
Steam warns users against gambling site after YouTube stars discovered as owners - bond
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-04-youtube-stars-criticised-after-it-emerges-they-owned-gambling-site-they-promoted
======
eertami
Real shady stuff and definitely immoral. The most telling part of this whole
debacle for me came from a (now deleted) tweet by TmarTn[1] where he states:

> That being said, everything we've done up until this point has been legal,
> that has been a #1 priority of ours. The day it becomes illegal is the day
> we cease activity.

So just because something is apparently not illegal (questionable, actually),
it is apparently an acceptable thing to do. Hopefully legal action is
successful against these frauds.

[1]: [http://archive.is/wHdZG](http://archive.is/wHdZG)

~~~
bluejellybean
The amount of fraud and thieves inside the community would make your eyes
spin. I've had to straight block trading with a large chunk of the world.

A big part of this stems from the concept that in-game items are not _really_
money. It allows these online casinos to flourish because it's 'just in-game
skins'! It's actually really similar to japans Pachinko system where you don't
win money.. but you win something that can be traded for money right around
the corner. In reality land, I can cash out of valves ecosystem for around 20%
of in-game currency and some of those skins are worth thousands of dollars...

These gambling sites really piss me off because they hurt the community. You
have to remember, we're talking about young teenagers getting robbed from
these guys, and it's not just their lunch money. We are easily talking
hundreds of thousands to millions in revenue each year.

~~~
balls187
> It's actually really similar to japans Pachinko system where you don't win
> money.. but you win something that can be traded for money right around the
> corner.

That's how most (all?) real life casinos work too. You get chips, which are
exchanged for money.

~~~
ams6110
Casino chips are just proxies for cash and they exchange 1:1. They are not an
"underground" currency at all.

Also you are (presumably) verified to be 18 (or 21?) years of age to gamble in
a casino.

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jswny
The fact that these YouTubers are using their own site to make these insane
videos where they win thousands of dollars is disgusting. All of the teenagers
and children who watch them are spending their mothers' credit cards on these
basically-a-scam websites thinking they are going to win thousands of dollars.
This is gambling, this is extremely shady, and these guys need to be stopped.

~~~
ryandrake
Wait, what? Who are these mothers giving children unfettered access to their
credit cards? Not even a little onus on them?

~~~
nitrogen
Teenagers can find ways to access things their parents have hidden faster than
parents can block them.

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nkrisc
Oh how video games have changed. They've gone from sucking up all the quarters
a kid had to turning them into a gambling addict and draining their parents'
credit card.

Maybe they've not changed quite so much.

~~~
blaisio
It's not all video games, just the ones that have become competitive, like
CS:GO. Any time something becomes "like a sport" people start using these
tried and true ways of tricking people into giving them money.

~~~
dr_zoidberg
Good call on the competetive edge, arcade games (the ones that eat up
childrens quarters in the first place) also had it: there was a scoreboard,
and there was fame to be had by being there.

~~~
tetraodonpuffer
you couldn't buy your way on the scoreboard the same way you can buy your way
nowadays in "freemium" / "pay to win" games, and your ship in gyruss looked
the same whether this was your first time playing or whether you had already
spent weeks playing it

it's just not the same, the incentive in the old days was to get money out of
players by making the game as hard as possible (which could be beaten by just
getting better at it, which was where the fun was also), now it's always
psychological pressure like FOMO or skinner boxes and so on, and there is no
limit to how many "best value xxxx gems for $99.99" boxes / chests / ... you
can buy

~~~
nkrisc
You're not wrong at all, but with many games the money being spent has zero
impact on performance. All this CS:GO business is for stuff that's 100%
cosmetic and changes nothing about gameplay.

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paulsutter
Class action lawyers will have a field day with these guys. Especially their
attempts to coverup, add disclaimers, etc, after the fact.

IANAL, but business fraud statutes are extremely broad. For consumers in
California for example, "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or
practice" or "unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising" have a
civil penalty of $2,500 per incident (for example, if 100,000 people were
persuaded to visit their website, that might be $250,000,000 in damages).
These are civil claims, where only a simple majority of the jury is needed.

When someone has to say their actions are "perfectly legal", they're usually
running afoul of several laws they aren't aware of. Especially in an Internet
business where you have potential exposure to so many jurisdictions.

[1] [http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/displaycode?section=bpc&gr...](http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-
bin/displaycode?section=bpc&group=17001-18000&file=17200-17210)

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adamnemecek
It's weird when h3h3 is doing investigative journalism.

~~~
jgrowl
To give credit where it's due, it was HonorTheCall that actually looked up the
info and broke the story I believe.

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dontlie
This article is wrong, that warning on red was literaly there months before
this drama. This is done for many website not only lotto (the website owned by
the youtuber).

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bluejellybean
Absolutely fantastic step in the right direction for Valve. Stop actual
scammers, hackers, thieves, and criminals on your system rather than
constantly adding "security theater" type features

~~~
anc84
I wish they would also remove those addicting elements from their games to
make the world a better place instead of draining money by exploiting
psychological effects.

------
rasz_pl
Those 'legal' gambling scams are all over gaming. Where the F are authorities?

Eve Online has a juggernaut EVEBet, plus hundreds of smaller 'oh look I won XX
mones its legit' scams per month.

Even Nintendo cartridge collecting gets its share of rare cartridge Facebook
group Raffle Wheels with shill accounts of the owner of said raffle winning
x-xxK items repeatedly.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnXeFDQqBQw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnXeFDQqBQw)
, one of the "winner" suckers not acknowledging the reality he got
scammed(probably because he runs illegal raffle wheels too, which he admits at
the end, mind blown :o) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCeq--
49Fu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCeq--49Fu4)

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dblooman
There are so many of these sites, some sit behind a proxy because they are
somewhat illegal in a lot of countries, e.g
[https://ezskinz.org/](https://ezskinz.org/). It's basically the wild west for
these sites, no regulation, no liability, just people making a load of money
off of kids, it's sickening.

~~~
toolz
So create some vague laws to save the [women and] children? This mentality
worries me. There's no problem here besides some privileged kids losing almost
nothing in exchange for a less than healthy activity. Is this really a big
enough deal that we should devote public time and add complexity into a very
impactful domain in order to have a mere attempt at solving this perceived
problem?

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wnevets
If there is money to be made someone is trying to screw you over. How can
anyone be surprised about this?

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sandworm101
When did gamers become such divas? Some of these skins cost more than
realworld weapons. If this craving for fashion and bright colours holds,
perhaps realworld gun ranges won't be so boring: less camo, more camp.

~~~
sbarre
This is not something limited to gamers, it is a byproduct of the many-to-many
social economy, where fame is a currency..

Everyone wants to stand out.. Whether it's a "Verified" badge on Twitter, or
going viral in a Vine, or hitting a certain follower count on Instagram, or a
very rare skin in a game, etc..

Fame, notoriety, visibility, anything but being part of "the rest" is
something many people are willing to pay a high price for.. And there are tons
of people out there more than happy to take those payments..

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macspoofing
Had they been honest would this have been a problem?

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lllorddino
How is buying CSGO skins or whatever different from any other game that sells
virtual goods from RNGesus?

A.) Why does your kid have your credit card

B.) Youtubers have always made money from their viewers

~~~
andrewchambers
The deception is that they probably rigged their own gambling site to make
winning seem more likely than it really is to trick young people.

~~~
lllorddino
Fair enough.

