Stephen Findeisen, better known online as Coffeezilla, claims that "underage gambling is rampant on Counter-Strike." This is an assertion made in his latest investigative report, "Deception, Lies, and Valve."
This new video from Coffeezilla takes a deep dive into the world of underage gambling on Counter-Strike skins, and it comes after Coffeezilla exposed "a casino in the Counter Strike [sic] industry" that had attempted to bribe him. Following that Counter-Strike casino exposé, Coffeezilla followed up with "The Dark Side of Counter-Strike 2."
The Dark Side of Counter-Strike 2 examines and exposes casinos, various influencers, and even esports teams "that rely on CS2 gambling." Coffeezilla's newest video, Deception, Lies, and Valve, shows that Valve turns a blind eye to Counter-Strike skin gambling. Not only that, but the video shows how a total lack of protections allow for literal children, some as young as 13, to easily get involved in Counter-Strike skin gambling.
Coffeezilla notes that throughout the previous two videos it was difficult to find people that agreed on who the "villain" was or who was the "good guy" when it came to the casinos and influencers that promoted Counter-Strike gambling. He continues to say that there was just one thing that everyone seemed to agree on, and that was Valve's role in getting people started with gambling in the first place.
Coffeezilla then shows off several clips from people who say they began gambling with Counter-Strike skins as young as 13 years old. Another says that despite being too young to go to a real casino and gamble, they instead gambled on Counter-Strike skins. Another says that they went to their local video game store and "bought like $20 worth of Steam credits" that he then used to "buy skins" as there was "no verification at all."
To note, this issue of underage gambling is not a new issue. Reports from over eight years ago highlighted the issue of underage Counter-Strike gambling. Valve's stance is that it's not technically gambling because the skins aren't actually worth anything in the real world (ignoring the fact that you could sell those skins for credit that can be used in Steam as if it were real money). The major issue is the fact that third-party sites do assign real world monetary values to these Counter-Strike skins that can be sold and cashed out. Of course, most of these third-party sites also make extensive use of these legal loopholes so that this gambling is not legally pegged as "gambling."
It's this legal loophole that Valve takes advantage of that allows people of all ages, even children, to gamble with Counter-Strike skins. Coffeezilla notes that this is the same sort of a loophole used by pachinko parlors in Japan. Pachinko machines in Japan award small metal balls when you win. You cannot directly cash out, turning those balls into cash, within the pachinko parlor itself. Instead, the parlor gives you a small gift which is then converted to cash at a third-party location. "It's just gambling with extra steps."
In 2016, Valve sent a cease and desist to several Counter-Strike skin gambling sites following the "illegal gambling" of skins by CSGOLotto, TmarTn, and ProSyndicate. Coffeezilla found that of the 23 gambling sites that were sent cease and desist letters, at least five of them remain operational to this day. He has a few ideas as to why Valve is not more aggressive with shutting down these obvious gambling sites, including suggesting that Valve just has too much to lose, monetarily speaking, by fully shutting down every skin gambling site that pops up. It would essentially destroy the market value of the skins being sold and traded and thus end up hurting Valve's bottom line.
The entire three-part video series by Coffeezilla is well worth a watch. A lot of what is shared is probably already known to anybody that has been a part of the Counter-Strike community for any amount of time, but there are still a few new things shared that even I wasn't aware of.
