iGaming (the umbrella term for online gambling and betting) is one of the fastest-growing entertainment industries: Global search interest in iGaming has increased 8X from 2023 to 2026, and that’s due in no small part to the spread of iGaming content on live streaming. As the home for sports, esports, and competitive community event viewership, live streaming makes a natural home for iGaming services and their users. Audiences are already tuned in, emotionally invested in outcomes, and primed to engage with betting and prediction content in real time.
But while other brands have been launching much-publicized, innovative creator marketing activations on live streaming, iGaming brands haven’t been given the same spotlight. In this article, we’ll break down how iGaming brands are showing up on live streaming in 2026, from brands dominating stream titles and chat mentions, to the creators pulling the biggest iGaming audiences.
TL;DR Takeaways by Stream Hatchet:
- iGaming thrives on live streaming thanks to speculation and ties to competitive sports and esports
- Stake pops up in the most stream titles due to its ties to Kick and Kick’s biggest streamers
- Among U.S. Betting and Prediction Brands, Polymarket and Kalshi are driving the most discussion
Stake’s Stake in Kick Puts it Ahead of the Competition
In January 2026, across Twitch and Kick, Stake appeared in 6.6K stream titles, accounting for 60% of all iGaming brand mentions combined. Its closest competitor, 1XBet, managed 1.8K mentions, with others trailing behind like Betano (837) and Winamax (653). Together, all other iGaming brands considered here accounted for just 4.4K stream title mentions. The gap between Stake and the rest of the field is, for the immediate future, insurmountable.
That’s because Stake’s dominance here is structural. Kick was co-founded by Stake’s backers and built in part as a platform where gambling content could thrive (as opposed to Twitch which has continuously cracked down on gambling content). A significant portion of Kick’s most active streamers are directly affiliated with the brand, hence the dedication to correctly labelling Stake in their stream titles. This kind of advantage makes comparing oneself against Stake’s presence impractical: For other iGaming brands, it may be worth looking at other areas of the live streaming economy that they can capitalize on (some examples of that in just a moment) unless they’re willing to take on Stake on its home platform.
Kick Creators Hit the Jackpot with iGaming Content
The Top 10 iGaming creators by hours watched in January 2026 are all streaming on Kick as a result of this move by Stake. Trainwreckstv leads with 15.6M hours watched; a fitting result given his role as one of Kick’s earliest backers and a founding streamer. Classybeef follows with 13.9M hours watched, and ROSHTEIN with 12.6M, both long-established names in the slots and casino streaming world. The top three alone account for over 42M hours watched in a single month, giving a sense of just how concentrated viewership is around a core group of proven iGaming creators.
But there’s more potential to be mined here: Although AdinRoss ranks 6th with 7M hours watched, he also has the largest Kick following at 1.9M. That gap between follower count and watch time suggests AdinRoss draws a broad, cross-platform audience that doesn’t necessarily tune in for long sessions, whereas creators like Trainwreckstv and Classybeef have cultivated deeply engaged communities that clock serious hours. For iGaming brands evaluating creator partnerships, that distinction matters: Raw follower counts and sustained viewership serve very different marketing goals.
Prediction Markets Lead the US Betting Conversation on Live Streaming
For the rest of our look into iGaming brands, we wanted to broaden the scope to include other similar apps which gives a fuller picture of the potential of live streaming. For that reason, we’re going to consider services like Polymarket and Kalshi which are not considered gambling brands by the CFTC and are classified as “prediction markets” specifically – a meaningful distinction.
Among US-focused betting and prediction brands on Twitch and Kick in January 2026, Polymarket and Kalshi lead the chat mention rankings with 12K and 11.7K mentions respectively, well ahead of sportsbooks like FanDuel (8.8K) and PrizePicks (5.3K). The reason for this may be due to Polymarket and Kalshi being prediction markets: Platforms where users trade on the probability of real-world outcomes across sports, politics, and current events. Prediction markets encourage more discussion to share knowledge about current affairs than gambling on “simpler” outcomes like the roll of a dice or a slot machine.
Additionally, both brands expanded aggressively into the US market in late 2025, with Polymarket acquiring a CFTC-regulated exchange and Kalshi closing successive funding rounds totalling over $1.3B through late 2025. That momentum made January 2026 a particularly active moment for both in public conversation, and the chat data reflects it.
Regardless, chat mentions are crucial for both sportsbooks and prediction markets: Appearing in live chat often means a viewer is actively using the platform to speculate on an event unfolding in real time. That organic engagement is a fundamentally different signal than brand visibility alone, because it means the platform has become part of how viewers participate in the content they’re watching.
Sports Betting Content Finds a Forum for Discussion on Twitch and YouTube
The top creators driving iGaming brand mentions aren’t all operating on Kick. For example, Stokastic DFS leads creators with iGaming brand mentions on their channel with 742K hours watched: A YouTube-based daily fantasy sports channel built entirely around DraftKings and FanDuel lineup strategy across NFL, NBA, MLB, and more. Its audience is exactly the kind of highly engaged, betting-literate viewer that iGaming brands want to reach. Barstool Sports (88K hours watched, 1.9M followers), Barstool After Dark (87K), and Barstool Gambling (79K) cluster together in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, all operating on YouTube under the same Barstool Sports media umbrella.
This Barstool concentration is worth noting: Three distinct channels from the same brand collectively account for a substantial share of iGaming-adjacent viewership, each targeting a slightly different slice of the sports and betting audience. Barstool Sports captures the broad sports fan, Barstool After Dark skews toward entertainment and personality-driven content, and Barstool Gambling zeroes in on the betting-focused viewer. Other channels and iGaming brands could learn from this example: Imagine an iGaming brand sponsoring a channel with non-iGaming gambling content to help them make iGaming-centric content and tap into a different section of the gambling audience.
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The relationship between iGaming and live streaming is only getting stronger. As betting and prediction markets expand into new regions, and as live streaming audiences continue to grow around sports, esports, and competitive events, the overlap between the two industries represents a significant opportunity. The brands that move early to establish a genuine presence on live streaming, whether through creator partnerships, sponsored content, or esports activations, are the ones best positioned to reach the next generation of bettors where they already spend their time.
That opportunity extends beyond iGaming operators: Payment providers, data platforms, affiliate networks, and other services that power the iGaming ecosystem all stand to benefit from the same live streaming audiences, as we’ve explored with non-endemic brands more broadly. Live streaming offers a window into how audiences are engaging with iGaming brands in real time, and for any business operating in or adjacent to this space, that’s a dataset worth paying attention to.
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