EA Bans Streamer from Esports Event Because of His Gambling Content

Trainwrecks, a Twitch streamer famous for his slots gambling content, has been denied access to an esports tournament because of his ties to gambling. The content creator was less than amused by the fact.

Trainwrecks Gets Excluded from the Event

The tournament in question is the MFAM Gauntlet in Apex Legends, organized by none other than NICKMERCS – a member of the renowned esports organization and lifestyle brand FaZe Clan. The tournament is by no means the biggest esports event in history and has a prize pool of $50,000 which can be considered rather modest considering some major events have millions in prizes.

However this doesn’t mean the event isn’t important – on the contrary, because of NICKMERCS and FaZe’s popularity, many gaming celebrities have decided to partake in the Apex Legends shootout. Sadly, the tournament will have to go without Trainwrecks.

The reason for this is that Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher which is also sponsoring the MFAM Gauntlet, doesn’t want to have Trainwrecks around. The video game company fears that Trainwrecks and his reputation as a prominent gambler might tarnish its image.

Trainwrecks Scrutinizes EA’s Decision

Trainwrecks wasn’t happy at all when he learned of this. He exploded on social media with accusations of EA, saying that the company is run by corrupt and shady people.

The streamer pointed out that this decision on EA’s side is nothing short of “virtue signaling” and a hypocritical one at that. He revealed that EA has previously paid him $150,000 to play Apex Legends – the very same game, for four hours. Trainwrecks is baffled that EA used him when it needed him to popularize the game but is turning him down now, especially considering that the MFAM Gauntlet’s prize pool is three times lower than what EA once paid him.

Trainwrecks even said that he would like to support NICKMERCS’ tournament instead and would offer twice the money for the prize pool.

Trainwrecks’ fans and colleagues rose in his support. One fellow Twitch content creator by the nickname ConnorEatsPants spoke in defense of Trainwracks in the Twitter comments:

“The last thing EA would ever do is want to promote gambling to minors, god forbid if a system like that ever came to Fifa,” Connor said.

Trainwrecks’ supporters refer to EA’s plethora of microtransactions that has been criticized by the gaming community for years. The internet has seen numerous serious posts, accusations, articles, and humorous pictures that all agree EA’s in-game loot boxes are predatory. Connor implied that in the light of having a mechanic that is so similar to gambling in its games, EA cannot exactly blame Trainwrecks for the kind of content he makes.

EA has not addressed the matter as of the time of this writing. Meanwhile, Twitch decided to cut all ties with gambling in a previous update of its terms and conditions.