Most of you have probably heard about, perhaps even played the PC game Counter Strike: Global Offensive. It is one of the most popular FPS games on the market and one of the most popular Steam games period. What some of you may not have known however is that the game has been the source of a lot of controversy recently. It has served as a gateway into a gambling addiction for many teens and adolescents. This through the various skins that can be collected into the game which can be sold for real money, and many are extremely rare.

CSGO gambling sites were established essentially allowing you to bet your skins for a chance to win more. One could link their steam account to many of these sites. The popularity of this was further propelled by big youtubers like TheSyndicateProject and  TmarTn both with subscriber counts spanning into the millions making videos where they bet on skins. Often winning big and having exaggerated reactions.  Leading many easily impressionable young teens and children to try the same.

This went on without much being done until it finally started to face a lot of attention when another big youtuber h3h3Productions decided to try and expose this practice in a video. Not going to link it here because it contains a lot of swearing and non family friendly humor, but it's still on youtube if you want to see it. He also revealed that these youtubers both own one of these gambling sites which they were betting on in their videos CSGOLotto. Which hadn't been disclosed in any of their videos or in the videos descriptions.

Following this video many other big youtubers decided to make videos of their own with many calling for Valve to take action. This has created a lot of pressure on Valve  especially considering they already had a lawsuit being made against them for allowing this practice to go on unmonitored for so long. They have now finally responded through a public statement saying that they are going to be cracking down on gambling sites. At the same time they are also denying any connection to any of these sites. Their first step in doing so is threatening with cease and desist orders against CSGO gambling sites that don't stop the practice which has resulted in many popular CSGO sites like CSGO double shutting down and with more likely following.

What are your thoughts regarding the whole controversy and Valve's involvement? Personally I'm happy that something is finally being done about this considering I've known about it for longer than most. I had a classmate who was heavy into gambling on skins which was how I first learned about it and he was doing that since several years ago. The fact that something like this was able to go on for so long with pretty much no action being taken is honestly kind of shocking.

This is exactly the reason why we can't have nice things. The fact that tmartn and syndicate would scam their own viewers then try to cover it up is embarrassing. At least syndicate admitted to it and didn't try to spin the story like tmartn did. There are still people who are trying to defend them and I'm sure some of them are people who got scammed by them.
I know a lot of people who use websites like Csgo Lotto, but aren't prepared to lose their skins. All of them ended up losing a lot of their skins doing this. I know someone who won a knife worth around 100$ then he put it in a pot and he won about 10 more knives from other people. I honestly think its ridiculous that kids are losing so much money because they think they have a good chance at winning a lot of skins.
Part of the appeal of Csgo gambling is that people see it as actually gaining real world currency, but there isn't a way to directly turn steam funds into real money. If they wanted to they'd have to use a third party site which would either take a cut of the value or could steal the item.

The lawsuit against valve started because someone lost a lot of money gambling illegally. He also wanted underage kids to admit to gambling illegally to help his class action suit.

I don't think gambling itself is bad, but people like tmartn, syndicate and the salty guy who lost all of their skins had to ruin it. There are kids and adults who are smart enough to know not to bet more than you're willing to lose and have had fun doing so, but they are the minority when compared to the rest of the community.

earthwarrior : Even if there are people who are responsible about it I still don't think it should be allowed in any shape or form. No matter how you look at it it's still underage gambling as the skins have real money values. Many of these sites are taking advantage of how easily impressionable many of the age group is, especially those on the younger side. Causing them to spend and lose hundreds of dollars on it.

While it might be annoying, I'm sure those who did it more for fun can find some other past time until they're of age.

The "jackpot" are sites that everyone puts skins into a pool then one person wins the entire pool. Then there is CSGO Lounge and maybe other websites like it where people place bets on professional Csgo matches. Both types of websites take a cut of the pool, but Csgo lounge isn't as bad because it can't be rigged without everyone realizing it. I'd say Csgo lounge doesn't take advantage of kids because there is an actual chance of winning something without it being rigged.

The skins have no real world value. The only value they have is what the community thinks it should be. Unless someone wants to give another person paper or paypal money for them they're worthless. For example, I have a $200 knife. The only thing I could do with it is sell it on the market to maybe buy other skins or a game or try to find someone who'd be willing to give me money for it.

It's clear that too many people are irresponsible for any gambling to be allowed to continue, but some good things came out of it. For example, Csgo esports wouldn't be as popular if thousands of people weren't placing bets on each match. Right now there is a match that has 7300 bets placed and around 3500 viewers. If no bets were placed they probably wouldn't even be able to get 1000 viewers. Once kids who were betting are of age they still wont be able to gamble with csgo and the majority of them probably wont move to other forms of gambling.

earthwarrior : I think you misunderstood the point I was making. They're taking advantage of kids and teens in general who are generally more easily impressionable thus often times more prone to developing an addiction, and spending real money to bet on skins. It's a large part of why we have age limits on various things, not just gambling but thinking like alcohol as well. These skins still do have a real world money value and it can be sold for real money, I've seen people do it, like the person I was talking about at the end of the article. Even if one doesn't sell their skins this still means it can closely emulate the feel of the actual real world gambling.

It is a shame that it could cause CSGO esports to be less popular but that's just something people are going to have to deal with. It can definitely lead to people developing a more serious gambling addiction later on as one starts to bet real money. That's generally how any addiction is started including gambling. Starting with something less dangerous like gambling on CSGO skins and then progressing into more serious forms once it starts not being enough.

Hm. See, I didn't know about this. I'm happy Valve took action though. Gambling can bring wealth, but also poverty, and normally it ends up being the latter. Teens shouldn't be gambling away real money for a video game based on some skins, you know?

I'm surprised that I didn't know about this though, honestly, because normally I'm at least somewhat informed on this sort of thing.

This is why you need to be 21 to gamble. Even then,people have a hard time walking away from a table. I mean,the guy could be down thousands of dollars,but he wants to try one more time to get his money back. It is a good thing it was shut down,gambling among adults is bad  enough,but with kids it is worse.