Paralympic Gold Medalist Shares His Experience With CS:GO Skin Gambling
He extends his support towards Twitch's policy against gambling.
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Twitch has taken a firm stand against content related to gambling (websites that include slots, roulette, or dice games) on the platform, after multiple streamers raised their voice against it.
This follows the recent incident involving Abraham “Sliker” Mohammed who scammed other content creators and his own viewers of more than $300,000 USD (INR 2,39,76,300) due to his crippling gambling addiction.
This move by Twitch was appreciated by Rowan "magnetbrain" Crothers who is a two-time Paralympic gold medalist and three-time world champion in swimming, while also being a former professional Valorant player who continues to stream on the platform.
He also shared his experience related to gambling of CS:GO skins back when he was just 16-years-old and how he managed to escape before the addiction consumed him completely.
Swimming world champion and former Valorant pro talks about his experience of CS:GO skin gambling
Rowan Crothers is a member of the Australian Paralympic Swim Team and has represented his country at the 2016 Rio Paralympics and the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, winning two gold medals and one silver medal.
He went on to play Valorant professionally within the Oceania region with an amateur team called Pants Down, competing till the completion of First Strike: Oceania after which the roster decided to part ways.
However, he still continues to stream his Valorant gameplay on Twitch under the name of 'magnetbrain' and has managed to garner more than 2,300 followers on the platform.
Earlier today on 21st September, Crothers spoke in support of Twitch's new guidelines against gambling content on the platform. He also shared a personal experience of how he had started to lose money through CS:GO skin gambling when he was 16-year-old, but his family was able to pull him out before the addiction could consume him completely.
Crothers revealed that he had lost $18,000 USD (INR 14,38,840) within five weeks through CS:GO skin gambling.
"When I was 16, I had access to more money than most kids (his age) as I was on the Australian swim team while at school," explains Crothers. He further revealed that as he lacked "good financial habits and the value of money" at that point in time, he started betting it on CS:GO skins after getting influenced by what he witnessed online.
He was losing his hold on money after getting "sucked in by the idea of a big win," but thankfully his family intervened and pulled him out in time before he could become a dire addict.
It is to be noted that the Twitch guidelines still permits the streaming of gambling content related to sports betting, fantasy esports, and poker.
