Popular YouTuber reveals Counter-Strike betting videos were rigged

[Dexter]

 

[Dreaad]

Lots of companies use that gambling loot crate system now. Not surprised since $$$. It's not gambling if it's virtual goods right huehuehue. Mind you the problem is still no where near as bad as the shit going down with mobile games.

Also

 

[Infinitron]

That's pretty fucked up.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...merges-they-owned-gambling-site-they-promoted

Steam warns users against gambling site after YouTube stars discovered as owners
"We found this new site named CS:GO Lotto..."

Steam has begun warning users not to use a high-profile Counter-Strike: GO gambling website after its ownership turned out to be two YouTube stars - who were also using YouTube to promote the site.

Trevor "TmarTn" Martin and Tom "Syndicate" Cassell are listed in newly-uncovered business records as the president and vice-president, respectively, of online gambling site CS:GO Lotto.

The news of CS:GO Lotto's ownership came as a surprise to viewers who have watched the pair promote the site on their channels, where both YouTube stars can be seen gambling - and winning big money - while using it.

Neither had publicly disclosed their full roles in the site. TmarTn had not even disclosed his videos as being promotional tools.

Attempt to log in to CS:GO Lotto now and you are greeted with the following warning message: "The URL you are attempting to log in to has been blocked by our moderators and staff. This site may be engaged in phishing, scamming, spamming, or delivering malware."

It is still possible to click through to the site, but only after disregarding Steam's warning.

Unsurprisingly, news of CS:GO Lotto's true ownership caused anger among many of TmarTn and Syndicate's combined 10m fans who feel misled, or even that the stars cheated.

The issue was brought to light in this video from h3h3Productions which undertook a lot of the legwork in finding the legal documentation, and which follows on from an earlier video by HonorTheCall last week which originally exposed CS:GO Lotto's ownership.

CS:GO Lotto allows users to put down real world money for a shot at winning virtual Counter-Strike: GO skins. The skins themselves - earned by paying $2.50 for an unlock key to a random item - can be sold for huge sums, depending on their rarity. Some go for tens of thousands of dollars.

As you'd expect, these gambling sites work by letting players pay real-world money for a chance at a virtual item. Pay up and you can watch a spinner tick round, roulette style, until a winner is chosen. The winner receives the item but it's the gambling site that wins in the long run, as it makes money off of every pot won.

Syndicate has recorded videos with titles such as "WINNING BIG $$$$!! (CS:GO Betting)" where he takes a $50 bet and ends up winning hundreds of dollars.

TmarTn has done similar, with videos such as "HOW TO WIN $13,000 IN 5 MINUTES (CS:GO Betting)". Despite initially defending his videos, and adding disclaimers to them after the fact, his entire playlist of CS:GO Lotto videos has been pulled offline.

YouTube viewers have pointed out how TmarTn in particular introduced the site - his own site - to his fans. It's now impossible to link to the video in question, but you can see a clip of it in the h3h3Productions embed above.

"I've been starting to bet a little bit more..." TmarTn said. "[A friend] has been hitting me up and we found this new site named CS:GO Lotto."

At this point a large "CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT CS:GO LOTTO" button flashes up on screen.

"I've put a link down in the description, check it out. Anyway, we were betting on it today and I won $69 or something, so it was a pretty small pot but it was the coolest feeling ever!

"I ended up following them on Twitter and they're now talking to me about potentially doing a skin sponsorship!"

It's easy to see why some fans look back at this and consider TmarTn not to have been completely open about his business enterprise.

In a video published last week, which is also no longer available, TmarTn reacted to the news going public.

"Ok so the breaking news now is that myself and a couple other YouTubers including Tom ProSyndicate own CS:GO Lotto," TmarTn said. "This is something that has never been a secret.

"I don't know how I could go to sleep at night knowing I was deceiving you guys. I couldn't live with myself."

