Popular YouTuber reveals Counter-Strike betting videos were rigged

[gaussgunner]

Of course nobody's going down for this. I don't want to shock you, but wealthy, clean cut, young white guys have traditionally been pretty great at avoiding serious consequences.

Not necessarily so, when Exhibit A is a youtube vid of them being smarmy hipster douchebags.

 

[Lord Romulus]

And I thought Dota cosmetics were stupidly expensive. These CS:GO skins don't even look good, they're just normal guns with bright colours and a bunch of skulls, snakes, flames, and sharks slapped on them. I don't know how anybody over the age of 12 can like those ugly things.

 

[Yeesh]

Of course nobody's going down for this. I don't want to shock you, but wealthy, clean cut, young white guys have traditionally been pretty great at avoiding serious consequences.

Not necessarily so, when Exhibit A is a youtube vid of them being smarmy hipster douchebags.

You speak as though you know relevant examples. My own opinion is partly based on a complete dearth of wealthy young YouTubers going to jail or losing their shirts via lawsuits stemming from white collar crime, so examples thereof would likely get me to change my tune.

 

[gaussgunner]

I don't know about Youtubers but being young and white hasn't saved other white-collar crims.

 

[RoBoBOBR]

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.pcinvasion.com/csgolotto-legal-counsel-issues-statement

CSGOLotto legal counsel issues statement

Inevitably, given the seriousness of their activities, the owners of CSGOLotto have sought legal counsel in the form of Watson LLP. Said legal firm have issued a statement on behalf of CSGOLotto (Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin in particular, who is referenced directly), which can be read below.

“First and foremost, Trevor Martin values the support of his YouTube followers, and he is focused on publishing entertaining content for them.

“The ownership interests in CSGO Lotto have been public record since the company organized in December 2015.

“It is important to understand that winners on the website are randomly determined by both algorithms and computer code. The odds of winning games played at CSGO Lotto are not more or less favorable to any players. The company has fail-safe measures in place to prevent any person and any player from independently changing or manipulating the outcomes of any games played.

“CSGO Lotto finds it deeply troubling that statements against both the company and its owners are not supported by facts and lack a serious understanding of “gambling,” as that term is legally defined. In this way, CSGO Lotto is materially different from its competitors who operate other game play websites that may, in fact, cross the line of legality.

“There is also considerable misinformation concerning allegations that CSGO Lotto encourages minors of age 13 to participate in its games. This stems from a misunderstanding of the company’s privacy policy. The policy references minors aged 13 and under due to the company’s compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Contrary to what has been suggested, the company does not condone the usage of its website by minors under 18 years of age and, indeed, players must certify their age at the outset. Furthermore, statements released by the company on prior occasions are consistent with the company’s continued efforts to ensure that it does not collect the personal information of any minor.

“-Coleman Watson, Esq. Watson LLP”​

Note that when it says ownership of the site was “public record”, this means it was possible for a member of the public to request business documents pertaining to CSGOLotto from December 2015 onwards. Not, for example, that Martin or Tom ‘ProSyndicate’ Cassell ever made ownership of the site public in their videos.

The next paragraph is addressing suggestions that, as owners of the site, Martin and Cassell may have been ‘playing’ with different odds than everybody else. Nothing has been proven there (the only thing we know for sure is that there is footage of Martin logging into the site as ‘CSGOLottoBot #5’), so no further comment.

The rest is a denial that CSGOLotto constitutes “gambling” as the term is (currently) legally defined, and a denial that CSGOLotto ever encouraged minors to play in their absolutely-not-gambling-coin-flip-skin-lotteries. The CSGOLotto Steam group still calls it “the premiere skin gambling site” though. Weird, huh.

Update 7 July: At least the Steam group used to say that. Like much of the potential evidence in this affair, it has been crudely altered or deleted after the fact. All references to gambling have mysteriously vanished.

Make of all that what you will.

Here's some commentary from the Codex's favorite videogame lawyer, Ryan Morrison: http://www.pcgamer.com/tmartn-apology-video/

 

[Wayward Son]

It's even more retarded than you think it is. Current-gen is seriously this fucking stupid.

Yeah, at my high school, all the "leet PC Hardkoar Gaemrs" were talking about their skins. And when I asked how much they cost and how much these "people" had spent on them I got figures as high as $500-750 total. The fact that these damn kids are so spoiled that their parents will shill out this much and the kids accept that without any shame. I mean, goddamn, I've always felt bad about asking my dad for $20-30. Ffs. My generation needs to grow up. I could get over them paying $50-60 for a game, but not several hundred.

