Skin gambling in Counter Strike – How a Shooter Became a Gambling Market

In 2011, the company Valve, through its platform, Steam, came up with the concept of skin trading. Years later, this practice would become a popular phenomenon in the gambling scene. It would also become a significant element in popular games such as Counter Strike. This post will be discussing how the game Counter Strike applies the concept of skin gambling.

What is skin gambling?

Over the past few years, skin gambling has become a popular practice in the gambling scene and it is not showing any sign of slowing down. As the name suggests, this practice involves betting your skin on the outcome of other player’s games. In this case, the term skin does not refer to the dermatological term that you are used to. In the gambling world, the term skin or skins refers to decorative items that can be worn by characters in a game to give them a more realistic, comical, or badass look. So, in the gambling scene, skins refer to items like designs, costumes, colour schemes, and more.

Players can earn skins after completing specific goals or milestones in the games. Alternatively, players can also earn skins as pre-order incentives. However, this mostly applies to new games. Another way players can earn skins is in free-to-play games. In such games, these items are referred to as virtual items or goods.

So, in simpler terms, skin gambling is a practice that allows players to trade cosmetic upgrades in online video games as wagers on games of chance and esports matches. Currently, many games enable the purchase of skins in their games. This has led to several players exchanging their skins for real money and gambling away their cosmetic upgrades.

Skin gambling in Counter Strike

Counter Strike is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter games. In these video games, there are teams of terrorists that battle to penetrate an act of terror while other teams of counter-terrorists attempt to prevent the act of terror. It is one of the oldest forms of these games in the gambling scene, as it was established in 1999. It is also one of the most successful video games in the world.

Counter Strike has become a gateway to skin gambling, especially the version, Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Anyone that has participated on Counter Strike: Global Offensive has probably come across the concept of skin gambling. From the formative days of this version of the game, skin gambling has been associated with the game. However, the incredible similarity that CS skin betting sites bear to no limit online casinos, quickly led to controversy and questions about unregulated gambling which is even open to minors.

How a shooter became a gambling market

In 2010, the brand Valve introduced an update to the shooter Team Fortress 2, Mann-Conomy. The Mann-Conomy update introduced several new cosmetics, weapons, and fantastic features to the game. The most significant additions to the game were an item shop where players could use real-life currency to purchase items and they could also trade items with other players. This update was a huge success and it earned Valve a lot of money as players loved it. For this reason, Valve expanded this practice throughout all of Steam. The company also made microtransactions a major element in most of its titles.

While other games saw noteworthy success from this feature, the fandom that embraced the feature most was Counter Strike: Global Offensive. In this game, players were allowed to change the appearances of their guns using skins. They could also purchase or trade stickers with logos of their favourite pro teams. Generally, the skin gambling element allowed players of Counter Strike: Global Offensive to customize their characters to their will.

Eventually, this practice created a bespoke betting market that entirely revolved around the game Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO). This market place is where bettors can wager their CSGO items on the outcomes of professional matches. This led to skin betting becoming a significant part of the Counter Strike gambling experience. It also increases pro CSGO viewership and the worth of the skins. This is basically how a gambling market was birthed from a shooter.

Final words

In 2016, a scandal erupted surrounding the skin gambling practice. This led to the Washington State Gambling Commission taking steps towards ending this practice. While this affected the market significantly, this practice has not dried up completely. Currently, there are sites that act as trading hubs for CSGO skins. There are still ways to use the skins from Counter Strike: Global Offensive and other games for different betting purposes. For instance, some betting sites allow players to use these skins as alternatives of cash when making deposits. Players can also convert skins into currencies used on specific gambling sites.