Counter Strike skins gambling: Australian teenagers risking thousands through popular video game

>Gambling using one of the world's most popular video games is getting out of control and nothing is being done in Australia to protect young people from it, experts have told the ABC.
>Gamers are using Counter Strike Global Offensive (CS:GO) — a hugely successful first person shooter game — to bet on virtual weapons that have real world value.
>Players of any age can obtain the weapons — called skins — in the game and can then gamble them on unregulated third-party websites.
>There are hundreds of websites where the skins can be used to bet on games of black jack, roulette or even a coin flip.
>Jordan Bruce, an 18-year-old gamer from Brisbane, said he played CS:GO for about a year before he started getting into the gambling.
>Like many of the gamers the ABC spoke to, he started with small bets with his friends before things started getting out of control.
>"[I] bet all my money on skins, I was that much into it, then it started getting bad," he said.
>He stole his father's credit card and gambled away about $1,800.
>"I just had that urge. I hated it and I hated myself after it, but at the time I just thought 'I won't get caught'," Jordan said.

abc.net.au/news/2016-05-30/australian-teens-losing-thousands-counter-strike-skins-gambling/7437990

Well, Sup Forums? Why aren't we doing more to protect our children from video games?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=62UzLgdb1GQ
convars.com/case/
steamcommunity.com/market/listings/730/Glock-18 | Fade (Factory New)
youtube.com/watch?v=dtBOPmIBYGg&spfreload=10
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

gtfo grandad

how the fuck do you gamble with skins

im not that old, how does this work

There are betting sites where you trade skins through a computer controlled third party and win or lose based on pro games

I remembered some guy got scammed on this while streaming it.

It's the Australian Meric !

this is one of those things that does not matter

Is this not concerning anyone else? Specifically white males playing games about taking hostages and killing people, now transcending the medium of entertainment and engulfing their finances and actual identity in it.

so what are the rest of us supposed to do? white guys are literally training to be killers and betting their lives on stupid gun power ups. what happens when they lose? columbine? elliot rodger?

it's time to stop getting angry when the rest of us voice concerns, white folks. enough is enough

I got $500 PayPal by scamming kids in tf2 when I was 16.
If you child steals your credit card, he's retarded and will always find ways to act like a retard

gambling is great
Made a little money here on last few days thanks to that

Also
>gambling with skins
No big problem

By beating the shit out of then if they start committing crimes
If not who fucking cares

Buying a key and opening a crate is basically gambling.

> popular video game
> popular

I made 40 grand off of cs gambling.

Kids are fucking retarded and the people who run the websites even more so.

apparently its not considered even gambling since in game skins hold no direct monetary value

They ruined TF2 because of this

Australia is the most advanced country when it comes to gambling. having it down to a science is a understatement.

>played tf2 cuz is good game
>tried getting into trading
>easily the most cancerous and confusing experience ive ever had online without running into scammers

haha

CS:GO is so bad that gambling is more fun than playing that shitty game

1.5 was the best

When I first started it was alright, the prices made sense. The community market fucked everything though...
I think I still have hypothetical $250+ in my backpack but with today's economy it's all so tiresome.

Blame youtubers for making this popular.
People make fucking unboxing videos in the hopes thry will get a rare gun or whatever.

youtube.com/watch?v=62UzLgdb1GQ

can someone explain this to me? do people create and upload skins to steam workshop where people buy them?

Maybe there are community skins but I'm not sure (Using even play them game) and even if it was the case I don't think people are paid to make them.
But basically you buy keys on steam which allow you to open loot crates. Most of the time the shit you get in the crates is worthless but sometime you find something autist are willing to buy (or gamble). If you're smart and have little morals, you can make a good amount of cash from these video games

Even his face looks fucking retarded.

I still dont get it. The keys are like dlc? i never played csgo so this shit seems extremely fucking retarded.

>mfw used to bet on online games of the original Halo and other games before Xbox Live was even invented

the keys are a lotto ticket. you scratch it and it does a lotto for you and you see if you won a good item, or 20 cents.

