Former Twitch streamer James ‘PhantomL0rd’ Vargas has won a lawsuit against the streaming giant after being banned from the platform in 2016.
Vargas was banned from the platform for a Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) gambling stream in 2016. Although he claims he never broke any rules or policies during his streams, Twitch moved to issue a lifetime ban.
The specific reason for the ban was never revealed, with Twitch only citing that the channel was closed “due to terms of service violations.”
While it has been suggested that Vargas was the owner of a CS:GO gambling site that he regularly promoted on his channel, it was never proven.
““I WONNNNNNNNNNNNN!!! I WON MY LAWSUIT VS TWITCH ON ALL
COUNTS!!!!! Twitch LOST EVERYTHING, including the fraud claim against me for the CSGO Shuffle allegations!!! This is a win for ALL streamers! Twitch can’t bully, lie & treat streamers unfairly the way they have for years!!!” he tweeted.
I WONNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!
I WON MY LAWSUIT VS TWITCH ON ALL COUNTS!!!!!
Twitch LOST EVERYTHING, including the fraud claim against me for the CSGOShuffle allegations!!!
This is a win for ALL streamers! Twitch can’t bully, lie & treat streamers unfairly the way they have for years!!! pic.twitter.com/G0gxqiBkRQ
— PhantomL0rd (@PhantomL0rd) April 23, 2021
The lengthy court battle began back in 2019, with Varga seeking $35 million in damages for the ban.
Months after Vargas’ lawsuit, Twitch filed a counter-suit in which it claimed Vargas had been given multiple warnings in the year prior to his ban.
“He streamed promotions for a gambling website that (1) he had an undisclosed financial interest in, (2) he used to rig jackpots in his favor against users he gained from Twitch, and (3) operated in contravention of the terms of the underlying game’s publisher and was potentially illegal,” Twitch said in the counter-suit.
During the court proceedings, Twitch’s lawyers requested a maximum damage amount of $US50,000, however, this was denied by the court.
Ultimately, Vargas only received $US20,720.34 in damages, which is significantly less than he was hoping for.
At the time of the ban, Vargas was a successful streamer on the platform, boasting a record of 143,000 concurrent viewers.
Twitch is yet to release a statement on the verdict.
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