Guide to Opening CSGO Cases & What to Expect: Exclusive Insights

Let’s start by showing you the exact steps you must follow to open cases in CS:GO – here you have all the details.

1. Buy or Get Cases to Open

Before we talk about opening cases, you need to add one or more cases to your inventory. You can get them as post-match drops via the Weekly Care Package, which requires you to buy the Prime subscription and level up your account within the week before the drop timer resets.

The other way to get cases is to buy them from the Steam Marketplace or your preferred third-party marketplace, or you can trade them for other skins and items you have in your inventory.

2. Buy the Keys to Open Your Cases

Once you have at least one case to open, it’s mandatory to also buy the key to unlock it, because it’s a requirement by Valve. And you have to buy a key for every single CS:GO case you want to open, because once you use it, it will get destroyed along with the container.

You can buy them via Steam, because once you select a case and decide to open it, you just have to click on the green price icon and you’ll be redirected to Steam so you can complete the purchase.

Alternatively, you can also buy keys from the Steam Marketplace or any other third-party CS:GO trading site, or you can trade them for other skins you have in your inventory.

3. Visit Your Inventory

Now it’s time to visit your inventory to find the case you want to open. All you need to do is the following: 

1. Log into your Steam account
2. Hover over your nickname to display the dropdown menu
3. Select Inventory

Automatically, you’ll be able to see all the items inside your inventory, including your available CS:GO cases and keys.

4. Select the Cases You Want to Open

Now that you have access to your inventory, all you need to do is to select the case you want to open and follow these easy steps:

1. Select the CS:GO Case
2. Click on “Open”
3. Select the corresponding key to open the case

Once you select the key and complete the opening process, it will run an animation similar to a roulette, to reveal the skin you’ve just won.

5. Discover The Skin You’ve Just Won

Once the animation stops, it will reveal the skin you’ve just won. It will be added automatically to your inventory, so you can use it in-game, or sell and trade it on Steam or your preferred CS:GO trading site.

Now that it’s clear how you can open CSGO cases, let’s talk in detail about how case opening works, so you can understand what’s going on behind the scenes.

We’ve already provided you with an overview on how to open CS:GO cases, but there’s more going on behind the scenes to make it possible – here you have all the details:

1. You select a CS:GO case and its corresponding key to open it
2. Automatically, a Random Number Generator is executed
3. The Random Number Generator generates a sequence of random values, which makes it impossible for the developer or the user to know the outcome beforehand
4. This random series of values determines the skin that will drop from the case, based on the available contents of the container
5. For a user-friendly experience, the game displays a roulette-like animation to visually show you the skin that will drop from the case
6. The skin you’ve just won is revealed and is added to your inventory

To make sure case opening is fair for all the parties involved, Valve has developed a Random Number Generator, which aleatorily determines what skin will drop from the case. And since it’s a random sequence of aleatory values, no outcome is directly linked to the previous result.

Now you understand in detail how case opening works, however, it’s also important to talk about odds, to see how likely you’re to win a rare or exotic skin

Case opening is 100% random, however, the odds of dropping a skin with a specific rarity will vary greatly. Here you have all the details:

For example, let’s say you decide to open the same case 1,000 times, here you have the full breakdown on the skins you’re projected to win:

• Mil-Spec: 799 skins
• Mythical: 160 skins
• Legendary: 32 skins
• Ancient: 6 skins
• Exceedingly Rare Special: 3 skins

As it’s evident, dropping an Exceedingly Rare Special skin is pretty hard, and here we are talking about the majority of fanciest and most expensive items in CS:GO such as a Karambit Blue Gem, Pandora Gloves, Skeleton Knife Blue Gem, amongst others.

It’s key to be aware of the odds of case opening to understand it’s not easy to drop a rare skin, unless you’re pretty lucky. And this is going to help you decide if it’s worth it to invest quite a bit of money on opening cases, or if you’re better off buying the skin you want from the Steam Marketplace or any other reputable CS:GO trading site such as DMarket.

Because when it comes to rare items, the odds are against you. It will take you approximately 391 openings to drop an Exceedingly Rare Special item, and even if you pick a cheap case like the Kilowatt Case, you’ll have to spend several hundreds of dollars.

