According to Kotaku, on January 7, a US federal court dismissed a lawsuit against Valve, related to the company’s alleged facilitation of illegal betting on matches. CSGO. This is the final case in a series of lawsuits from parents whose children have purchased CSGO costumes for betting purposes.
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Parent’s lawsuit alleging Valve allowed young children to gamble has been dismissed |
The crux of the lawsuit revolves around whether parents of child players are being scammed by Valve. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Valve violated the laws of Washington state (USA) by tricking parents into giving their children money to buy in-game item chests. It is a disguised form of illegal gambling.
The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed because the plaintiffs (parents) had never used Steam, and so even though Valve posted a warning or specified the purchase and sale information of the item chests, the parents can’t see it either. As a result, the court ruled that the parents could not claim they were deceived by Valve.
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Gambling cases involving CSGO have been around since 2015 on third-party websites and allegedly involve millions of dollars in bets. Participants will buy apparel that they can use to bet on the outcome of matches, and many of them are minors.
Valve takes 1% of the proceeds from each skin sold. So even if skins are not advertised or sold for betting purposes, Valve still makes a profit from each sale, partially betting indirectly on matches. The lawsuit may be more viable if children are the plaintiffs. However, they can’t sue for agreeing to the ‘Steam Subscriber Agreement’, which is one of those legal agreements most people skim through without reading the content.
In short, because the parents have never participated in CSGO or the Steam Marketplace, they cannot prove that they are involved in monetary transactions with Valve, even though the money for the in-game skin purchases is all is theirs. On the other hand, sites with betting activities are not under Valve’s control and players have voluntarily used costumes to bet. So it is impossible to accuse the company.
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