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Well that didn't take long. Following the revelations that a number of prominent Youtube Let's Player personalities had hidden their ownership of a CS:GO gambling site that they were promoting to their young audiences, Trevor ‘TmarTn' Martin and Tom ‘ProSyndicate' Cassell are now being sued.
Although there is a lot of general controversy surrounding sites like CSGOLotto which allow players to gamble their in-game skins against one another in a randomised winner-takes-all scenario, the fact that these guys pretended it was a cool site they had just discovered naturally, is seen as far worse. They actively promoted the site as a great place to make quick money, to a young, impressionable audience.
And now that audience is striking back. Or more accurately, its parents are, as it's on behalf of their child that one parent has filed against the pair of Youtubers. The prosecuting lawyer in this case is Jasper Ward, who doesn't have much in the way of game-related legal action, but is often responsible for class-action suits and personal injury claims.
And while this controversy continues, CSGOLotto keeps on raking in its eight percent cut.
The lawsuit alleges that the duo of Youtubers “actively promote Lotto as a gambling service, including to minors” and that they hid their involvement with the site. Although both men involved have previously claimed innocence – even retroactively adding text to the their video descriptions to explain the promotion – many have pointed out earlier videos of theirs which seem to suggest that they had merely stumbled across the website.
In-fact, they had owned CSGOLotto from the start and may have even benefited during gambling roll-offs themselves, by tweaking the back-end algorithm.
Although both men had posted some form of apology, they mostly cover people ‘getting the wrong idea,' or ‘feeling mislead,' rather than actually admitting any fault. It seems likely from the way they spoke, that they have had legal representatives involved in the process from the earliest moment of this debacle.
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KitGuru Says: It seems hard to imagine a judge or jury not finding solid evidence against these guys. The sheer volume of videos they've produced where their ownership of the site isn't made clear, is huge. That will not help if this ever goes to trial.
Part of me hopes that CSGOLotto stays alive through all this. I have no idea who these guys are as youtubers or streamers or any of the sort but I found the site on my own and it is a pretty good one in its own right. Plus, it turned my £100 knife into £500 within a couple of weeks (before losing to the same side of a coin 8 times in a row)
“Part of me hopes that [these guys who exploit children] stay alive through all this.” – Gary Keen
I couldn’t give a single shit about the owners, and the site can change ownership
Not gonna happen. It’s their business, their product, their IP. Therefore, if they go down, the site goes with them.
So its OK to take money off Little Kids (Minors).
(If a skin has a cash worth, then its money. I think you have to pay 2.50 to unlock one)
Paid for skins should be banned as should that site and similar sites.
These are valve skins, and they are as guilty as the two CSGO twats.
Then let CS:GO gambling sites introduce identification systems similar to how, for example, OPSkins validates identity for big purchases (blocks large transactions until multiple proof of identity checks are performed – Third party system to check an official proof of ID such as passport or driving licence plus two documents or letters confirming you are the person in said form of identity).
Any way what you’re describing is a general problem that’s been around from the start
Are you really that arrogant? The owners shouldn’t of been playing on their own site due to rigging.
I’m not saying they should’ve, and I even mentioned in the very post you replied to that they probably were rigging the game. Do you even read?
So these two guys hid the truth about their ownership of this site, but what law(s) have they actually broken?
Last I checked, being a massive douchebag wasn’t a crime. I’m not defending these guys, I just want to understand why they’re being sued. Can someone please explain?
Yes they do own the site, and generally speaking nothing is wrong with hiding that fact. But there are major issues here.
Firstly, they did not disclose that they in fact, owned the gambling site while pumping out their gambling videos which implied that they were just visitors of the site. In many countries, you must disclose this information in order to not mislead the consumer. Not only were they owners, they originally founded the site since day 1 of its inception.
Secondly, there is a conflict of interest. They are using the gambling site, while being business-related to it. This is very wrong since it is possible for such people to ‘mess’ with the results. This is why people who own their own Casinos and employees do not gamble at their own Casino, due to that ‘possibility’. There are other normal instances such as consumer competitions (pc giveaway) it clearly states that employees of the Company’s giveaway are not able to enter. You can google the term “Conflict of Interest” for a better understanding.
Because of the two issues involved above, it can be said that these actions were (knowingly) aimed at convincing minors to gamble. It is true, maybe they were actually aimed at adults, but IF there is a possibility of it being done to minors then it becomes illegal. Existing gambling ventures have proper legal systems in place to prevent being called out on such issues.
I believe the fact that it is a ‘gambling site’ is itself a legal issue as well. Considering I once ran into issues just trying to make a site where I raffled off things because it was considered ‘gambling’
It will be an issue if you do not have the proper licensing. I can’t deny or confirm if this is a part of the case, but seeing as Valve will be sued for this issue, it is definitely a possibility.