Not 21 Yet? Gamble Online with Virtual Items, and Cash Out If You Can...

[Scenario 1]
College Student X: "Hey, do you want to go to Vegas next weekend?"

High School Teenager Y:"No, I am not 21 yet."

[Scenario 2]
College Student X: "Hey, there's big CS:GO tournament going on and you should bet some weapon skins on your favorite team!"

High School Teenager Y: "Yes! I will ask my mom to add some cash to my Steam Wallet so I can buy some more good skinzzz for betting!!!"

Now, you must have  questions after hearing these conversations. Well, let me start off by providing you with some more background in the second scenario.

Counter-Strike:Global Offensive (CS:GO) is  Valve's online multiplayer First Person Shooter game that came out in August, 2012. Its predecessors, Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike:Source, made big appearances in the competitive gaming scene, also know as eSports. Being the much anticipated sequel, CS:GO gathered a pretty large player population right at the start and it continued to grow as more and more players start to form teams and compete in professional CS:GO tournaments.

One interesting feature Valve introduced is the weapon skins. Player can acquire skins in several different ways: random drops by the system at the end of a game, opening a weapon case for a random skin, and purchasing from or trading with other players online. Except the random drops given by the system, everything else involves real money of some sort! Opening a weapon case costs $2.49, which goes straight to Valve's bank; purchasing from a different player requires $ as well as there is no in game currency; and you probably need something worth money to trade with another player because free skins are not worth a nickel.

As an active CS:GO player, I have to say that the skins look really cool and I am pretty sure almost everyone in the game wants a good skin of some sort. You can tell people really want it by looking at some skins market price:

No, no, no... Your eyes are not blurry and those price tags are not modified. That's right, you can spend quite a bit of cash to buy a skin in CS:GO! In short, skins in CS:GO are worth real cash!

Are you thinking "so what?" Remember Scenario 2 mentioned at the beginning? Yes! Now we see some potential problems here, right? The biggest CS:GO skin betting website right now is probably http://csgolounge.com/, which also supports skin trading and selling. Any player can go on the website and put their skins on some upcoming matches to place bets. And I know for a fact that there's are a lot of players under the age of 21. There is no age restriction or parental control. Wow! What a brilliant idea! Everyone who plays CS:GO can wander into the realm of REAL MONEY GAMBLING! But wait a minute... Is it really gambling if no money is involved? What if I just want to invest my skins to get more awesome skins from a bet because my parents won't buy me more skins until next month? And another thing to consider is that, selling on Steam Market does not return cash into your bank. All the money are kept in your Steam Wallet, which only be spent purchasing more digital contents on Steam such as other games or more in game contents. So in that sense, the money on Steam are not real money but more of a virtual currency that you can buy with real money.

So can you convert CS:GO skins into real money that you can put in your bank account? Yes, but... really difficult and dangerous. There are people who are willing to pay money from outside of steam, meaning Paypal most of the time. But then there's no protection for the seller and the buyer because one party has to give the offer first, which leaves them completely vulnerable to a scam. That is why 99% of the time players don't take real money offers.

Well, the biggest winner in this whole thing is most certainly... Valve, of course. Each time a player sells a skin on Steam Market, Valve takes 15% of the sales price as their tax. In addition, a good number of players open weapon cases on a daily basis to get new skins. Keep in mind... each weapon case opened is $2.49 and the skins opened are worth less than that 90% of the time (maybe even more).

I think I have mumbled enough for now. I can't answer whether CS:GO betting is real gambling or not. And even if it is, how can it be regulated while the player population is a mix of people on both sides of the 21-year-old fence? As much as I respect the success of the virtual economy created by Valve in CS:GO, I'm really hoping they are aware of the grays and flaws and willing to address them in the near future.

Profile Post

This profile post is about a Keith Stuart, someone shows knowledge and passion in video games and the technologies used for games in throughout the history. Stuart is an editor from the Guardian’s games section. He has written about video games and related technology and media in the past 20 years. He started as features editor on the magazine Edge and then started writing about games as freelancer for big publications such as The Official PlayStation Magazine and PC Gamer and T3. Stuart is said to be the “main contributor to the Guardian’s award winning games blog and a regular on the Tech Weekly podcast” (theguardian.com).

Stuart’s experience in the past 20 years certainly shows his capability in writing about games and technology. He constantly follows the latest news and updates and delivers polished analysis and report of various things in the video games industry. For example, in his post about Oculus Rift and virtual reality (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2014/jan/23/oculus-rift-valve-virtual-reality-kickstarter), he accurately explained the current state and future predictions on how VR will affect the games industry and our daily lives. His observation and analysis are thorough and insightful as he examined the VR technology from the beginning of its history, back in the early 90s. Then, he mentioned on Valve’s statement that “VR can become a consumer reality by 2015”, which is considered to be highly authoritative because Valve is one of the few companies that made multiple significant impacts with their technology in the video games industry.

Similar to most technology bloggers, Stuart is excellent at delivering informative contents to the readers. Many of his posts are written in an objective style where he observes and analyzes his subjects. With the 20 year experience as a games reporter, it is difficult to find his observations false or inaccurate. Looking at the comments to his blogs, most of his readers talk about their reaction to the post or something they learn after reading the post. It is hard to find any comments that challenge or disagree with the points made despite that he expresses his voice in certain places in the post.

There are some posts where Stuart takes break from the informative reports. A good example would be his post on Christmas gifts for gamers (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/dec/13/alternative-christmas-present-gifts-gamers). Even though he chose the gifts based on his opinion, he offered some good insights on each of the items just like when he talks about new games or technology. Stuart almost never expresses his voice in an overly assertive way. It is easy to tell that even when he shows voice, he is not trying to start a debate with the people who believe in the other way. Although it is true that his blog topic is not a so serious one, you can feel that he consciously avoids any conflict and simply tries to make the readers enjoy the blog and things about video games in general.

Stuart usually makes couple of posts every week on the Guardian’s official blog site, although I do not know if he publishes in any other places. He definitely seems to be the major author in the Guardian’s game blog as he post significantly more frequently than other authors and I find his posts more interesting than the other ones, both the topic and his writing style. I will definitely continue to follow Stuart for more interesting blogs about various aspects in the video games industry.