Is Skin Betting Still Legal?

As briefly introduced in the article, CSGO skin gambling involves using virtual items which are known as weapon skins as a form of currency to gamble. These Counter-Strike items have essentially become betting chips for players to wager on different outcomes or games.

Skins in CSGO are purely for cosmetic purposes. They alter how a weapon in the game looks, but do not interfere with gameplay and is by no means a “pay-to-win” aspect. However, these weapon skins are tradable, meaning they can be bought, sold, or exchanged for other skins.

The fact that these skins can be transferred from one player to another has given these virtual items real-world value, meaning skins actually have prices. The prices of these skins can range up to tens of thousands of dollars, so you can imagine how crazy skin gambling gets.

Today, millions of dollars of CSGO skins are circulated daily for gambling and betting means. However, it is important to understand how we got to this point in the first place. Let’s take a dive into CSGO skin betting history and how it all started.

How Did It Begin?

When Valve introduced Counter-Strike skins in 2013, the community was loving the idea of having their weapon’s appearance look different. As a result, more and more players started trading skins with other members of the community.

It didn’t take long for people to catch on that these skins could be used for gambling. Numerous third-party websites started using this opportunity to facilitate gambling using these virtual items.

The first prominent website to take over was CSGOLounge, a website that allowed players to bet on professional matches using their CSGO skins. As the skins and esports industry grew, more and more players started gambling on matches with their skins. The success of CSGOLounge ignited a fire in the industry, and more third-party websites started to emerge.

In the next wave of third-party gambling websites, we shifted from betting on professional matches to straight up gambling. These websites were incorporating real casino games such as Roulette, Jackpot, and Coin Flip. Players would start gambling against each other and start taking skins from one another.

Early Signs Of Legal Issues

Even though skin gambling became a fun hobby for most players of age whose financial status allowed for such activities. However, there were a lot of legal concerns that built up when CSGO gambling started becoming more popular.

The potential of underage gambling was one of the biggest sparks. On top of underaged gambling, several third-party gambling sites began rigging games to unfairly win games and essentially steal the money of legitimate players.

Eventually, legal issues started piling up until the bubble completely burst. There were so many issues that skin gambling had become infested with problems and scams.

Valve Tries To Terminate Skin Betting

Valve, the developers of Counter-Strike, had never intended for their skins to be used as betting chips, and were not involved in running any gambling websites. However, their skins were misused for such purposes, and they still had to take the blame since all of these issues were only possible because of Counter-Strike skins.

Valve was not happy about the situation, and decided to take action. To combat the issue, Valve implemented a 7-day trade hold for every weapon skin.

Previously, players would deposit skins to these websites by sending a trade offer. If they won skins, they could withdraw them and the website would send them a trade offer immediately. This was the primary method of transferring skins, and these trade offers did not have any trade holds so deposits and withdrawals were instant.

Now that we’ve gotten a brief history of CSGO skin betting, let’s talk about the three main issues that started the discussion of whether skin betting was legal.

Underaged Gambling

The biggest issue with skin gambling was undoubtedly underage gambling. Almost all CSGO gambling websites at the time either had very weak age verification, or no age verification at all.

Children would watch their favorite YouTubers and streamers gambling on these websites, wagering thousands of dollars and winning thousands more. Being young and naive, these children think they could do the same, and would start gambling on their own.

Since there are no verification processes, underaged players could easily log in to these websites and start depositing their skins. There were so many cases where children reported that they had lost hundreds, even thousands of dollars from gambling.

Unregulated Websites and Lack of Transparency

Another prominent problem was the creation of unregulated websites. Most of the third-party gambling websites in the early days of CSGO gambling were operating without a proper gambling license. This increases the risk of fraud and unfair practices.

A regulated website would have a proper age verification system, and would also remove any potential of rigging games. However, there were almost zero regulated websites, and people could only trust that their owners weren’t pulling any strings.

Obviously, there was bound to be some shady stuff going on behind the scenes, and it did. Several websites started rigging games in their favor, making legitimate players lose money in an unfair manner.

The largest case of such fraudulent activities stemmed from TmarTn and ProSyndicate’s scandal. The two names are popular content creators with millions of followers. They joined in on the CSGO skin gambling trend and started playing on a website called CSGOLotto.

They seemed to just be playing on the website and having a good time, until it was exposed that the two are owners of the website. As a result, community members started calling them out for playing on a website that they owned, which would give them the potential to rig games in their favor.

This incident caused a massive stir in the CSGO community, as we never know if other content creators had affiliations to gambling sites and were rigging games in their favor the whole time.

Match-fixing

CSGO betting has also caused professional players to have malicious intentions. The act of match-fixing involves a professional team or player to intentionally lose their games to get a specific outcome for a match.

The most well-known incident of match-fixing involved iBUYPOWER, one of the best North American teams at the time. The iBUYPOWER squad was set to play against team NetCodeGuides.com in a Best of 1 series, where they were extremely favored to win.

