Bloomberg: CS:GO is unregulated billion $$ gambling market
2 replies, posted
[url]http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-virtual-guns-counterstrike-gambling/[/url]
[quote]CS:GO’s popularity skyrocketed along with the skins gambling markets. Valve has sold 21 million copies of the game and made $567 million in total revenue from the title since it debuted almost four years ago, according to research firm SuperData, and a range of websites now let players trade or sell skins, or use them to gamble. This kind of betting is far from mainstream, but plenty of people are figuring it out. [B]By one estimate, more than 3 million people wagered $2.3 billion worth of skins on the outcome of e-sports matches in 2015. [/B]This, too, has contributed to Valve’s bottom line. The gambling sites run on software built by Valve, and whenever CS:GO skins are sold, the game maker collects 15 percent of the money.[/quote]
[quote]Nothing about Counter-Strike is about the game anymore,” says Moritz Maurer, head of e-sports integrity at gambling watchdog SportIM. “It’s all about betting and winning.”[/quote]
[quote]Gambling on Counter-Strike appeals to the game’s biggest fans: teenage boys. [/quote]
[quote][B]In the U.S., sports betting is illegal in 46 states.[/B] CSGO Lounge reminds players to adhere to local gambling laws but doesn’t use technology to restrict players based on geography, as many other gambling sites do. More people visit the site from the U.S. than any other country after Russia.[/quote]
[editline]21st April 2016[/editline]
And most important for the kind of company Valve has become
[quote]Ryan Morrison is a lawyer in New York who specializes in legal issues related to video games. Over the last four months, he says he has received more than two dozen inquiries from people who want to sue Valve after losing money gambling with skins. Many of them are underage, and the biggest losses extend into the thousands of dollars. Underage gamblers are often unwittingly subsidized by their parents, because the skins they’re purchasing to bet with show up as charges on the Steam accounts. None of them would agree to speak to a reporter.
Morrison gets visibly worked up when discussing skins gambling. “Valve acts as if they’re a 10-person indie company,” he said. “I am shocked that they let this go on.”[/quote]
It's underage gambling. Well done Valve, you're now officially indirectly thriving on illegal practices.
One of my friends spent like £1700 on CS then lost it in betting. It's ridiculous, because he didn't even give a shit that he just spent and lost such a massive amount of money. The betting scene in CS:GO needs to really be stopped or regulated, as kids are literally wasting thousands of dollars on some gun skins just to lose them to rigged betting websites.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