TmarTn has said he did not own CS:GO Lotto at the time he published videos showing it -something contradicted by the site's own business records. He also described the video where he introduces CS:GO Lotto to viewers as a "feeler" for his channel, and for him to decide whether to invest in the business.

But TmarTn has not said why his video addressing the situation, or any of his others showcasing his site, have been taken offline. Tweets about the issue at the time are still online, however.

"There's reporting news, then there's just making shit up," he wrote. "It's gonna be really funny when a huge slander law suit pops off and makes an example of some of these guys."

It isn't the first time Syndicate has been in hot water over undisclosed business interests. Last year, Syndicate was found to have been excitedly promoting multiplayer horror game Dead Realm on his channel without stating his financial ties to the game's publisher 3BlackDot, which was founded with the help of Syndicate and other YouTubers a year earlier.

For his part, Syndicate addressed this latest controversy last night via his Twitter, and apologised to fans who felt "mislead":

"I apologise to anyone who feels mislead regarding the ownership of CS:GO Lotto," Syndicate said. "I will always be more transparent from here on out!

"I do however stand very firmly behind the fact that CS:GO Lotto has never and will never scam/steal from players."



Gambling on virtual items in Steam games such as CS:GO has been criticised in the past for allowing easy access to real-money gambling for teenagers and children - who are often also the target audience for YouTube stars which promote such sites, who in turn are often paid to do so.

Back in April, Bloomberg ran a report on how it claimed virtual weapons were turning teenage gamers into serious gamblers, which pegged the video game betting boom at generating $2.3bn last year.

One class action lawsuit has already been launched against Valve for facilitating gambling. At the very least, the suit says, Valve has allowed a grey market to emerge where people can easily be ripped off via bets and trades with scammers. Or, more seriously, Valve is actively encouraging this to happen and should be held responsible for children using the unregulated system.

Despite CS:GO Lotto's ownership now being in the public domain, numerous questions still remain to be answered.

Syndicate has said he has lost more money on CS:GO Lotto than he's won, but it is unclear if this includes money made from his business interests in the company. Not counting the money from other people's bets, any money lost making videos about CS:GO Lotto could simply be recouped as a business expense.

Why weren't the pair more upfront about their ownership until now? Why did TmarTn pretend to stumble upon the site, or say he did not initially own it when business records show he was there from its inception?

And then there are the murkier questions that gambling on your own site naturally invites - that the owners, with access to the site's own back-end, simply weren't playing fairly.

Eurogamer has reached out to TmarTn and Syndicate for comment.

 

[Nael]

I honestly think you ARE the Internet, Infinitron. I was just about to fucking post this.

Also the ending to that video is fucking gold.

 

[gaussgunner]

Looks legit.

http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/Co...golotto&listNameOrder=CSGOLOTTO P150000974870

 

[Average Manatee]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer company. By which I mean Valve and these shitty parasite of parasite gambling sites.

Hopefully the hammer falls on all of them.

 

[Nael]

Looks legit.

http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=EntityName&directionType=Initial&searchNameOrder=CSGOLOTTO P150000974870&aggregateId=domp-p15000097487-864ff1fc-2baf-48c7-96e5-32ffb0ce6356&searchTerm=csgolotto&listNameOrder=CSGOLOTTO P150000974870

It was legit until he used unfair business practice by publicly advertising his business without publicly disclosing his position in said business. FTC rules and all. Might be that he can argue that YouTube doesn't qualify as a public space for advertisements in a self produced video. I think we're going to find out though because despite the grey area it is still fucking dirty as Hell. Steam will probably need to revise their legalese as well after this debacle.

 

[Infinitron]

UPDATE 10.00pm: Valve has removed its message warning users away from CS:GO Lotto, the gambling site at the centre of today's controversy.

The block was placed by a team of volunteer moderators brought in by another mod, KillahInstinct, to help with vetting the recent influx of CS:GO gambling sites. KillahInstinct has now reversed their decision.

