TL;DW; Two prominent YouTubers own a massive CSGO betting site, post fake reaction videos of them getting tons of money, and deny any involvement.

Who the fuck actually watches reaction videos? Who is that person? This is probably my Abe Simpson moment but I cannot even begin to understand that.

Man, this is messed up. I can see a future where a governing body comes down HARD on Valve for enabling a lot of this.

Yeah, I dunno. I have like 2,250 hours in CS:GO and have never heard of these guys.

H3H3 is typically fine but other than that reaction videos are hell of lame

Microtransactions like this need regulation, they are absolutely gambling, its cute when jeff or brad go on about unlocking crates and how cathartic that is, but 12 years olds probably do this stuff and screw their parents out of money all the time.

This is all really disgusting. Tmartn and ProSyndicate are potentially in A LOT of trouble for all of this. Tmartn going and changing his video and twitter descriptions after the first video surfaced is particularly damning.

I only really know about this world from hearing Brad talk about the Dota 2 gambling sites, and even then it seems like a grey area at best.

The fact that this kind of gambling is being marketed to children in some real ways is super gross.

@hayt: Mostly children. All of this is spun out of "lets play" and streaming culture, but instead of adopting the good aspects of those industries, (casual experiences with a single person or group of people enjoying a new experience) they are literally just exploiting the fuck out of it with absurdly shady deceit tactics. React channels put on a facade of being subscriber friendly like big Youtubers, but they are literally the most nefarious pieces of shit on the face of the earth. They are either simply out to steal content in its entirety, or they want to make people think and act a certain way with no tangible justification like this CS:GO shit. And the most disgusting thing is that they are actually successful at this. These people have no right to be in the position of authority they are in, but through a combination of deceiving little kids, and most likely huge amounts of view/sub botting they are able to BUY this power and use it for horrible manipulation tactics. Like this is some real high level sociopathic shit.

Thanks to Youtube there is a clearly defined avenue for channels grow a userbase for the sole purpose of exploiting them, and profiting off of clear fair use violations, and when I say profiting I mean they become fucking millionaires overnight. It has existed for YEARS, and yet Youtube still does not give a fuck. Youtube is honestly the most disgusting site on the entire internet and its operators deserve just as much blame as all of these criminals. This is probably the biggest threat to the internet today because it is actually having a noticable negative impact on an entire generation. Teaching them to be shitty people with no financial responsibility who look up to even shittier people who just want to milk them for all they are worth. Thank god for people like Ethan for calling shady shit like this out because Youtube certainly doesn't give a shit.

So I think it's worth making a distinction between what Brad was talking about and this stuff. He is talking about DotaLounge (there is also CSGOLongue from the same people). In this cases you are betting on the outcome of the pro matches. The stuff from this controversy (and there are a bunch more sites like this) have you basically "betting" your skins against other people with an RNG deciding who wins. Obviously this is way easier to rig and I find those kinds of sites super sketchy. It might be a small difference, but in my mind it's worth pointing out.

There was some pretty convincing evidence presented in that video. If this turns out to be true, I can only hope that Activision drops all ties with him. He's frequently allowed early access to new Call of Duty games and content, which helps his channel significantly.

They probably have the same reasoning as to why you pay money to watch the Giant Bomb guys.

According to Bloomberg,

Like the companies that have successfully defended themselves in court, other prominent game makers, including Zynga, Riot, and Activision Blizzard, have been aggressive about keeping virtual currencies separate from real ones. Valve has not: Its software enables an explicit connection between in-game goods and off-line cash.

Also, amusingly enough, Valve gave this announcement of the Arms Deal Update:

Introducing the Arms Deal Update, which lets you experience all the illicit thrills of black market weapons trafficking without any of the hanging around in darkened warehouses getting knifed to death. The Arms Deal Update lets you collect, buy, sell and trade over 100 all-new decorated weapons that you can equip in-game.

Come on, Valve. Use some common sense!

I feel like there are two conversations happening in this thread, but info in the video that was posted is pretty nuts. I honestly doubt those two guys will get in any real trouble though. The Valve key/skins market is so weird since you can put money in, but can't take money out unless you're doing some shady stuff with 3rd party sites that I don't think you could untangle that legal mess.

@mikemcn: http://abc.net.au/news/2016-05-30/australian-teens-losing-thousands-counter-strike-skins-gambling/7437990

The whole key/skin reselling thing is a major grey area, you're right. What isn't however, is failing to disclose that something is sponsored content. Even worse is the deliberate deception. That stuff is taken very seriously.