2.50 usd lotto ticket

No, you randomly get crates from playing the game. Now without keys they are useless so you gotta buy keys in the store (they're worth $2.5 if I'm not mistaken) to open them. Their sole purpose is to open crates

This cunt explains it way better than me

Well no its not dlc. There are 2 items you need to get a weapon skin ingame. A crate and a key. Crates drop randomly ingame and you need to buy a key through steam in order to be able to open them. The crates have certain chances of specific "skins" to drop. For instance the chance to get a knife (which are the most expensive items (ignoring dragonlore etc)) is like 0.5% or something. So you basically buy a die that got 200 sides for 2 bucks and if you roll a 1 you get something good. Some knives are worth more than a thousand dollars because they are so rare to drop. I hope you read this.. this took too long to write

>they're worth $2.5
holy fuck how are people this stupid...

>Australian nigger
>gambles life away

Well in tf2 with the same system you could unbox $1000 dollars hats. I think you might have better odds than roulette or blackjack if you know where to sell the shit you get

factory new stat trak AK-47 fire serpent is worth 4-5 thousand USD

so there is a tiny chance you can make thousands of dollars

They're virtual items gotten from randomly opening digital chests (that cost money) with a virtual key (that costs money).
Those items which are assigned a value depending on what the market dictates can be put up on a website to bet on whatever esports team will win and if they do you get a return on your bet.

do you always get your 2.5 back is skin value?

No

>popular among russian video game

usually you lose almost all the money and get a skin worth 10-20c

Just put all your shit on the community market for a cent under the current price

convars.com/case/
You will hardly make your money back on this rigged shit

Not by a long shot. You mostly lose money. There is a "case opening simulator" you can try out. It even tells you how much money you would have spent and how much you won. You pretty much cant make profit unless you get a really good item right at the beginning and then stop. Pretty much like real gambling

>he isnt a professional e sports gambler in australia paying no tax on any and all winnings

just lol boyo

Of course not, you often get crap, but sometimes you get good shit.
I wouldn't recommend doing that though, scamming people is way more reliable (back in the days at least)

>inb4 the government finds a way to tax this

...

Steam is already requesting tax information for more than 200 Market transactions within a calendar year.

Retarded children being scammed is the reason why Steam puts up all these stupid extra security measures that just make everything more unbearable to use

I don't really use steam anymore and I think most of my items are unreadable anyways.
Check me out at backpack tf/id/homlet

Why not just use money? I take it the skins themselves weren't free.

>paying for weapon skins

I haven't played games in a decade but holy shit did it get worse.

Only in the US. Feels good to be non-american

because the skins are just virtual dress ups for weapons so you can attempt to earn better skins and sell them for real cash

Because kiddies cant really bet high money on sporting events. But by using skins the people behind betting websites are protected from the law.
tl;dr its easier to get money from kids by using skins

I was more of a shark though, I'd trade f2p their name tag for a weapon. I get an item that is worth tf2 metal and they get a cool weapon they can play with. Steam never intended trading to be the way it currently is, they would not sell $0,005 weapons for 5 bucks if they knew

>wanted to get on the skin and sticker gravy train
>can't because no one wanted my stuff because it didn't have neon colors
>no Russian bots to mass vote it in either

Well at least there's always drawing porn 4 moni.

but they cost real cash to begin with
sounds like bullshit tbqh

Gambling is the most degenerate of all vice. If there was one thing I admire those Right Sector hohols for it would be when they smashed up betting shops in Kiev. Burn all betting shops to the ground.

>he doesn't have a 5000 dollar AK-47 with a VACO sticker

loving every laugh

can't help if people are willingly spending this amount ,i been making a decent amount in this game thanks to these knuckleheads

steamcommunity.com/market/listings/730/Glock-18 | Fade (Factory New)

^Das

how? i've read the thread and still don't understand?
do you buy the skins (items) and use that as the stake in a bet?
is it just using the skins as a medium to place a bet because you can't use money to place a bet?

in what way are they stupid? genuinely interested i how this works. i'm always keen to hear about new trends in net-things.

