Funny how this thread came up. I was reading the reviews for CS: Global Offensive (since it was a featured item on sale) and I was reading all the terrible reviews about how incredibly addictive it is to gamble for skins. One particular reviewer shelled out thousands of dollars before his friend snapped him out of it. Ontop of it, I read that the community itself is pretty malicious.

Maybe i'm being naive or maybe misinformed, but I always assumed that Valve had a sort of conscience as being one in the same company as Steam.

it wasn't valve/steam running the gambling racket though, it was an independent third party

Because as others have mentioned, a third party website was involved, and there is nothing in your opening post that clarifies this. Everything in your op is about VALVe, and only VALVe.

Yes I realized I made a mistake not clarifying it.

People should know the FBI will investigate VALVe as to why they allow the access to their API so easily. And if maybe VALVe should limit the access.

My guess - it's his lawyer who's actually suing, a lawyer who probably smelled an opportunity, and he's going after the deepest pockets in sight, as lawyers are wont to do. His next step will probably be to shop for more clients so he can turn the suit into a class action.

That's a definitive statement, which has not been proven. Quit making assumptions. You know the saying. If you assume you make an ass out of you and me.

Oh look, the most evilest corporation in the world is again about to be shut down by federal authorities. That's the... what? fifth time now?

You know. I'm hoping more government regulations come out of this to prevent children who steal their parents credit cards to gamble on either 3rd party websites or VALVe's own Steam Marketplace and not end up racking up their parents in debt.

There are stories that I heard where one kid spent like $10,000 dollars (USD) or something. It was on twitch.tv or something though for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

I also heard stories of fraudulent credit cards being used. Not just by kids but by thieves who just steal credit cards.

I think we all agree on this yes?

I do not agree. I don't need the government playing big brother for my parenting. My kids never had a chance of getting my credit card info because I was an attentive parent.


And I still don't see why Valve is included in this. It's not their fault that a customer used their product in an illegal fashion.

Parents should better keep an eye on their credit cards and never give out their credit card to kids and to keep a better eye on their kids.

I do not see why Valve/Steam is at fault except maybe for making the game and making the items. It is the third party site and customers that are using their product in an illegal fashion. If Valve was running that site or invested into that site than you can say they had something to do with that. I have not seen anywhere that is the case.

So Valve is now responsible for people stealing credit cards.

We get it that you hate Steam and Valve and make sound like they are responsible for all the bad things that are happening in the world with past threads and posts about Steam/Valve.

And that's the problem being to free and a unregulated market like this is bad.

We absolutely need some government regulation in our lives in almost everything we do in life.

So the thieves can't get away and so the parents become more responsible learning their lessons. It's liberties I'm willing to give up in order to have some law and order and retain some of the liberties.

Tmartin and Syndicate will obviously be going to jail because of this.

Regulations might start come into place in the next few months or years.

Three lawyers have now spoken about it they are civil court lawyers though I think.

https://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/4rep4f/we_are_bryce_blum_ryan_morrison_and_jeff_ifrah/

One of them says the FTC will have to get involved and VALVe will need to limit their API usage and that identifications will have to be presented.

I'm all for this so people can't steal and commit frauds.

Just convert it over to private email servers and they'll be let off the hook.


*bazing*


Anyhoo, They've been cracking down on it though for over a decade. What it is now is nothing like it was 10 years ago. From 2003 until 2006, I was an ametuer (maybe semi-pro?) online poker player. I'm not talking about playing for $50 payouts in week...I'm talking about $50-$100 payouts in an hour (I think the maximum daily payout you could take from PartyPoker to your paypal account was $500, from there you could transfer whatever you wanted). I played on 3 different sites to maximize my daily income (and also spread the risk, Accumulation of Opportunity theory) and I would play roughly 6-8 hours a day. It was great. Sometimes I would only need to play for 30 minutes and I would hit a big hand, leave the table and call it a day (maybe enter a big money tourney for fun...usually they were like several thousand people, but you only paid less than $5 to play). On top of that, if I wanted to I could play blackjack and slots on the side. Always nice when you have a bit of a surplus to burn and possibly get a bigger payday.


Yes, Online Gambling was a way of life for many people, and for some like myself, it was how I made my living. I didn't have health insurance at the time, but it was nice because I paid everything in cash. Bought a car, got a bigger apartment (paid for the first year all in advance, then the 2nd year I paid in full about 8 months into the lease), food shopping...


It was a great time. What I should have done though was use my savings to move to Las Vegas or something to become a live professional player. When the 2006 legislation went through, it [censored] over everything. There was a way around it with a couple sites (Full Tilt and Pokerstars) but I knew it was a matter of time before they got caught, so I decided to take my money and go. Unfortunately, I could not get all my money off the sites. Once they started enacting restrictions on the US players, they did so by doing the only thing they could really do: deny transactions from, and more importantly to, those players. I could have cashed out daily for 2-3 weeks on PP and would not have received all my money.


All this from an initial $400 investment. I miss poker so badly.


All of this gone because poker chips clog the internet tubes and you need extra lottery balls to blow them open so the horses can run through...

I don't agree at all.


Whenever someone proposes a law, ask yourself this: is it worth killing somebody over?


Because what happens when you break a law, the government either fines you, or the police, men with guns come to try and jail you, and if you resist there is a real possibility of you being killed.


For example a guy on the street was selling single cigarettes in new York. The cops came, he ran and tried to resist, they caught him and choked him out, and now he's dead because he was selling single cigarettes for a dollar. Is that worth killing someone over?


See now if someone is murdering somebody unchecked, that's worth killing him over to stop it.


Is it worth killing consenting advlts who are harming nobody but themselves by gambling online, simply because some negligent parents can't watch their credit card or keep their children in check?


When you advocate bringing in more laws and more government, you're advocating the removal of freedoms and rights of law abiding citizens and consenting people who aren't seeking to harm others.


It's people with your mindset - meaning well and doing it for a good cause, but putting emotions above logic - that results in Orwellian 1984 big brother esque government control.

Ballowers, are you even familiar with how Steam Marketplace works? its not anything like gambling, as you do get anything you pay for on it, unlike gambling where you "may" get the prize.. if anything, it is more similar to an auction system, or even more accurate a yard sale

Do you really think the FBI will ignore VALVe then? VALVe is being very hands off approach on the 3rd party websites.

There will be legislation coming in the next few months or years because of this.

The FBI and FTC will simply not ignore it.

Once again I'm not saying VALVe is at fault here or that they are involved, they are hands off approach, which is not a good thing to do and the class action lawsuit is filed against VALVe.

Funnybunny why are you completely and utterly defending VALVe, despite not being the ones hosting these gambling and lottery style sites, they actively permit and allow these 3rd party sites to take place. They may not be entirely at fault, but surely at they do hold fault for not taking action when they knew what was going on.

If anyone is interested I just watched a YouTube video Jim Sterling just made talking about the Counter-Strike: Global Ofeensive gambling.

He says the legislations will come "soon" in his own words "not yet, yet".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng_SbSdUkc8

Well, if you have to link your Steam account Valve may have some accountability, and it would seem that is needed for these sites to work. Though not being sure how that all works, I'll refrain from blaming Valve/Steam until I have more information.


Still, any kids who got a hold of their parents credit cards and burned a bunch of money comes down to [censored] parenting. And I'll agree that the online gambling bit is illegal, at least depending on where you live.