 

[Severian Silk]

Is anyone going down for this? Would love to see videos of youtuber-20-somethings crying because they accidentally got in over their heads while thinking they were really clever. Post vids when/if it happens.

Of course nobody's going down for this. I don't want to shock you, but wealthy, clean cut, young white guys have traditionally been pretty great at avoiding serious consequences.

So many Codexers (especially Ireanaues) wish they could be this.

 

[Tehdagah]

Not sure if their audience were kids.

 

[Lord Romulus]

Not sure if their audience were kids.

It was a Youtube channel that focused entirely on CoD and CS:GO. A fair number of them are probably not even in high school yet.

 

[Machine]

Its more likely they will even profit from all this drama, no bad publicity etc. I'm no lawyer but I remember when Dota was in spotlight with all hat betting and whatnot, the loophole is its not real money, running legit gambling site with actual money requires more effort and accountablity than shitty website thats gonna read dota/steam API and let u bet virtual hats, its just how it is. Valve has proven time and time again their incompetence and disinterest to deal with whole surrounding "industry" of Dota and its esports that had numerous scams, cash grab tournaments , questionable websites, match fixing and whatnot. Afterall why would they give a shit when retards will keep buying hats and throwing cash at em no matter what they do.

 

[Mozg]

Man I always hate it when someone manages to hook up pure chimp consumerism to a product that can be reproduced infinitely for free. At least someone has to be paid to farm the cow and stitch the leather to make the Nth designer handbag at some point.

 

[Mr. Pink]

kids shouldnt be playing cs:go in the first place. they should be doing healthy and constructive things like playing outside, studying and smoking crack.

 

[Beastro]

Enough with this old fart shit thinking this is anything new. People have been putting value into things far above their worth since we first existed.

Doubt that? Then look up the story behind this painting, Wagon of Fools, and note that it contains not a single Mellenial, as it was made nearly 400 years ago:

Look at that gigantic house he's making his apology in.

And the truck nicely parked for the shot.

 

[Beastro]

Not necessarily so, when Exhibit A is a youtube vid of them being smarmy hipster douchebags.

Dude that hiked the price for that Aids drug is a good example of that.

It actually shows that pay lip service by apologizing and actually trying to do it while hiding your asshole personality does good, since when it fails and you come off as a genuine full blooded asshole people will go out of their way to find something to fuck you over with while everyone else cheers them on.

Whatever happens, Martin has made himself universally despised for the way he's come off. In light of that the other guys silence if golden, but Martin's behaviour will prolly energize action against both of them enough that it won't matter (and he's as much of a smarmy hipster douchebag as Martin, it just needs to get more air time in a negative light).

It's even more retarded than you think it is. Current-gen is seriously this fucking stupid.

Yeah, at my high school, all the "leet PC Hardkoar Gaemrs" were talking about their skins. And when I asked how much they cost and how much these "people" had spent on them I got figures as high as $500-750 total. The fact that these damn kids are so spoiled that their parents will shill out this much and the kids accept that without any shame. I mean, goddamn, I've always felt bad about asking my dad for $20-30. Ffs. My generation needs to grow up. I could get over them paying $50-60 for a game, but not several hundred.

I don't get it despite understanding the underlying behaviour, but that goes for all forms of gambling in my eyes.

Back in the days of Classic Everquest characters and items would sell in the thousands, but even those things took months or work to create and equip and had an actual big impact on the gameplay. Even today with some shitheads on the latest progression server trying to sell items for several thousands of dollars from content no longer dropping (They got access to the zone first, then once the leaders got the rare items, they enacted the event which made them stop dropping while maximizing their drama by doing it a last month despite promising the rest of the server they wouldn't until the end of this month), that still took the better part of a year to do. There was effort, albeit little compared to actual, honest and professional work.

Making pretty pixels, buying and selling them like this I just don't get.

 

[Alienman]

http://www.pcgamer.com/emails-reveal-how-shady-csgo-gambling-promotions-are-born/

A youtuber that also deals with skins is coming clean. He spills the beans over how this industry works. I'm guessing he shat his pants when reading about the ongoing scandal. Looks like a complete shit show.

To me it looks pretty serious, like how they are manipulating the prices of the skins. At least from what I understand on how it works.