How long till it becomes an excuse to ban all video games in Straya?

>only white males play games and violent games will make you violent irl

quite the hybrid of b8s between anita and jack tompson

The problem isnt videogames, it's valve.
They are the jews of gaming, they don't even make games anymore, just suck off of cosmetics money.

Filter your shit on the right so that only tradeable items are readable but from my perspective a lot of it is. This website also tells you about how much the items are worth. Nigga why do you even have all these keys.
The keys can be sold for like $2.13 (due to Valve tax, without it it'd be 2.40) each on the steam market which can be transformed into Paypal money SOMEHOW but to be honest I don't know how to do a trade like that without being scammed.
By the way don't trust any fuck from reddit or /vg/. Those niggas will gut you.

I know I can, I sold $500 dollars worth of items when I cashed out a while ago. I used to be pro at this and started from literally nothing, I only bought a key once to not have the f2p status.
I just can't be bothered abymore, maybe I'll try again this summer though

>do a random game
>other players talking about skins
>surprise! they suck at the game

>sounds like bullshit tbqh
it is
they're only getting away with it because no one gives a shit about video game virtual markets from legal perspective since they're largely self contained, wait till someone starts prodding the issue in media and academia and made ready for "political discourse" to be used

>virtual weapons that have real world value.

Killurselves

>Virtual currency that has real value

>half-currency that has real value

it's just a piece of shiny metal lads

>play random game
>it's all hackers

God damn counter strike is terrible.

Video very relevant

youtube.com/watch?v=dtBOPmIBYGg&spfreload=10

Yep.

I'm guilty of some of this shit. I like Doom because pretty much everything is unlocked randomly as you level up and it's not a slow grind like COD or influenced by wallet ninja gayden

>spending more time in virtual world than real world

kill me

>is it just using the skins as a medium to place a bet because you can't use money to place a bet?

Yes, its a form of digital currency. There are a lot of ways to make money out of online games.

I know of a scammer who used to run a server for a game and he routinely leveled-up characters with GM powers and sold them to kids.

I also heard of macroing workers, sell the logs/stone/fish/whatever for in-game gold, and then sell the in-game gold for real money.

Twitch streamers get given thousands of dollars worth of free items to use on stream as advertisement for the websites.

I agree it's dumb as fuck though

>people do other things than me

wow what a bunch of fags

And 90% of the gambling sites are scams anyway. Made 2000euro out of a 15euro investment with csgo though..

Wew people finally discovered that paid random loot in vidia are targeted to childrens how incredible.....

>t. Someone who sucks at the game

because gamling is illegal unless you're using virtual video game items

basically the law hasn't caught up yet, but it will. steam was getting away with not offering customer support or refunds for years until consumer protection agencies started suing them

lmao "pros" cheat on live streams

Wtf makes a skin worth $1k+ to somebody??

Rarity I suppose.

People are stupid
Valve drones in particular
More news at 11

rarity
grossly overpaying for something that's rare is nothing new

/thread

Sup Forums being a Captain Obvious all over again..

Are you seriously asking?

feeling like a special snowflake when you equip it in-game and having 12yr old sucking your e-peen

Back in 2011 my buddy sold his purple partyhat for $900 via paypal. He then invested part of it into more rsgp, joined a gambling group and made around $3500 before being banned for real world trading.

Shits weird

...

You sell it to someone else for 1.1k after a while.

Welcome to Australia.

THEY'RE JUST SKINS YOU FUCKING HOMOS.

>then I started realizing there are unalterable odds that wont ever end up working in my favor

lol

>You have to file taxes on your hat collection.

>play GO
>got a box
>have little extra scratch in my account
>buy key for $2.50
>open
>StatTrak guthook painted like smoke
>check market price
>$55
>use it for awhile
>check price again in 2 weeks
>$78
>wait one more week
>sell it for $85 because tards with cards
>buy a bunch of my friends shit on their wishlists because I really don't want anything myself