Over the past week, a major scandal erupted in the Counter Strike: Global Offensive community. At the center of the scandal is an activity called “skin gambling,” whereby players take the in-game gun skins or stickers and place it on third-party betting sites.
CS:GO-related skin gambling has been alive for quite a while now, but this case blew up when the community found out that professional YouTube streamers have been not-so-subtly endorsing betting sites which they have a stake in. This discovery has since put Valve in a bad position, as many believe that Valve’s decision to close an eye to such operations has allowed numerous gambling sites to operate while silently receiving a slice of the profits. Indeed, numerous lawsuits have been filed against Valve for this particular issue.
After remaining silent for nearly a week, Valve has finally issued a statement regarding the CS:GO gambling fiasco. Valve’s Erik Johnson has clarified that the company “has no business relationsips with any gambling sites” and has “never received any revenue from them.” Johnson further clarifies that these sites rely on the OpenID API to “prove ownership of the user’s Steam accounts and items,” meaning that Steam did not provide the CS:GO gambling sites any special tools that would allow them to operate.
Valve has promised that they will be sending notices to these gambling sites, requesting that they cease operations through Steam. Should it prove necessary, the company would further pursue the matter. In other words, if these sites continue to operate after the notice was sent, Steam may opt to go for the legal option and bring lawyers into the mix.
Source: Ars Technica, Steam
