Esports content may be hit by YouTube’s new gambling and graphic violence policies

Starting Nov. 17, 2025, YouTube updated its policies regarding online gambling and graphic violence in gaming, which can affect esports broadcasts of games such as Counter-Strike 2, Rainbow Six: Siege and Call of Duty.

This comes from the new ruling, which mentioned that they are now age-restricting content that depicts realistic human characters that “focuses on scenes of torture or scenes of mass violence against non-combatants.”

While there are arguments regarding the fact that in games like those mentioned above, both teams contain combatants and that they should be safe, YouTube has had a history of being ambiguous when it comes to policies like this.

Regarding the online gambling part of the policy, this mostly affects Counter-Strike 2 content creators who lean towards its cases, where most gamblings start. It’s unknown if the site will count gacha games or case openings from other games like Overwatch 2 as online gambling. Other videos that feature a social casino site will also not be age-restricted.

Luckily, those who have posted content that violates these policies won’t result in a strike. However, YouTube clarified that it will be removed or age-restricted. The site is encouraging creators to trim or blur their content so that their videos are not affected by the new policy.