However, the players on the iBUYPOWER roster decided to bet thousands of dollars on NetCodeGuides.com to win the series, where the payouts were around 8 times their initial bets.

When the match started, the iBUYPOWER team made several questionable plays, and started intentionally missing shots. The game ended in an easy victory for NetCodeGuides.com, and iBUYPOWER didn’t seem like they were trying at all.

In a few months, Valve announced lifetime bans after the iBUYPOWER squad was caught red handed. This was a massive issue as gambling and betting had infested the professional scene.  To this day, there are still numerous cases of match-fixing in online tournaments, which breaches the integrity of competition in Counter-Strike.

The answer is yes, and no. Laws on CSGO skin gambling vary by jurisdiction, in other words, where you live. Different countries and states have varying laws on skin gambling, so we cannot give an answer for everyone.

Skin Gambling In the USA

In the United States, skin gambling falls under the category of online gambling. Different states in the USA have distinct approaches to skin gambling. Some states have explicitly legalized it, while others have deemed it close to illegal.

There is a massive gray area because skins come from a unique nature. CSGO skins are not traditionally recognized as a currency or a physical and tangible betting instrument, so it is hard to understand where they have to be placed. There is further difficulty as the monetary value of skins can fluctuate in price, as prices can double if Valve releases a new announcement.

The US board is still looking to make clearer regulations as Counter-Strike gambling becomes more popular over the years. The legal community is seeking to establish a common ground where they can create laws that coexist without compromising the integrity of any party.

Skin Gambling In Other Countries

Generally speaking, skin gambling should be legal for everyone as long as they are of age. Nowadays, CSGO gambling websites are stricter with age verifications and operate with verified gambling licenses to ensure there are no shady activities going on.

Most websites require users to go through a Know Your Customer (KYC) system, where players must verify their identity and age by uploading pictures of state-issued IDs and other personal information such as age and address.

Many countries ban their residents from accessing CSGO gambling sites, but this is easily bypassed by using a VPN. However, it should concern you if a CSGO site is blocked in your country, as there is a high chance it is illegal in your jurisdiction. Be very careful if you want to access these blocked websites.

Generally, yes, skin gambling in 2024 is safe. The dark times of CSGO gambling occurred in the earlier days, when lots of websites were unregulated and unlicensed. Since then, CSGO websites have begun getting gambling licenses, as well as implementing verification systems to abide by the law.

As long as you choose a reputable and well-known website, you shouldn’t be exposed to any rigging or unfair practices. Every trusted website will have no issues displaying their gambling licenses, and also make sure that the website is protected with an SSL Encryption so your data is secure.

However, we strongly advise you to move from CSGO gambling to cash gambling. We suggest turning to official esports bookmakers instead of CSGO bookmakers, as skin gambling has died out over the years. Official bookmakers have several licenses, and the chances of getting scammed are little to none.

We also recommend turning into esports betting instead of casino gambling. Esports betting allows you to research teams and players, as well as their recent form. It adds room for skill instead of blindly betting on red on Roulette. Additionally, esports odds aren’t as bad as casino odds, as the odds are always against you and the house always wins.

You can ask any active Counter-Strike bettor, and they will tell you that CSGO skin gambling is going to be non-existent in the next few years. The 7-day trade hold has limited the mobility of items, and nobody has the patience to wait a week to withdraw skins after winning.

Most CSGO gambling sites understand this, and have started implementing cash deposits and withdrawals. They still have CSGO skins available for withdrawal, but we might see fewer and fewer skins in the near future.

Dealing with cash instead of skins is much easier since everything is immediately liquid and you won’t have to wait 7 days for your item to be tradable again.

One of the main reasons why some states and countries ban CSGO gambling is to prevent gambling addiction, especially for minors. Here are some safety measures CSGO gambling sites should perform to prevent their users from developing a gambling addiction.

Implement Age Verification

To abide by most law jurisdictions, gambling sites should implement a fully functional age verification system to weed out underaged gamblers. It is also optional for them to put parental controls to ensure minors are monitored.

Most underage users are not educated enough to understand the risks and consequences of gambling, and developing an addiction at such an early age can ruin the futures of these minors.

Promote Responsible Gambling

Websites should have good practices that promote responsible gambling. They should have sections of their website educating its users about how important it is to gamble responsibility, and the various consequences of addiction. They should also provide resources for users who are struggling with gambling and teach them steps to mitigating the risks associated with gambling and betting.

Allowing Self-Exclusion

Finally, every website should have a self-exclusion feature. Self-exclusion is required for players to temporarily ban themselves from placing bets on the website or accessing it at all. This allows players to take a break and set the exclusion duration to however long they want to. The self-exclusion period can last a day, a week, or even a month. This should be a standard for every gambling website to follow.