CS:GO skin gambling banned by Twitch
This afternoon, Twitch updated its community guideline standards to include more specifics regarding the practice as it has become a controversial topic on the website over the last year or so. In today's update, Twitch specifically remarked on Counter-Strike skin gambling, a practice that has become widespread since skins were first introduced to the game.
Over the years, skins have become a vital part of the game and the scene's economy with gambling websites even sponsoring teams, events, and streamers. While websites like CSGO Lotto have been the subject of legal action and poor community-wide sentiment in the past, now, others such as CSGORoll, KeyDrop, SkinClub, and many, many more rule the online gambling scene.
In 2016, Valve stated that gambling sites using the Valve "OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements". Valve would later send cease and desist notices to 23 sites violating those agreements requesting that those websites cease operations using Steam or be subject to litigation.
Recently, skins gambling has continued to come under fire, most especially due to CSGORoll's partnership with G2. In May, G2 announced a sponsorship with the notorious skin gambling website by using Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov as the main subject, just one day after he officially turned 18 years old. The organization is still sponsored by CSGORoll as are the individual players, as can be seen from a clip of m0NESY's stream just last week.
As for Twitch, the new rule specifically regarding CS:GO skins, is below.
According to YouTuber HOUNGOUNGAGNE who posted a video about the torrential flow of skin gambling on Twitch, nearly 75% of the top 300 CS:GO streamers on Twitch have some sort of skin gambling advertisement linked either in their biography section or on the screen while streaming.
We have yet to see how strictly Twitch will enforce these guidelines, and we can only guess as to the wide-reaching impacts that this decision could cause for both individual streamers and events.
