Valve's CS2 gambling controversy: Skin gambling and more explained

Valve’s CS2 has garnered a lot of attention after a popular YouTube content creator, Coffeezilla, investigated the skin gambling market. He posted a video on the platform, discussing the inherent issues that exist for the game’s skins that can be traded or even used as currency on seemingly unregulated websites. This raised quite a few concerns as the content creator explained the gambling issue while showcasing some interviews.

Valve’s CS2 is a free-to-play title and carries forward its predecessor's entire cosmetic collection. These items can be traded in the in-game market — the same one as CS:GO — as well as on third-party websites. In the case of the latter, they can also be used as currency for gambling on other games.

This article will highlight the skin gambling controversy that has surfaced for Valve’s CS2.

Note: Parts of this article are subjective and reflect the author’s opinion.

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Coffezilla explores a potential dark side of CS2

While looking through skin gambling for Valve’s popular FPS title, Coffeezilla discovered that various websites take advantage of loopholes to bypass almost any form of identification of the users. This seemingly allows underage players to use their in-game cosmetics for gambling. Almost anyone can reportedly access these websites and use their Steam accounts to start playing.

The websites themselves seem to use a conversion system to provide currency in exchange for the skins. It seems like the value of each of the cosmetics is calculated based on its selling prices in the marketplace. After this is done, the user is provided access to virtual funds that can be used to gamble on different games.

The content creator also emphasized that most of these websites didn't require any form of login procedures. This allowed more users to enter the fold and use their in-game skins for gambling. Coffeezilla also provided some estimates of the profits that such sites could make and showcased the massive cash flow generated from CS2 skins.

Throughout the video, the content creator interacted with several individuals and pointed toward the publicity of the gambling sites. Advertisements and social media platform algorithms promoting such websites make avoiding skin gambling even more difficult. Moreover, several streamers also seem to promote these platforms.

Coffeezilla dove deeper into the issue and stated how a lot of professional CS2 teams are sponsored by some of the biggest gambling sites. Since these organizations make a lot of profit, they can afford to provide larger sponsorships — making it easier to get better players and potentially win more tournaments.

CS2 skin gambling problem highlighted by Coffeezilla (Image via Valve)

The creator concluded the video by speaking about possible solutions to this problem. He said that such an issue cannot be solved on an individual level and implied that Valve, the creator, needed to step in and provide assistance to the community. If the entire skin marketplace were to face more rigid regulations, it could potentially bring a halt to such websites.

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