Valve is usually reticent about swinging its mighty banhammer wildly, but it seems recent events have forced them to wield it and crack down en masse.
In response to growing concern over Counter-strike: Global Offensive gambling sites, Valve has issued violation notices to at least 23 betting sites that use Valve’s Steam platform to function. According to CSGO Big, one of the sites dedicated to betting weapon skins in CS:GO, posted the letter they received from Valve’s legal department on its Twitter, following it up by saying they would be temporarily shutting down its operations as a result of the letter.
“We are aware that you are operating one of the gambling sites listed below,” says Karl Quackenbash, general counsel to Valve Corporation, in the letter. “You are using Steam accounts to conduct this business. Your use of Steam is subject to the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement (‘SSA’).”
The letter comes after Valve recently clarified that the SSA terms prohibit external sites from asking users to connect their Steam accounts in order to trade in-game items for real-world money. It announced at that time that it would start cracking down on the gambling sites. The letter orders the named sites to “immediately cease and desist further use of your Steam accounts for any commercial purpose. If you fail to do this within ten (10) days Valve will pursue all available remedies including without limitation terminating your accounts.”
CSGO Lotto is one of the sites listed in the letter. That site gained notoriety after it was discovered that two prominent YouTubers, TmarTn and ProSyndicate, hid their ownership of the site while promoting it on their YouTube channels. CSGO Lotto has been offline since July 8th, one day after it was named in a lawsuit filed by a player against Valve and several CSGO gambling sites. The suit alleged that the sites and Valve facilitated underage gambling.
