“Skin gambling” rakes in billions
Are popular multi-player first-person shooter games like Counter Strike: Global Offensive the equivalent of online gambling? Australian Senator Nick Xenophon says yes, and he’s calling for the games to be legally categorized as gambling. The move, if successful, would update the country’s 2001 Interactive Gambling Act, according to the UK Independent.
Xenophon draws the comparison because Counter Strike allows players to obtain virtual weapons or “skins” ranging in value from a few cents to thousands of dollars, the newspaper reported. Those skins can then be sold for on the game developer Valve’s in-game marketplace, Steam. They can also be bought and sold on third-party sites and used like gambling chips on online blackjack and roulette sites, Guardian Australia reports.
In a report issued in June, U.S.-based gaming research firm Eilers & Krejcik estimated that so-called “skin gambling” has an annual turnover of around $US 9.74billion, with more than one-quarter of the total spent on lottery-style jackpot games.
“This is the Wild West of online gambling that is actually targeting kids,” Xenophon told Fairfax Media. He said the “insidious” games are “morphing into full-on gambling, and that itself is incredibly misleading and deceptive. Instead of shooting avatars, parents soon find out that their children have shot huge holes through their bank accounts.”
Valve Software, already facing several lawsuits on similar accusations, has denounced third-party gambling sites that use Steam’s trading system to exchange skins that can be sold for money. The firm says Steam’s terms of service clearly state that this is a violation of usage.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Xenophon will introduce a bill to parliament when it resumes this month.
