If you’re an online gamer, you’ve likely heard a lot about the recent controversy surrounding Counterstrike: Global Offense. The game’s developer has recently come under fire for allowing players to wager in-game items, causing quite the scandal in the gaming market.
CS: GO
Counterstrike: Global Offensive (also known as CS: GO) is an online multiplayer first-person shooter game. The game was released in 2012, and continues to be a hugely popular title in the online gaming world.
It is one of the few online games that is played competitively in prestigious tournaments, and many winning teams have obtained celebrity status.
What Is Skin-Betting?
Skins are in-game items that allow users to decorate their armour and guns. While they are earned in the game, they have a monetary value in the real world. Some skins are rarer than others, which has caused them to become more valuable. Players have started wager on the outcome of professional matches, using skins as currency.
Since CS: Go is playable by individuals of all ages, the inclusion of betting in the industry has lit some red flags. In fact, lawsuits were launched against Valve and a number of the sites that offer skin betting services.
Response to Legal Action
As a result of being sued, Valve has taken precautions against skin betting among players. There has been a crackdown on gambling, and some of the game’s biggest players have been banned from the network.
One player, James "PhantomL0rd" Varga, had his account suspended. He was an owner of CSGOShuffle, a skin gambling site, which he promoted heavily on his own Twitch stream – to a following of 1.4 million users.
Valve has sent a cease-and-desist letter to various skin betting sites, which reads: “You should immediately cease and desist further use of your Steam accounts for any commercial purpose. If you fail to do this within ten (10) days Valve will pursue all available remedies including without limitation terminating your accounts.”
23 of the largest skin-betting sites were named in the letter. However, most of these sites have yet to respond. 14 continue to offer skins betting services, while 6 posted announcements stating that they will still continue to provide players with the opportunity to partake in skin-betting.
There are only three sites that have suspended operations: csgodouble.com, csgocasino.net, and societylogin.com.
What Happens Next?
The remaining sites will continue to operate for the time being, but they will risk serious legal action. There is also the chance that sites will be deleted if they refuse to cooperate.
Until then, Steam and Valve will be more diligent about looking out for illegal and suspicious activity. So, players should be careful if they plan to continue taking part in skin betting.