"The URL blacklist is generally only used for malicious links and blocks links throughout Steam everywhere and therefore used with extreme caution," KillahInstinct wrote on theCS:GO subreddit. "Malicious links", he then clarified, were those deemed to be "malware, phishing, scam sites".

"For the record: I am not commenting if the site is bad, morally wrong etc - I am just saying that I haven't seen evidence of that it's malicious in the way that it should be before we add something to a global filter."

CS:GO Lotto's YouTube star owners Trevor "TmarTn" Martin and Tom "Syndicate" Cassell have been hit by accusations they mislead their viewers after promoting the gambling site without disclosing the business as their own.

And while the pair may have escaped Valve's blacklist, their operation exists in a "legal grey area", Eurogamer was told by one lawyer. Both risk punishment over their actions - or inactions, rather, at not disclosing their business ties.

"Paid/sponsored content and disclosures by YouTubers/streamers is still a legal grey area, but actually there are evolving rules and the regulators are increasingly likely to respond to potential abuses of those rules," Jas Purewal, digital entertainment lawyer at Purewal told me.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority and the US' Federal Trade Commission have lead the way in this area so far, although Purewal admits the rules still aren't clear.

"Despite this, the overall spirit of these evolving rules is very much one of transparency to consumers," he continued, "so the more that influencers can follow that spirit the more likely they are to comply with the rules."

As for the specific issue of gambling for in-game skins on sites such as CS:GO Lotto, the rules are again ambiguous.

"There is no single answer here, since gambling laws vary from country to country (or even among states/regions)," Purewal concluded. "There have been suggestions that some gambling regulators may see it as qualifying as regulated gambling and some may not, but nothing official.

"What we can say is that in general terms online gambling is heavily regulated in most countries, and in some is outright illegal, so any online service that is held to be online gambling would have quite substantial legal requirements on them - which could vary from the requirement to obtain a gambling licence (in the UK) to being prohibited and even treated potentially as a criminal matter (in the US and some parts of mainland Europe)."

Eurogamer has already reached out to the UK's Gambling Commission for its take on the legal status here.

Separately, CS:GO Lotto president Trevor "TmarTn" Martin has told Eurogamer he will issue a statement on everything which has happened tomorrow.

 

[gaussgunner]

Looks legit.

http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=EntityName&directionType=Initial&searchNameOrder=CSGOLOTTO P150000974870&aggregateId=domp-p15000097487-864ff1fc-2baf-48c7-96e5-32ffb0ce6356&searchTerm=csgolotto&listNameOrder=CSGOLOTTO P150000974870

It was legit until he used unfair business practice by publicly advertising his business without publicly disclosing his position in said business. FTC rules and all. Might be that he can argue that YouTube doesn't qualify as a public space for advertisements in a self produced video. I think we're going to find out though because despite the grey area it is still fucking dirty as Hell. Steam will probably need to revise their legalese as well after this debacle.

Legit business records, I mean. Other douchebags have already gotten in deep shit just for endorsing products without disclosing that they were paid to do it. This is 29th-level fuckery here... owning the company, nondisclosure, illegal gambling, underage kids, maybe some fraud and money laundering... at the BEEEELLLLIONS level. These guys are so fucked.

Shitstorm incoming at Valve too?

 

[Alienman]

Could they face prison over this? It just seems anything goes when it comes to gaming...

 

[Dreaad]

Considering it's not their first offense it's possible but at the same time..... they probably made a lot of money so it's likely they can just pay off some large fine and carry on.

 

[Makabb]

CS:GO betting site, offered to sponsor the YouTuber by offering him expensive, rare weapon skins to unbox on camera. In the videos, PsiSyndicate acts as though he happened to come upon the skins as a result of the random lottery, an idea he says was proposed by Steamloto.

