on, isnt this guy a big streamer? pic.twitter.com/zaOZywDLTt
— hJune (@h7une) September 18, 2022
Many of Sliker’s victims came forward on Twitch, like streamer lukeafkfan admitting he lost $27,000 and Trainwreckstv saying he gave Sliker around $45,000. xQc remarked that he had also been hit up for money but didn’t loan him any.
A tearful Sliker took to Twitch on September 17th, admitting that he “borrowed” money from streamers.
“I lied to many people,” he said.
According to Sliker, his addiction started with CS:GO skin betting. “Eventually, I found out you could gamble with money,” he explained. From there, he used the money he earned from streaming to support his sports betting habit, but that income wasn’t enough. He began to ask around for money, lying about the reason he needed the funds while saying he had every intention of paying people back.
HasanAbi, the popular political and variety streamer, got involved by staging a call between himself, Sliker, and another content creator called Mizkif, in which he tried to seek restitution for the scammed streamers.
Sliker seemed reluctant when asked if he would seek therapy, and Mizkif stated that he and other top-earning streamers, including xQc and Ludwig, would use their wealth to repay Sliker’s victims.
Although Sliker’s particular flavor of addiction was sports betting, the incident touched off a conversation about gambling on Twitch’s platform. Currently, slot gambling streams are permitted on Twitch, with creators, like the aforementioned xQc, making headlines for the prolific amounts of money they spend and lose on stream. After the news about Sliker broke, high-profile streamers, including Pokimane, discussed a boycott of Twitch on stream to spur the platform to ban gambling from the site.
Pokimane, Mizkif, and Devin Nash talking about early plans to make a joint statement with other top streamers that unless @Twitch takes action on gambling, they will hit them economically during the holiday season (peak ads).#TwitchNews #TwitchStopGambling pic.twitter.com/pyQPINTOu3
— Zach Bussey (@zachbussey) September 19, 2022
Ironically, that sentiment spun off its own controversy. Marginalized content creators were quick to point out that some of these same streamers talking about the damage of gambling streams to the site and the community remained silent when asked for their support to boycott Twitch in the face of prolific and violent hate raids last year.
The Verge reached out to Twitch and Sliker for comment. Currently, Sliker remains unbanned on the platform.