Dunover Slots has become the latest victim of YouTube’s increasingly restrictive content guidelines. As YouTube continues its crackdown on unwanted points of view and content deemed unsafe or deceptive, more content creators are suddenly finding themselves out of work.
OnlineCasinoReviewer.com got in contact with “Dazza G,” owner of the now-defunct Dunover Slots channel, for an interview discussing what has happened. Ironically, the interview itself is posted on YouTube, but at least this video hasn’t been taken down…yet. You can see the interview in full here:
Dazza G explains in the video that one day YouTube levied a strike against a video he had published recently. Shortly after that and without explanation, an older video that he had published about 18 months ago also received a strike. Then, he received another strike and an account closure notice.
The account closure notice told Dazza G almost nothing about the rationale behind the decision to terminate his account aside from accusing him of violations and telling him to review YouTube’s terms of service. In his own words, it was “your bulk, standard, pre-scripted reply.”
His channel didn’t display any particularly troublesome qualities from a community standards point of view. He published video reviews of slots about half the time, recorded himself playing real money slots the other half and published those videos win or lose. Unlike some video publishers on YouTube, Dazza G doesn’t appear to have faked wins or run an otherwise morally-questionable channel.
From what we can tell, the most controversial characteristic of Dunover Slots was the simple fact that it dealt with gambling whatsoever. However, you can still find literally thousands of gambling videos on YouTube – including other videos and live streams of people playing real money slots.
If you dig deep enough into the YouTube content policies, however, you will find the following paragraph (emphasis mine):
We also restrict content that intends to sell certain regulated or illegal goods and services through direct sales or links to sites that sell these items. These items include, but may not be limited to, drugs, pharmaceuticals that require a prescription, alcohol, nicotine products, online gambling casinos, counterfeit documents, or stolen credit card information.
That’s probably the term that got Dazza G. What’s unclear is why there are still thousands of other videos featuring online casinos hosted at YouTube without issue. Many of those videos include affiliate links to visit online casinos in their descriptions. Maybe those channels will be the next to fall, or perhaps Dazza G just got too big to escape notice.
In any case, Dazza G seems to be out of luck for now. YouTube has been known to suddenly reinstate banned channels with little notice, but that is a very hit-or-miss possibility. It is worth noting that Youtube users can opt-out of gambling ads entirely. Getting in touch with a live person to find out more is also a difficult task.
Dunover Slots has since moved his channel over to Twitch.tv.
Any Lessons to be Learned Here?
There don’t seem to be many lessons for casino players here apart from don’t be surprised if your favorite online casino channel suddenly goes dark. If that does happen, you might be able to do some digging and find that channel hosted elsewhere such as Twitch.
For content creators, the lesson here is pretty straightforward: be prepared for anything and don’t keep all your eggs in one basket. YouTube has been banning channels with little rhyme or reason for several years now and anyone involved in gambling should be especially aware of what could happen. The pace of gambling-related channels in particular being terminated seems to have picked up over the last couple of months as well.
Dunover Slots is not the first gambling YouTuber to have been banned recently. The Bandit’s Slot Video Channel was banned last month in similar fashion without warning or explanation beyond this:
Video publishers should consider setting up channels at other video platforms and possibly even starting an e-mail list so you can notify subscribers where to find you if you’ve been banned. This general principle also applies to other platforms including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and so on.
Third party platforms make it easy to publish content and connect with fans, but they also leave you completely at the mercy of whoever owns the platform. Even if you do everything by the book, the terms of use can change at any moment to leave you swinging in the wind.
Wes Burns co-founded OnlineCasinoSites.com with a mission to help gamblers understand and navigate the regulated online casino market in all countries around the world. Wes is a respected gambling journalist, working in the industry since 2008.