The total takings was $3,200 in skins, [rare skins] Dragon Lore/Ruby, $1,200 ($4,000 really, $2,800 of my own skins) of which I gave away," text appearing in the video explains.

http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/4/12094174/psysindicate-cs-go-steamloto-betting-rigged

 

[Infinitron]

Why do you read Polygon instead of the Codex, Makabb

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

and this whole ~scandal~ is important... why?

 

[Astral Rag]

Ad revenue.

Seriously though, in a less retarded era this RNG crate economy nonsense wouldn't be legal in the first place.

 

[Astral Rag]

YouTubers under fire for promoting their own CS:GO gambling site in videos
Syndicate and TmarTn promoted CSGO Lotto, but didn't disclose that they own it.
by Mark Walton - Jul 5, 2016 1:40pm CEST

Until yesterday, if you were to browse the video pages of popular gaming YouTubers Trevor "TmarTn" Martin and Tom "Syndicate" Cassell, you'd have found a string of videos about the about Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling site CSGO Lotto. These videos showed the pair gambling weapon skins on the site, which allows anyone over 13 years of age to trade their hard-earned weapon skins for actual money. They often won big, resulting in videos with titles like "HOW TO WIN $13,000 IN 5 MINUTES."

Ordinarily, such a video would be regarded as little more than clickbait, the sort of thing you might see on a banner ad while browsing unscrupulous websites. But, with millions of subscribers, both Martin and Cassell have a captive audience who watch the videos in their hundreds of thousands. Now, these same subscribers have been turning out in their droves to launch allegations of unethical behaviour and a complete lack of disclosure.

It turns out the owners of the CSGO Lotto website are none other than Martin and Cassell.

The pair have since made their CSGO Lotto videos private, but the damage has already been done. Despite serving as owners and vice-presidents of CSGO Lotto since December 2015, the pair have promoted numerous giveaways as well as showing how players could win cash on the site. At no point did the pair disclose that they were owners of CSGO Lotto, instead claiming that the site sponsored their videos. Martin has promised to issue an official statement about the controversy later today.

In the mean time, he has taken to Twitter and YouTube in an attempt address some of the issues surrounding CSGO Lotto.

"I've admitted to wishing I was more upfront about owning the site," reads a now deleted post. "It was always public info but I was never very outspoken about it. My idea was to keep business business, while the focus of YouTube was simply making entertaining content. Obviously that was misleading to viewers and something I very much regret. I've never been perfect and I 100% own up to that mistake. 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."

Unfortunately for Martin, research undertaken by h3h3Productions and PCGamer has found no evidence of his interest in CSGO Lotto being declared. At most, a vague statement (found via the Wayback Machine) saying "Video made possible by CSGO Lotto" was added to some videos after they were uploaded. Even worse for Martin is a transcript from another video, which reads:

"We found this new site called CSGO Lotto—so I'll link it down in the description if you guys want to check it out. We were betting on it today and I won a pot of like $69 or something like that, so it was a pretty small pot, but it was like the coolest feeling ever. I ended up following them [CSGO Lotto] on Twitter and stuff, and they hit me up and they're talking to me about potentially doing like a skin sponsorship..."

Other prominent YouTubers have since been dragged into the controversy. Josh "JoshOG" Beaver has admitted to owning equity in CSGO Lotto, while also failing to disclose his "sponsorship." He has now begun removing videos that reference CSGO Lotto. Another YouTuber, PsiSyndicate, admitted that several of his own CS:GO weapon skin videos were rigged and created in association with another CS:GO betting site called SteamLoto. He claims that he was approached by the site, which provided him with valuable weapon skins to "randomly" unbox. He then acted as if they were random wins.

For a brief period, Valve began warning users about CSGO Lotto, and users clicking through to the site from Steam were issued with a warning that the site may engage in phishing, scamming, spamming, or delivering malware. However, the warning has since been removed.