They probably won't have any issues in regard to the gambling aspect of it, but presenting what is essentially an advertisement as if it were just a random video they decided to do in conjunction with the fact that they deliberately misled viewers about their status as members of the company in question will absolutely have consequences.

Wow, good article on the topic. I hope valve does something about it.

Until today, I didn't know that there was a mechanism to cash out CS:GO skins.

@aethelred: Theres yhe official steam market place, where you only get store credit and then theres 3rd party sites where you can get more but are trusting some dude to not rip you off.

A friend of mine recently sold a skin for about $300 on the steam market and said he couldve got more and had ot be actual money but wasnt going to risk the black market.

I don't believe for a second that these sort of black markets dont have ties to gangs or the criminal underworld.

@aethelred:

And yea, this whole online gaming betting(-with-skins-which-is-fine-because-it's-not-money!!!11) is rotten as fuck. Especially since 'influencers' are doing paid promotions for these gambling sites.

Does anyone know if a similar thing happens with Magic the Gathering cards? It seems like something that could happen with those and, it would interesting to know if anything did happen.

Oh, I actually didn't know about the RNG. I just assumed it was a similar match based system. Which makes this incredibly worse.

I'm not aware of any gambling for MtG cards. I assume that's because its a lot harder with physical cards than the digital inventory that Steam has. There's MtGO that could facilitate something similar but I don't really know much about it.

MtG does have a bunch of third-party eBay like sites for reselling cards, but Wizards are very supportive of the market (they are conscious of reprinting certain cards as it might affect their resale value) because they know it helps them sell more product.

One of the most well known bitcoin brokers was a company called MTGOX, they're currently in the process of shutting down because of legal problems, payout problems (ie not having money to pay people for their coins) and other problems. At one stage during this they "lost" $450 million worth of customers bitcoins.

MTGOX stands for Magic The Gathering Online Exchange and it started out life as a place for people to trade MTG:Online (an old version of the game which was played online) like stocks so they could get real world money for their digital cards, as the official trading platform built into MTGO didn't allow you to get money out.

Like @bollard says, physical MTG cards are supply controlled by WoTC and there's a healthy third party market place for them which is almost universally well run. Most FLGS that sell MTG will have folders of single cards that people can purchase. Most people who want to play competitive decks will just buy the cards they need online rather than buying boosters and hoping they get what they want. And they'll finance those decks by selling the valuable cards from boosters they win at events.

Yeah, this whole thing is a real rotten situation. I'm familiar with both these dudes as they come from the early wave of Call of Duty YouTubers (Tmartn was a "tips & tricks" guy, Syndicate was the top Zombies player). Haven't seen their stuff in a while - in part because they shifted over to the likes of CS:GO which I never had a huge amount of interest in.

The whole skins gambling thing is kinda terrifying - I can just about deal with the betting on pro games, because that's basically sports betting (though I'd say from my vague knowledge that it could probably do with some more regulations). But this straight up lotto stuff is super-shady, and THEN you stack the whole "not disclosing promotional content for a site that you not only benefit from but actually fucking own" business on top and it's super-double-shady.

It's a shame - both those guys seemed like good dudes back in the day, but I guess sometimes the draw of making the Big Bucks lures people down some dark paths. If nothing else it should serve as a warning to people about the dangers of promoted content, and hopefully it'll shine more of a light on the whole skins gambling business.

@jesus_phish: Thanks for filling me in more on that MTGO info!

Like someone else mentioned, there isn't an official way to do it. You can sell stuff on the Steam marketplace for less than $400. If you want to sell it for money you could use outside of Steam, you have to use an unofficial 3rd party site, or take your chances selling it via Paypal or something.

@bollard: No problem! I found out about it when I googled MTGOX because of their strange name. A former co-worker used them to broker some bitcoins he had worth a sum of money (it fluctuated). He sold them the coins on the basis that they would turn them into cash for him, but before he got paid they went quiet and then one day he came into work and showed me a letter from the Toyko Court System which informed him of MTGOX's insolvency and that he was being put on a list of creditors.

Wow, this is real bad for them. Depending on what states these guys live in, not only could they be in trouble on the federal level (running a gambling establishment without the appropriate licenses means FBI is going to come for you, not disclosing relationships when endorsing something means the FTC is going to come for you), they could be in massive trouble at the state level too.

