It’s no secret thatCounter-Strike: Global Offensivehas a huge gambling problem. Non-affiliated websites offer Counter-Strike players the ability to put up their hard-earned skins for potential prizes, up to and including cold-hard cash. It’s for this very reason that CS:GO developer Valve has been accused of facilitating online gambling for minors, but since Valve doesn’t own any of the sites, thecharges have always been dropped.Gambling remains a problematic aspectof Counter-Strike’s extremely active secondary market and one that Valve has largely seemed unable to stop. However, that might have just changed with a new rule that Valve has quietly snuck intoSteam’s Online Code of Conduct.Related:Counter-Strike 2 Needs To Solve Valve’s Gambling ProblemAs spotted byxMercy_CSon Twitter (with thanks toKotaku), Steam has added “gambling” to its list of bannable offenses. Under the category of “engage in commercial activity,” you can now be banned for gambling on Steam. We should also note that Steam also bans buying or selling Steam accounts, selling Steam gift cards, and other items for real-world cash;all of which still happens, but at least it’s there in black and white.
CS:GO’s secondary market is something of an abnormality in the world of gaming, wherecertain items can go for as high as $400,000. Just recently a Danish CS:GO player sold their AK-47 skin for this astronomical figure–the largest in Counter-Strike history. It was so high that the website which listed the transaction had to increase its listing value limit, and there needed to be a go-between to facilitate the exchange.
Those skins achieve such high value for their rarity, but there are plenty of skins that hit the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Counter-Strike gambling sites, such asCSGOWild, CSGOEmpire, and CSGORoll, all let users input their Steam information and put their valuable CS:GO skins up as collateral for games of chance. Many of these sites don’t do a particularly great job of policing the age of players who use their services, which is why Valve has repeatedly been accused of facilitating gambling for minors.
Although Valve has never been convicted of a crime, it’s not a good look to be associated with kids gambling. It’s taken years for Valve to take action, however, which some attribute to theenormous value Valve gets from CS:GO’s secondary market.
With gambling being a bannable offense, Valve could theoretically ban any account caught associating their Steam credentials with one of those known gambling sites. This might not entirely eliminate the problem, but if Valve acts, it would likely spell the end of CS:GO’s known gambling sites.