This isn't the first time that YouTubers, or indeed Cassell, have found themselves in trouble over a lack of disclosure. Last year, Syndicate (Cassell) was found to have been promoting multiplayer horror game Dead Realm on his channel without declaring his financial ties to the game's publisher 3BlackDot, which was founded with the help of Syndicate and other video-makers a year earlier. Meanwhile, a number of YouTubers have faced criticism after it was discovered that the company Mondelēz had paid them to promote Oreo biscuits in "Oreo Lick Race" videos, few of which disclosed the deal.

At the time, the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that it "pays to be honest," before banning the campaign.

"It is perfectly legitimate for vloggers (or bloggers, tweeters) to enter into a commercial relationship and be paid to promote a product, service or brand," the ASA noted at the time. "But when that commercial relationship is in place then the onus is on the advertiser, and by extension the vlogger, to be upfront about it and clearly disclose the fact that they’re advertising. We're going to be communicating clearly to advertisers the outcome of this ruling and raising awareness amongst vloggers of the need to disclose when the content of their blogs is paid for."

Aside from the lack of disclosure on YouTube—which would clearly violate the ASA's guidelines—both Cassell and Martin could face criticism over founding CSGO Lotto in the first place. A recent report from Bloomberg claimed virtual weapons were turning teenage gamers—as young as 13—into serious gamblers, and said the betting boom at generated as much as $2.3 billion (£1.75B) last year. Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed in June by CS:GO player Michael John McLoed alleged that Valve allowed an illegal online gambling market to develop.

"In the e-sports gambling economy, skins are like casino chips that have monetary value outside the game itself because of the ability to convert them directly into cash," the suit reads. "In sum, Valve owns the league, sells the casino chips, and receives a piece of the casino's income stream through foreign websites in order to maintain the charade that Valve is not promoting and profiting from online gambling, like a modern-day Captain Renault from Casablanca."

"That most of the people in the CS:GO gambling economy are teenagers and under 21 makes Valve’s and the other defendants' actions even more unconscionable."

Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, it's extremely likely that the controversy surrounding Martin and Cassell will escalate beyond the relative safety of YouTube. And when it does, expect a whole lot more YouTubers to come forward with undisclosed deals.

 

[gaussgunner]

I'm not surprised to see this shit on Steam now that it's full of casuals. Maybe 10 years ago it was Second Life... 5 years ago iOS became a huge goldmine for scammers... mom says shut up kid, play with my iphone, kid downloads F2P shit games, they milk mom for $1000 of IAPs. Now the Most Retarded Generation is graduating to Steam.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...ts-cs-go-gambling-site-he-promoted-was-rigged

CS:GO gambling sites can be "rigged" for YouTuber promotion, streamer reveals
"I'm not a big YouTuber so no one really f***ing cares."

Yesterday, many were shocked to hear how two YouTube stars had promoted an online gambling site without disclosing the fact they were its owners.

Stewart unboxes a rare CS:GO item in a video he's now tagged as being rigged.

The reaction on YouTube, Reddit and in Eurogamer's own comments was pretty much unanimous. Looking at the evidence, it was hard to avoid the feeling that what Trevor "TmarTn" Martin and Tom "Syndicate" Cassell had done was wrong. Others went further, and pointed to the decidedly grey-area legal status of the situation as evidence of unlawful actions.

But there's the evidence that we know about, such as business records that show TmarTn and Syndicate do indeed own CSGOLotto.com, and then there's the suggestions that the waters are even murkier - and that beyond a simple lack of disclosure, the videos themselves may have been faked to show the pair gambling on their site and winning more often than is usually possible.

Today brings confirmation that gambling sites similar to CS:GO Lotto can be manipulated by their owners to give YouTubers an unfair advantage.

22-year-old British streamer Lewis "PsiSyndicate" Stewart - not to be confused with the main Syndicate - confirmed the fact in a confessional video he uploaded last night, where he revealed how two earlier videos of his had been "rigged".

