Poker Writer
Pro poker player and content creator Fernando “JNandez” Habegger had his YouTube channel permanently removed after taking a third “strike” for allegedly violating the site’s policies on the promotion of unregulated gambling.
The Swiss player did not upload any videos for two months after his second strike to avoid the dreaded third strike. However, YouTube flagged one of his older videos, which resulted in the removal of his channel.
Habegger went on X to explain what happened to his followers and ask YouTube to help.
Hi @TeamYouTube, my channel "JNandez87" has just been permanently removed from YouTube for promoting unregulated goods despite the poker site I am playing on being approved. My appeal was instantly denied.
I stopped uploading for the last two months, after my second strike, to…
— JNandez (@JNandezPoker) September 4, 2025
His appeal after the removal was instantly denied despite 10 years of creating video content, so his last option was to try YouTube support on X.
Some responses had suggestions for him to attempt to get his account back. He was certainly not the first to incur YouTube’s wrath. Others mentioned that the same thing had happened to them recently. Alexandro Tricarico was one of those:
Exactly the same thing happened to me. Had 2 strikes for streaming while playing on @CoinPoker_OFF
and didn’t do anything the entire summer waiting for it to expire and then out of no where I got a strike on an old stream and channel got deleted. I have been trying for 2-3 weeks to appeal with no luck. @TeamYouTube
YouTube Policy Update Causing Issues
Several poker YouTuber vloggers and content creators have run into issues the last few months thanks to YouTube updating their policies. The new policy tightened age restrictions around gambling-related content. This caused restrictions of poker videos to any users under 18 years old.
Any YouTube users have to be logged in and age confirmed to view any poker content. Many users do not log in and therefore wouldn’t come across and poker videos. That, in turn, reduces the chance for the poker content creators to gain new views and followers.
This has been a worry for creators for a few months even before the most recent policy change. Popular poker content creator Brad Owen sounded the alarm back in April:
I’ve had about 30+ of my videos become age restricted incorrectly, which nukes the views. I’ve appealed them and won some of the appeals, but the ones I lose, I get the message saying ‘Content that shows harmful or dangerous activities that risk serious physical harm may be age-restricted if it’s not appropriate for all audiences.’ I run a poker channel and there’s no dangerous activities that risk serious physical harm.
British poker vlogger and 888poker ambassador Nick Eastwood was another who noticed YouTube’s new policies restricting and destroying his videos in May. And just a month later, in June, his account had been restricted:
Thank you@YouTube for restricting my WSOP vlog by making regulations you don’t understand and destroying my hard work so you can *checks notes* protect the 0% of my audience that’s under 18 from poker content while leaving betting sites untouched. Dogwater company.
Even smaller and newer accounts with fewer followers have not been immune to the policy crackdown. One such example is Peggy “pocketpeg” Crawford, who has just over 2,000 followers. Like Habegger, YouTube took down her acount without warning for a third strike during the World Series of Poker. She got her account restored after finally being able to track down a human in YouTube support.
