Valve bans gambling on Steam

As part of an offensive against possible scams, cheating, or even match-fixing, Valve has decided to ban gambling on Steam. Unfortunately, CS:GO has not announced this information to developers, but after reading the Terms of Services that were updated last May 9, we can realize it.

This could be a huge problem for all those CS:GO skins betting houses. Valve, through Steam, can block these websites’ access to the Steam API. As a result, players could not log in from their Steam accounts on these sites, making it impossible to exchange skins securely.

Valve bans Steam gambling

While it is true that CS:GO gambling has gained a lot of popularity in recent years on well-known gambling sites; many players remain active in what was a hype between 2015-2018, skins betting.

As reported by xMercy, a very popular skin collector in the CS:GO community, Valve bans CS:GO skin betting on Steam.

According to the official Steam blog:

“As a Steam subscriber, you agree to abide by the following rules of conduct. As a Steam user, you must be a good digital citizen and not do anything that prevents other users from using and enjoying Steam.”

In addition, in one of the points mentioned in the Steam Terms of Service, we have that one makes mention of the following:

“Engaging in commercial activities: examples of this prohibited behavior include: posting advertisements, running contests, placing bets, buying or selling Steam accounts, selling content, gift cards or other items, and begging.”

As we note, Steam explicitly says that placing bets on Steam is completely prohibited.

xMercy gives further explanations in his Tweet

In addition to reporting about this new update by Valve, xMercy also shared some personal thoughts about it. The CS:GO skins trader and collector points out that Valve has won all the lawsuits against those bookmakers who use their API to make CS:GO skins bets.

Moreover, Valve washed its hands legally in a U.S. federal court, as the organization is not responsible if any user loses skins on any of these unregulated sites.

It’s no secret to anyone that skins gambling in CS:GO has been a big problem for Valve since its inception in 2013. At that time, the fad started that players could bet their skins on professional matches on unregulated websites. In 2016, Valve struck the first blow by banning some of these skins betting bookmakers from being able to use their API to log in.

However, when everything seemed to have calmed down a few weeks ago, this situation again worried the community. All this is because several streamers, players, and even teams have decided to partner with unregulated CS:GO skinning bookmakers. Such is the case of the recent announcement by G2 Esports, starring Illya “m0NESY” Osipov, of a partnership with CSGORoll, an unregulated skins betting site.

Finally, we are still not 100% sure how Valve will apply this measure on Steam. However, it is very likely that, with this heavy hand, the same thing that happened in 2016 will start to happen, and many unregulated gambling sites will be banned by Valve so that players cannot log in through them.

Header: Valve