In the midst of the CS:GOLotto scandal, Twitch is cracking down on the many skin gambling streams found on its platform. The news comes after Valve released a statement officially condemning the third party gambling sites, which have spiked in popularity as of late...
Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity
Twitch then made a statement warning streamers of CS:GO not to promote or stream any third party sites that allow "skin gambling".
Of course, Valve was completely silent for the past couple years this has been happening prior to the lawsuit and mainstream media attention, so it's not like they're the good guys in this situation. The fact of the matter is they've been turning a blind eye to the underbelly of a system they implemented not too long ago, and are just now "cracking down" to safe face ahead of any pending trials.
For those a little lost "skins" are alternate looks for your weapons that you can get. Because there are sooo many skins with a varying degree of rarity, these assets actually have a dollar value that people will pay when it comes to the 10 million player community of CS:GO. Using workarounds and lots of third party software, "skin gambling" sites popped up that allowed players to "bet" their skins on professional matches within the community. Winning meant you would get more "skins" which you could turn around for more cash, losing meant you lost the skins and essentially money. Besides matches players could also bet skins on random lottery sites for cash which recent controversy has shown was deceptive in its advertising.
So why is this a bad thing? Besides the point that online gambling is prohibited in various parts of the world, children gambling is expressively prohibited in many worldwide circles. It'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out. For now, I'm grabbing the popcorn and laughing that all this happened after an H3H3Productions video...