In most states even running a personal poker table for cash is a felony (Florida, for example). Running a site that allows minors to gamble is going to get them in deeeeeeep shit.

Been reading the GAF thread on this for the past hours and WOW there is some pretty juicy stuff there! And Tmartn just digs his grave deeper and deeper with every new thing he posts it seems like. I really hope this is something they talk about on the Podcast or maybe unprofessional Fridays.

Here's a clip from his livestream that shows him winning money on his own site, while also being logged in as "csgolottobot5". That facial expression when he realizes he screwed up =D

If it turns out to be true, which exactly EVERYTHING points at right now, his ass is going to jail, what he has done is highly illegal. Activision, and every other company sponsoring him, are probably cutting all ties they have to him as we speak.

Also, the website is down now.

Holy.. what a skeez. I'm at a loss for words. I'm glad this all got exposed. Some great video journalism (?) going on there.

There should be a Regulation for every sudo gambling game i am looking at you DOTA CSGO Overwatch. They just use the Japanese pachinco ain't gambling so where ok card. This really needs to stop.

The sickest part is the gambling side pumps up the value of the skins and encourages a lot of transactions of skins which valve takes a cut off of. So by enabling this valve makes huge profits off of gambling. Still even if there wasn't a gambling component valve has gotten crazy with the loot box model and would seem a lot less like a faceless money grabbing corporation if they chilled with that.

turns out tf2 hats were the beginning of the end of videogames. god, this is so bad and so dirty.

According to the Bloomberg article I linked earlier, Valve gets 15% from each exchange. That sounds really high. Is that correct?

That's the cut Valve gets when an item is sold on the Steam marketplace.

@crommi: Haha thanks for sharing that video, I love not only the face he makes but the way his voice changes is classic...

@crommi: Holy shit. Wow.

@crommi: Wow. That looks incriminating.

Total Biscuit sounds a lot more than cynical in his video weighing in on this topic.

He's been a champion for disclosure for years now, so it makes sense that he'd be pissed about something like this.

TB's video is amazing on this. Just rips into those sleazeballs like they deserve to. Honestly, I hope they both go to jail. That'll teach them a lesson.

@crommi: ahahahahhahahaha. What a nubnab. I would give him (and many others) the benefit of the doubt before because the disclosure rules were unclear for a time and hey, most of these people are still kids/young adults. But well, I guess some of them really are dirtbags. (must say that Tmartin always struck me as the type of douchbag that you would see promoting pyramid schemes)

This has gone some crazy places. Very funny having this to happen just after the thread about whether or not Youtubers are looked down on. I cannot imagine this helping.

So all this time, I was thinking "if they own the website, they could rig the system" to mean "they can make it so they win a fake lottery, which will then make the site look like a good way to win money."

And that's all pretty bad, right?

But what if "they own the website, so they could rig the system" actually means "they can make it so they win a real lottery, with them winning actual money (skins), and someone else losing actual money?" Keeping in mind:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-30/australian-teens-losing-thousands-counter-strike-skins-gambling/7437990

He stole his father's credit card and gambled away about $1,800.

Because that is so, SO much worse. If someone can prove that in a court of law, I don't think "they're just skins, not real money" is going to protect anyone here. That would be far more than the initial "how could you turn your fans onto a gambling site that you own?" controversy, which itself is pretty bad already.

Reading people criticize those who watch "reaction" videos on youtube, while on giant bomb, is humorous.

Well, the last few minutes of that TB video pretty much sums up my thoughts. Youtube needs to step the fuck up in a big way and just start shutting these channels down if possible. Zero tolerance. None of that three strike bullshit. "You were clearly doing something illegal. You channel is now gone. Bye."

The FTC needs to step in and start handing out fines and jail time like they Oprah handing out cars or some shit.

And lastly, these audiences need to wake the fuck up. You wanna know what the craziest thing is about this whole mess? There are people coming to these Youtuber's defense. What. the. fuck. You've put your trust in these people and they turn around and not only use you and lie to you, but possibly even steal from you (it's been alleged that these gambling sites have just taken items numerous items without reimbursing or contacting users at all) and you're coming to their defense? And then when they get exposed, they try to cover it up? That's your cue to bounce right there. These people don't deserve your time or money. It's very clear they don't care about you so why on earth would you possibly take their side?

These guys are taking the concept of "influencers" to a whole new level.

To be fair, it seems that YouTube reporters/investigators were the ones to break this story so maybe call it a draw.