Counter Strike: Global Offensive is considered as the best selling video game of the year. (Photo : YouTube)
Counter Strike: Global Offensive online gambling sites with item skins have been officially served with cease and desist orders from Valve after the company decided to take legal action against the illegal activities.
Online gambling for skins in CS:GO have existed for around three years and did not have any problems until now. The problem was two YouTube personalities TmarTn and ProSyndicate promoted CSGO Lotto without declaring that it was owned by them, creating a conflict of interest.
The gambling in CS:GO does not directly involve real money as the sites use the weapon skins found in game as chips. Players can already trade with one another through the official Steam marketplace but others can gamble their skins to get more out of them through the said online gambling sites designed for CS:GO players.
Valve has then decided to end all of CS:GO gambling sites by issuing their formal cease and desist letters to over 20 sites, PC Gamer has learned. The company wrote in the letters that the sites are violating the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement or SSA as they are using the Steam accounts for commercial use whereas it is only licensed for personal use only.
The sites have been warned and given 10 days to stop all of their operations with the Steam accounts and CS:GO skins gambling. Otherwise, Valve said that they will "pursue all available remedies" which has not been detailed but they did add that they can terminate the violator's accounts.
Valve's decision to take action stems from the fact that they were served class-action lawsuit papers several weeks ago after they have been accused of aiding and abetting the CS:GO gambling sites, Ars Technica reported. The suit complained that Valve did not do enough to prevent such activities from happening because the middleman abilities or the use of Steam API was not restricted enough.
After being served, Valve announced that they did not have anything to do with the third-party gambling sites. However, they did condemn the sites and did not announce legal action until recently.
Time will tell whether the CS:GO gambling sites will comply with Valve's cease and desist orders. Some sites are still online as of this writing and it could take until next week before some sites actually start to halt their operations for Counter Strike: Global Offensive skins gambling.
