The video-game developer behind eSports favorite Counter Strike: Global Offensive—recently stung by a skins betting controversy around the game—says it will move to end the practice and that it has not profited from the growing number of websites offering gambling on virtual items in the game.
Skins betting is a virtual betting market that has grown up around the game. Players essentially bet virtual weapons and tools used in the game. Some items are highly prized by players and gambling sites have been generating steadily growing revenue.
Valve—which owns the Steam Distribution platform where the game is sold and most skin trading occurs—has been criticized for not addressing the betting going on around the game. The company also faces at least two lawsuits that accuse it of facilitating underage gambling, according to Casino.org News. The suits also allege that Valve promoted gambling by allowing the Steam platform to link to the third-party sites.
The report points out that Counter Strike saw a huge increase in popularity when it introduced “skins,” to the game, which players can trade on the Steam platform. That led to valuable and rare skins being used as a type of virtual currency on third-party gambling sites. Some estimates say skin betting generates about $2 billion in revenue a year and could go as high as $7.4 billion if left unchecked.
Valve, however, said in a press statement that it would send “cease and desist” letters to the various gambling sites that use the Steam platform. The sites were, it said, in violation of Valve’s user agreements, according to Casino.org News.
“In 2011, we added a feature to Steam that enabled users to trade in-game items as a way to make it easier for people to get the items they wanted in games featuring in-game economies,” said Valve’s Erik Johnson in the statement. “Since then a number of gambling sites started leveraging the Steam trading system, and there’s been some false assumptions about our involvement with these sites.
“We’d like to clarify that we have no business relationships with any of these sites,” the statement said. “We have never received any revenue from them. And Steam does not have a system for turning in-game items into real world currency.”
The statement also denies charges in the pending lawsuits that Valve “sustained and facilitated” the skin gambling markets it in order to profit from them.
After the statement, at least three such betting sites have shut down and several more have been suspended, according to various reports.
The move comes after two popular players of the eSports game were found to own a skins betting site, that they promoted through YouTube videos without disclosing their interest in the sites. Skins betting is also drawing attention because many players are children and young teens.
Also Twitch, the world’s largest streaming service dedicated to gaming, is apparently backing Valve’s move and announced it will forbid broadcasters from showing third-party Counter-Strike gambling sites.