Simply put, a gambling site named Steam Lotto paid the 22-year-old to make two videos showing him winning. The site also ensured Stewart would unpack two rare CS:GO weapons to make the whole thing look especially rewarding.

Stewart was left with rare items such as the Medusa and Dragon Lore guns worth $3200 - although he has said that he has since given most of it away after feeling guilty for what he'd done.

"This idea was brought to me by Steam Lotto, they proposes [sic] rigging in return for a Dragon Lore, I just fell right into it. The total takings were $3200 in skins," he explained.

"Everything I gained from videos I gave away to prove to people it wasn't rigged... but it was. I'm not saying I'm an angel," he continued, "I'm not. I am only human."

The video was intended to get the two paid-for video's existence off his chest, Stewart said, rather than expose any wrongdoing by other YouTubers. But the reason he was doing it now was because of the revelations around TmarTn and Syndicate's ownership and promotion of CS:GO Lotto.

"This could be the end of my YouTube career, probably not. No one's made one of these videos, but I'm not a big YouTuber so no one really f***ing cares."

Stewart has kept the videos which were rigged online - you can see them below - but has added a caption to them which advises viewers they were rigged.

According to Stewart, YouTubers regularly get offers of this kind. Just today, following the video's posting, he tweeted the following email:



"Trust me, these websites want to throw $1ks of skins at YouTubers," he said.

Eurogamer contacted Stewart this morning for further comment, but has not yet received a response.

"Maybe this is a wake up call for some," Stewart added during his video. "Rigging and non-disclosed sponsorships happen. Do not trust everything you see on YouTube.

"My advice is just avoid gambling/unboxings as a whole. I'd be $6k richer if I had, even if it's a small amount of money, it's a f***ing waste. The evils I talk about in this video are nothing more than lies. Lying isn't cool, but let's be honest, I could be worse, naming no names "

When he betted for real, Stewart said, he only got items in the hundred dollar range.

"That website is not an English one, but a Russian one," he concluded. "Not that all Russians are scammers, but everyone's had a bad experience with a Russian [site], right?"

If nothing else, all of the above suggests further investigation is needed into TmarTn and Syndicate's site, and how both men presented it on their respective channels.

One clip which has definitely raised eyebrows is of TmarTn quickly logging himself out of an account labelled CSGOLottoBot5, although it is impossible to draw any further conclusions.

Speaking to Eurogamer today, a representative of the UK's Gambling Commission had this to say:

"We are paying close attention to the growing popularity of virtual or in-game items (skins), which can be traded, sold or used as virtual currencies to gamble.

"If GB-based players are being invited to gamble with money or money's worth then this requires an operating licence.

"We don't talk about individual websites because it might unjustifiably harm the reputation of individuals or prejudice the outcome of any investigation that may, or may not, be taking place."

 

[A user named cat]

Tried to watch video but his eyebrows were driving me nuts.

 

[Nael]

Tried to watch video but his eyebrows were driving me nuts.

Malfunctioning human suit.

Spoiler

Tourettes Syndrome

 

[pippin]

Endangering minors is always a shit thing to do, but is gambling itself illegal? Most real sports openly accept gambling. I'm kind of growing tired of Ethan to be honest. He's too much of a moralfag.

 

[deuxhero]

Gambling isn't illegal, but it is taxed and regulated I doubt the keys shit is.

 

[Severian Silk]

The commentator's eyebrows are epic.

[edit]

Oh, I should have read the rest of the thread before posting this.

 

[Echo Mirage]

TB has a nice solid rant about this sort of thing and just how common it really is.

 

[taxalot]

shitty people selling shitty things to shitty uneducated morons. Today's Internet in a nutshell. I honestly fail to take an interest in this piece of news. We do know the gaming media is shitty and a fair amount of gamers are morons. There is literally nothing new under the sun.

I only shed tears for Tim Bernners Lee and the other guys who sincerely thought they were going to make people smarter. Humanity is hopeless.