Apparently a quote from the guy, you can find it in the comment sections:

I allowed the creator of this article to use what I said in emails as quotes. I'm donating $3000 to charity in way to say sorry and to give what I gained back, and it's just true. It's how real crimes work, you aren't going to go through all that effort to bring down someone for a petty crime, but if you're going to go around murdering someone, then the police kinda care.

If you think what I did was murder, go report it to the FTC.

 

[Saark]

The big issue in this particular case (CSGOLotto) isn't that it's gambling and that it's a grey area. That has been discussed before multiple times. There's two things that are really morally repugnant and probably unlawful too with this case tough.

1. People like Tmartn, ProSyndicate or JoshOG are quite famous streamers/youtubers with huge viewer counts that were promoting this particular website without disclosing that they were in fact owners of it. ("Hey look at this cool new website I found for gambling skins." - A new meme was born)
2. People like Tmartn being absolutely retarded and logging, on video/while streaming mind you, onto bots instead of their own accounts, showing not only that they are in fact admins of the site but also questioning whether they were able to rig the system to their advantage (thus exploiting the users/viewers/customers). Apparently there have been quite a few people coming forth that were in those videos getting hustled by Tmartn and preparing a civil action suit.

Having prices on skins like that get that high might be ridiculous, but it is real and people are willing to charge their steam wallet with thousands of dollars trying to acquire them. Being able to gamble them away based on chance and then realizing that the system is not only rigged but that the very internet celebrity promoting the site is in fact the person owning it might already be enough for a DA in the US to take up the case and prosecute. Since these websites and businesses are registered in the US the FTC may very well get involved, and since there are in fact ways to cash out on the skins you won the IRS may get interested as well. Only takes one retard to spill the beans to ruin the fun for everyone.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Only takes one retard to spill the beans to ruin the fun for everyone.

But my fun is only starting.

 

[Jick Magger]

snip

It also doesn't help that each and every one of Tmartn's 'apologies' has basically just amounted to him saying "I'm sorry you're all too fucking stupid to have known that I actually owned the sight, because I was totally clear about that since day one, except during all those times I insinuated that I 'stumbled onto' the website and thus wasn't involved with it". Probably because he's aware that any actual apology on his end would necessitate him admitting to lying and thus opening himself up for potential lawsuit.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Wow. You people just awaked up for this now.
This is has been going 1 year or so since CS: Knife Bingo has been realesed. And pretty much everyone that plays this extremely overrarted game buys keys and boxes.
Most of my friends that play this shitty game have won more than 100 jewros selling those Paint skins, and all of then say they don't see nothing wrong with this shit.
But then again, like always, the problem resides on the retards that pay 2000 euros for a fucking pixel knife. And the parents that don't give a fuck about their childs and let them do anything as long their kids don't bother them. Specially when Valve as various Parental Control options both on STEAM and their games.
Also what those degenerates that own the website deserve is a good old fashion torture that gets them as close to Hell as it is humanly possible.

 

[janior]

Natural selection, gambling is for the weak, let them lose their money.

 

[Jacob]

kids shouldnt be playing cs:go in the first place. they should be doing healthy and constructive things like playing outside, studying and smoking crack.

and losing virginity before 18... that's important too...

 

[Saark]

Only takes one retard to spill the beans to ruin the fun for everyone.

But my fun is only starting.

Expect more to pile on in the upcoming days/weeks. CS:GO wild apparently is owned by two of the members of the FaZe Clan Call of Duty team, at least those guys were clever enough to set up a shell corp in antigua (with their real names mind you). Rumours are phantomlord, one of the biggest csgo streamers, is part owner aswell. I actually expect most major streamers to in one way or another be involved, earning 5figures a month by streaming 4-6hours a day apparently isn't enough so you gotta promote some shady skin-gambling site to your 14year old viewers ensuring your own site gets a decent userbase. Just make sure to not get a tax attorney to set up some sort of protection and instead register your business in the US and/or with your real names It's also hilarious how these people still haven't grasped that whatever you once uploaded to the internet will remain there, they still delete shitty statements or videos after the fact, trying to cover their asses.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

It's an absolute wonder why people continue to work normal 40 hr/wk shit pay slave jobs when we live in an era where these scams pass regularly.

Seriously just rip a few thousand people out of $100 and you can retire at 22

 

[Severian Silk]

I think affluenza is to blame, and we should feel bad for these two young guys.