YouTube appears to be cracking down on poker content. Last week, Jaime Staples revealed that some of his videos were removed from his two channels PokerStaples and Jamie Staples.
It started with the removal of two videos in relation to Staples’ My Ultimate Sweat Challenge where he offered a free seat into the PokerStars Players’ Championship in the Bahamas in January 2019. However, that number of videos taken down quickly grew to 150 in just a couple of days. Staples has over 1,000 videos uploaded to his channel and has now received one “strike” from YouTube. If a channel gets three strikes, it will be banned from the video-sharing website.
The poker community is making a noise as Staples is not the only video poker creator who has had their videos taken down by YouTube.
Poker Content Creators Raise Red Flag
On June 1, Evan Jarvis discovered that he had one strike against his channel. The poker pro and coach did not pay particular attention to it until he received a second strike by the evening. One more strike and he’s out for good.
As of this writing, YouTube has deleted 100 videos from Jarvis’ Team Gripsed Poker Training – Ervan Jarvis channel which currently has nearly 70,000 subscribers. The Canadian player was supposed to release a series of videos this week, in time for the 50th World Series of Poker (WSOP), but it’s understood he will no longer be able to do that.
A YouTube strike prohibits the channel from uploading videos for a week. In the event of three strikes, the channel will be permanently terminated, although YouTube allows the party in question to submit an appeal for the strike. Both Staples and Jarvis have already submitted their appeals and are now hoping for a positive outcome.
Vlogger Derek Gomez also submitted appeals after five of his videos on his channel Derek GMZ were also removed by YouTube. But unfortunately, his appeal was declined in what appeared to be a generic response from the site. Fellow YouTube vlogger Andrew Neeme also had a video removed from his channel, but the poker pro didn’t bother appealing. Neeme wished YouTube would let them edit a video that had been removed so they could exclude certain sections which reportedly violate the rules, but the site does not have this feature at the moment.
Videos Removed Due To Links to Gambling Sites
Some of the reasons for the removal of the videos include a violation of the “Sale of Regulated Goods” policy. This happens when a video includes links in the description that direct users to any gaming or gambling site. For Staples, this would cover links to his previous sponsor PokerStars.
While mainly an online poker site, PokerStars also offers casino games, which Jarvis believes prompted the deletion of some videos.
Poker Community Fights Back
Staples argued that poker shouldn’t be categorized as gambling. He added that poker-related content published on video-sharing websites such as YouTube would help people learn about the correct ways to approach the game. The former PokerStars ambassador emphasized that poker is a game of skill and the poker community deserves to be represented on YouTube. Apart from YouTube, Staples is also among prominent figures on the Twitch streaming platform where he has more than 112,000 followers.
These poker content creators are keeping their fingers crossed and hope that YouTube will listen to the voices of the global poker community.
Silver Lining
A number of these poker content creators on YouTube are unhappy at the recent crackdown and have been expressing their disappointment and frustration on social media channels. However Evan Jarvis played down the impact of YouTube’s crackdown saying he believes more online avenues are available where content creators can interact with their audience, such as the 2+2 and CardsChat forums.
He also took a different approach by saying that he completely understands why YouTube has to strictly enforce their policies, considering the negative effects of excessive gambling. The poker pro also acknowledged that most people are not well-educated about gambling and can easily succumb to gambling addiction.
While he admitted to understanding why YouTube was taking such action, he expressed disappointment over the way that the video sharing website went about auto-freezing their accounts with no warning. The poker community has taken to social media to protest against this latest YouTube crackdown but it is not very likely to influence the video sharing giant’s final decision against poker content creators.