How a Twitch gambling scandal spiralled into sexual harassment allegations

Last week, a major Twitch streamer admitted he couldn't pay back loans from friends and fans because of a gambling addiction. It was a shocking revelation but, as the week went on, the reaction from other popular streamers spiralled into a battle that eventually had nothing to do with gambling. Petty drama erupted, serious allegations were revisited, and tweets were tweeted and deleted. By the time Twitch reacted by banning streams of unlicensed online gambling sites, it was becoming hard to tell what had caused it.

The messy, unpleasant fight has been hard to follow, especially for those who don't pay close attention to Twitch stars or their personal connections to each other. Here's the short version of how gambling debts led to multiple apologies about seemingly unrelated events. It was a good week for TwitLonger, if not for some of Twitch's top stars.

ItsSliker borrowed money from friends and fans to fuel gambling 

Twitch's Very Bad Week kicked off on September 18, when streamer ItsSliker was accused of scamming both friends and fans out of tens of thousands of dollars. Screenshots that allegedly showed ItsSliker asking fellow streamers for money surfaced on Discord and Twitter; in them he offered vague claims about needing the funds for things like bills or flight tickets. The same day, ItsSliker admitted he was gambling the money away, saying in an apology stream that he "never intended on scamming anyone."

The discourse around Twitch and gambling has intensified this year, and even though ItsSliker wasn't actively gambling on-stream, the revelation angered some major streamers nonetheless. Pokimane, Mizkif, and HasanAbi began calling for Twitch to ban gambling streams, starting up the hashtag #TwitchStopGambling. Hasan and Mizkif also streamed a call with ItsSliker, confronting him about the situation and asking him to seek therapy.

Sliker's Twitch partner status and sub button were revoked, with the streamer promising to pay back the funds he had borrowed from peers and viewers.  

"I will still pay off the people I owe," he said in his apology stream. "I don't give a fuck whether I reach 90 [years old]." 

Streamers xQc (who recently admitted to dropping $2 million on gambling), Mizkif, and Ludwig have offered to refund those who gave Sliker money. xQc claimed the scams totalled $300,000, tweeting, "Me and @LudwigAhgren will be trying our best to get money back to those people. This is about the victims."

On September 20, Twitch announced that it would be banning "streams of gambling sites that include slots, roulette or dice games that aren't licensed either in the US or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection." It did not address the ongoing drama between streamers, nor is this an outright ban, but did seem to cool the situation down. Briefly.

Asmongold bites back  

Some streamers weren't ready to let ItsSliker off so lightly, including Asmongold. On Monday, he tweeted: "How in the fuck is Sliker not banned on Twitch? Guy literally uses the platform to defraud dozens of people, streamers and viewers alike AND ADMITS IT." Asmongold then lamented that JiDion (a streamer who was permanently banned at the start of 2022 for hate-raiding Pokimane) is "still sitting a perma while Sliker gets to go live and laugh about actual crime." JiDion's ban was controversial earlier this year, as many streamers thought it was too harsh for a first offence. 

Trainwreck and Mizkif fight in Asmongold's replies

Trainwreck, Twitch's second highest-earning slot streamer who has previously copped bans for sexist comments, accused Asmongold and OTK (an organisation which includes Mizkif) of giving ItsSliker a platform to wage "their war" against him.

In a now-deleted response to Trainwreck, Mizkif shot back: "If we're going to deplatform people for scamming others shouldn't we have banned you for Jolt Coin a few years back?" Mizkif was referring to a 2017 incident involving Trainwreck and a cryptocurrency called Jolt Coin. Details about the incident are sparse.

Trainwreck responded to Mizkif with an unrelated accusation about an incident involving streamers CrazySlick, Adrianah Lee, Maya, and MitchJones. That leads to the next sequence of events.

Let's pause for breath. There are a lot of online handles flying around, hashtags, accusations and counter-accusations, but this is where it's all about to go thermonuclear. The important thing to note is that, essentially, what began as drama about one streamer's gambling problem has now divided streamers into two camps, and has become a license to dig up historical accusations. This is about to go way beyond slot machines. 

Sexual harassment allegations resurface

In July 2021, Adrianah Lee published a TwitLonger post about an incident in early January 2020. She alleged that CrazySlick (not to be confused with ItsSliker from the earlier gambling controversy) had touched her neck and chest while she was passed out at a party despite her friends asking him to leave her alone. According to Lee, who heard the story from a friend who was there, Slick said at the time that he was checking to make sure she was alive. "He did not rape or assault me, but his actions DID make me uncomfortable," Lee wrote.