When it comes to CS GO case opening tips and tricks, we can summarize them in the following list:

• Treat it like gambling, because there are no guarantees you will win the skin you want or a highly valuable item. As a result, you should also spend disposable income on it, and do it for fun and entertainment, because otherwise you’ll be setting up yourself for disappointment, and being so emotionally attached to your bankroll will lead you to make bad decision
• Decide beforehand your goals respecting case opening. Be it you want to open cases to win a specific skin, or you’re just trying to make a profit, make your intentions clear before you even spend $1 into buying and opening cases. Because by defining your goals, you can pick the best cases to open and set up a proper bankroll management strategy
• If you want to open cases because you want to get a specific skin, always choose the cheapest ones and with a big enough number of listings, this way you will have more tries at unlocking it with a smaller budget
• If you want to open cases to make a profit by just unlocking whatever highly valuable skin you can, stick to cases with a ROI higher than 70%, this way you will reduce the risk of case opening and increase your chances of dropping a rare item
• Set up clear bankroll management rules, to identify the moment when you need to quit and protect your funds
• Always be ready to lose the money you spend in opening CSGO cases. There are no guarantees you’ll make a profit or get the skin you want. That’s how it works and how you need to look at it.

Just based on the odds of CS:GO cases, it’s clear as water that you must remain long enough in the game to be able to drop a rare and exotic skin… unless you’re pretty lucky and can win it after a few openings, but the chances of it happening are very slim.

If you follow our tips, your chances of dropping a valuable skin will be higher than just mindlessly opening cases.

However, if you’re not here to attempt to make a profit, and instead you just want to add a specific skin to your inventory, we invite you to compare case opening vs. buying it directly, so you can make the best decision.

Because if the skin you want will cost you less than $1,000, especially if you don’t mind buying a version with a higher float value, it’s highly likely you’ll spend a lot more money opening cases than if you just bought it from the Steam Marketplace or your preferred third-party marketplace.

Now, if we’re talking about outstandingly rare and valuable skins such as a Karambit Blue Gem, buying it directly won’t be a good decision for everyone because this item will cost you $1.5M. In this case, it can be worth it to spend $1,000-$2,000 to test your luck and see if you can drop it. However, there are no guarantees you’ll win it.

By now, you know pretty much everything about CSGO cases and what to expect. However, this scene has evolved quite a lot during the last few years, giving birth to the now famous third-party case opening sites.

As a result, now you have plenty of alternatives in case you don’t want to open cases in-game because you find the variety not as large, and you don’t feel like spending your hard-earned money on keys… because you’ll need them for every single case you want to open. And if you want to open lots of them to drop a specific skin, the expenses will quickly add up.

On the other hand, third-party case opening site offer the following advantages versus in-game and Steam case opening:

• Third-party sites offer a wide myriad of bonuses including welcome offers and daily promos that reward users with free CSGO cases
• Case opening sites allow you to buy cases and open them right off the bat without spending more money on keys
• These sites offer a larger variety of cases including custom containers that only drop specific skins such as knives, gloves, AK-47s, or weapons with a specific pattern or finish
• You can buy and open cases directly from the site, without having to bid on offers on Steam Marketplace
• You can take advantage of deposit bonuses to boost your bankroll and have more funds for free to open even more cases, further increasing your chances of dropping a highly valuable item

For example, here at CSGOLuck we offer CSGO case opening without having to waste your money on keys, bringing you access to an outstanding variety of custom cases, which will make it easier for you to drop any skin you want, be it a knife, pair of gloves or a rare AK-47.

And opening cases on CSGOLuck is similar to opening a case in CS:GO:

1. Claim cases for free by redeeming your welcome or daily bonuses; or
2. Buy custom case from our marketplace
3. Select the case you want to open
4. Open it
5. You’ll discover what awesome skin you’ve just won!

All the fun with better odds and without wasting your money on keys, makes third-party case opening worth exploring.

This is the end of our CS GO case opening guide, and we hope we have solved all your questions about it. However, if you still want to know more about it, you can leave your comments below and we’ll get back to you ASAP!