Call it a viral eSports betting scandal playing out on YouTube, but it has rocked the e-sports world.
The scandal involves the eSports community around the game Counter Strike: Global offensive. Two prominent players of the game—Trevor “Tmartn” Martin and Tom “Syndicate” Cassel—who have a Youtube channel with 10 million subscribers allegedly used their channel to promote and bet on a website that offered “skin” betting on the game. Skin betting is when you bet valuable items within the game—such as weapons—on the outcome.
The only problem is that the two owned the betting website and never disclosed their interest, leading to allegations that the results and prizes won in their videos were all rigged and players at the site faced vastly different odds of winning.
The scandal broke after a video from an anonymous YouTube user emerged and sparked an investigation by H3H3 productions. Martin and Cassel were then forced to admit that they were part-owners of CS:GO Lotto, the site they frequently promoted on their own channels, according to a report in Forbes magazine. Later a third player Josh “JoshOG” Beaver also revealed he had an equity interest in the site.
That has set off a series of apologies on YouTube and social media, many of which were marked private or later deleted.
According to Forbes, one apology from Martin reads:
“I’ve admitted to wishing I was more upfront about owning the site. It was always public info but I was never very outspoken about it. My idea was to keep business business, while the focus of YouTube was simply making entertaining content. Obviously that was misleading to viewers and something I very much regret. I’ve never been perfect and I 100 percent own up to that mistake… That being said, everything we’ve done up until this point has been legal. That has been a top priority of ours. The day it becomes illegal is the day we cease activity.”
The players maintain that their ownership of the site was never hidden and available in public records. However, they never disclosed that in their videos. The Forbes report points out that the non-disclosure could violate Federal Trade Commission rules, which requires conspicuous disclosure on digital advertising.
In the videos, the two players are shown winning at the site and encouraging their followers to join, many of whom are younger than 18.
Commenters on YouTube then accused the players of rigging the contests so that they appeared to be winning bug. That led to another CS:Go player, Lewis “PsiSyndicate” Stewart, to come forward and admit that two of his “big win” videos on his YouTube channel were rigged, saying he felt it was common practice for skin betting sites.
Shin betting is complicated, but has led to a completely unregulated eSports related industry taking in what some insiders say is millions in revenue.
According to Forbes, at least one Counter-Strike player has filed suit against game maker Valve Corporation for allowing such betting to go on and charged the company is complicit in creating and sustaining a market where skins are used like casino chips.
It is clear that like daily fantasy sports betting helps professional sports, skin betting increases interest in eSports.
