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GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
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This likely will not count as gambling in the eyes of the law because there is no way to officially exchange those skins for real currency. You can cashout to bitcoin as far as I can tell (at least on opskins), which the US government does not recognize as real currency. Then you have to find a buyer for the bitcoin, a separate transaction.
I'm betting it's dismissed. But I could be wrong.
Edit:
Apparently you can cashout via PayPal too. I think this could be more indicative of an unregulated gambling market, because PayPal transactions are regulated like any other financial transaction in the US. But I think Valve could put up a good enough defense such that they wouldn't be found culpable. Their API for the steam inventory is built to be multipurpose, and it's up to the people who use that API to use it lawfully. However, the websites themselves might be found at fault here.
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On June 24 2016 15:11 Meta wrote: This likely will not count as gambling in the eyes of the law because there is no way to officially exchange those skins for real currency. You can cashout to bitcoin as far as I can tell (at least on opskins), which the US government does not recognize as real currency. Then you have to find a buyer for the bitcoin, a separate transaction.
I'm betting it's dismissed. But I could be wrong.
You're betting ?
hu hu hu... i'm sorry.
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I support the ban of skin gambling to protect the youths, but I hghly doubt valve can do too mich about it. Theres just too many shady characters and sites in skin betting
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France9034 Posts
There are ways of getting real currency from skins.
I do think it won't go really far, from what I understand of the US Laws and how class actions work. This could be interesting nonetheless, and sparkle at least some regulation on this market.
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How is this any different than buying a key to unbox a weapon crate?
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Two ways come to mind:
1. The key goes for a fixed rate, and you get a statistically distributed skin for it, it may be next to worthless, but you get a skin nonetheless. Which is what you payed for When gambling you open yourself up to all kinds of fraudulent possibilities (changing odds while betting, known rolls on roulette, stacked card decks, imbalanced coin flips, every model is exploitable)
2. One is a micro-transaction in a game, akin to getting new equipment in a sport. The other is gambling, if officially recognized a highly regulated activity which, for apparent reasons, is not available to minors.
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Canada4481 Posts
Thought SirScoots reported some gambling sites to the FBI way back when, those sites are still here... and even more than before.
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On June 24 2016 21:53 Nagisama wrote: Thought SirScoots reported some gambling sites to the FBI way back when, those sites are still here... and even more than before. What can the FBI do if the servers/company running it is based on some random lawless offshore country? At best they can get some court to issue a DNS ban of the gambling site in the US. Although I am not sure there is even a legal structure in place to enforce this in the US
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On June 25 2016 02:07 Branch.AUT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2016 21:53 Nagisama wrote: Thought SirScoots reported some gambling sites to the FBI way back when, those sites are still here... and even more than before. What can the FBI do if the servers/company running it is based on some random lawless offshore country? At best they can get some court to issue a DNS ban of the gambling site in the US. Although I am not sure there is even a legal structure in place to enforce this in the US
I think the point is that Valve shouldnt allow such companies to at the very least link with their systems. Which is tantamount to condoning. Thats about all they can do.
They cant stop the market.
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easiest way to stop gambling would be to massively devalue the skins like they did to most dota items. that would piss off a lot of people though.
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GRAND OLD AMERICA16375 Posts
On June 26 2016 12:04 trifecta wrote: easiest way to stop gambling would be to massively devalue the skins like they did to most dota items. that would piss off a lot of people though.
as a poor guy looking for cheap skins, im down for that :D.
damn knives expensive af, even for the lower tiers
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France9034 Posts
The thing with gambling, and that's kind of an uneasy truth about the success of CS:GO, is that it massively fuels the competitive scene with viewers and hype (not even mentioning money..)
No one wants that illegal thingy happening in the backyard, but no one wants the scene to shrink as well...
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My first thought watching this is: "Lol this is so obvious bs if you fall for that you deserve it." I mean why would you even watch some guy gambling and his fake reactions to winning? But then again I realize it is often kids and it might not even be their own money they gamble away. This should all be 18+. And it should be regarded as real gambling legally.
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Man that h3h3 video... I don't know who are those guys who own that csgo lotto site, looks like they've got a pretty big following, but holy shit are they scummy.
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France9034 Posts
These guys are famous Youtubers. One of them has even been found to be a co-owner of EnVyUs (though with very small equity, and in no way a manager/director/decision-maker, which make all these people on reddit calling "hey, he's paying the players their salaries and asking them to promote this, SHADY" kinda ridiculous).
Still quite not the clean dudes, hiding that and all.
Apparently, the other guy (Syndicate) has already been doing that kind of stuff by advertising a game he was involved in the edition, without mentioning it.
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I expected some m0e stuff and now I am disappointed.
CS:GO Gambling is one of the most amateur buisnesses I know with alot of shadyness but also cluelessnes. Alot of sites are made up in a week, by 18-25 year olds who smell the $ (and who dont fear U.S. legal Systems) while Valve never cared about it. No wonder that people are acting like these guys. Youtube buisnes also has highlights of shady hidden adds.
The biggest problem is not all this shady stuff, all these fuck ups, I expect grown ups to understand the logic behind these things. But that Valve has no problem of whatsoever that 13+ year olds gamble by logging in with steam (making it look non shady) and starting gambling in this young age without any control. The only control might be the parents, but we all have been 13 year old, you know ways to hid stuff behind their back, if they arent dictator parents with webcams in your room.
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m0e's bullshit is tame in comparison to this... makes me wonder what other shady bullshit is going on with those gambling sites. m0e was misleading his audience by playing against the house, and he did so as stakeholder, which is fucked up.
These guys, however, were misleading their viewers while allegedly scamming the users of their OWN product (if they did indeed fix the outcomes which is highly probable), while having a bigger conflict of interests on their hands.
I don't know shit about the law but this feels like it should be considered criminally fraudulent, especially considering the children gambling part of the issue.
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