A year later, Lee alleged that Mizkif and Maya downplayed the situation in conversations with her in order to influence her TwitLonger post and preserve CrazySlick's reputation.

CrazySlick responded to the allegations on September 19, writing in a now-deleted tweet: "I have never sexually assaulted anyone and never will. I have never had any intentions of ever harming anyone. I go out of my way to check on someone and I get accused of rape, this is unfair, I will be getting a lawyer ASAP."

Lee's Twitter feed is now packed with other women who say that CrazySlick has harassed them or behaved inappropriately; this thread started on September 20. Most are anonymous, although some streamers like fanfan have posted screenshots of Discord DMs allegedly from CrazySlick.

Maya also responded to the claim that she had downplayed the situation to Lee. "I asked her if she thought that Slick raped her or sexually assaulted her. At the time we agreed… at the time she said no. So I said okay, could you include that in your TwitLonger then?" Maya then apologised for inserting herself into the situation. On September 25, she posted a TwitLonger saying she condemned CrazySlick, adding: "I am sorry and I feel horrible for being part of the reason that Adrianah has experienced everything that she has in the past year." She finished by saying "I am stepping away from my online platforms indefinitely."

Mizkif backed Lee after posting a statement in which he apologised for downplaying other CrazySlick incidents and saying some "reprehensible things" in the past. Mizkif's apology

Ice Poseidon reveals old Mizkif messages  

Last Tuesday, YouTuber Ice Poseidon tweeted: "Mizkif, I brought you into this world and now I'm taking you out," referring to the fact that Mizkif was Ice Poseidon's video editor before going on to have his own successful Twitch career. The tweet contained four screenshots of messages between the two between 2018 and 2019, in which Mizkif uses racist, homophobic, and ableist slurs. 

Mizkif then posted a TwitLonger addressing both what he said in the screenshots and the claim that he tried to cover up CrazySlick's alleged behaviour.

"A little while after Slick's misconduct came to light last year, I made some inexcusable statements," Mizkif wrote, referring to a 2021 stream where he had called the situation "low-key." He said that CrazySlick has now "been told to vacate [the OTK network] house as soon as possible. 

Regarding Ice Poseidon's screenshots, Mizkif said that his past use of slurs was something that he had already regularly admitted to. "I've been open about my past many times on stream and will address it here again: I was a dumb, edgy guy who said a lot of stupid things to my friends to try and come off as funny and cool," he wrote. "I can't change what I've said, but I can change who I am and how I conduct myself."

At the end of the TwitLonger, Mizkif wrote that he would be "taking a leave of absence and stepping away from organisational duties" at OTK while a third party investigates the CrazySlick situation and his past comments. A statement from OTK said that it "strongly condemns sexual harassment, assault and bigotry of all forms."

JustaMinx weighs in, catches accusations of her own 

Streamer JustaMinx, who has two million Twitch followers, commented on Tuesday, calling out Mizkif and HasanAbi for streaming with ItsSliker after the scamming allegations and expressing her opinion on the CrazySlick and Lee situation. 

Later, however, a clip of JustaMinx defending CrazySlick and calling Lee a "clout chaser" surfaced on Twitter. "Slick is good. Slick is weird, yeah, he is weird," JustaMinx said in the clip. "But he does it online. It's always how Slick is. And Adrianah is a clout chaser. So am I." 

Shortly after, streamer toxxxicsupport published a TwitLonger about a TwitchCon party thrown by JustaMinx in 2018. In it, she said that Minx—who she considered a close friend at the time—had dismissed concerns raised following an "uncomfortable" party. She said that she felt pressured to take her clothes off during a series of drinking games, and that Minx initially "seemed so supportive," but later turned on her to protect men at the party. JustaMinx has not yet responded to that claim, with a statement uploaded to Twitter on September 23 explaining that she was currently not on the internet for the sake of her mental health.

Where we are 

The drama continued over the weekend, becoming progressively messier. Many of those who have gotten involved have found blowback themselves. A handful of streamers have had their reputations tanked, with one streamer declaring their intent to step away for a while and others—like Mizkif and CrazySlick—simply going dark. The accusations made against the latter will linger, though seem unlikely to result in any legal action. More striking is how this has exposed the faultlines between streamers of the same generation who sometimes live together, stream together and party together.

The LivestreamFail subreddit has been a hotbed for all sorts of clips and tweets since everything kicked off, and it looks set to drag on still. There's a fantastic megathread that has compiled a ton of clips to browse for those who aren't quite done figuring out what on earth is going on.