Senator calls for gambling legistaion against CS:GO

[Trunkage]

This is Australian news. We have a senator who knows about CS:GO!

Also, he think that what happened a few weeks ago was gambling. So he wants to legislate to make CS:GO classed as a gambling game. Valve say they are not complicity and this game shouldn't be punished.

This was bound to happen, right?

 

[Saelune]

If it leads to the removal of keys, great. Ive got tons of crates Id love to open without having to pay over $2 each. Valve and those sites need to stop this bullshit.

That said, politicians and games don't mix well. Australia is also notably inept with dealing with gaming, so who knows if this will be a good or bad thing.

 

[CaitSeith]

Right. This has been warned several times. If you let these things keep going on wild in gaming for too long, some politician will want to regulate gaming and screw it for everyone.

 

[Fat Hippo]

Classifying CS:GO as a gambling game isn't the best way to handle this, but there IS a massive amount of gambling going on through CS:GO. Just take a look at something like this and see how many betting sites revolve around the random drops of this game: http://betcsgo.org/ (looks innocuous, but probably still a shady site, so be warned!)

So before you follow your kneejerk reactions and declare "Damn those politicians!" know that they are not simply imagining things. This is actually happening, and large sums of money are being played for. And while in most western countries, gambling is regulated in various ways, stuff like random drops from games, which do trade for real-world money, have been exempt from these regulations. This is a problem, because it has even led to minors gambling over their steam wallets without the knowledge of their parents (note that many of these sites allow you to log in through your steam account).

So I agree that something should be done. You might find it silly that people pay actual money for CS:GO random drops, but it's the reality, and a lot of money is being moved without any kind of oversight. Valve is going to have to deal with this sooner or later, because this kind of thing is only going to grow in any popular game that allows players to trade their items, and we have gambling regulations for a reason.

 

[Gennadios]

This may be a backtrack from my past 8 years, but I'm all for legislation now. Sure laws will be passed and written by people who don't know much of anything, but there's an entire compliance industry to handle regulation. Those cheap fucks at Valve might even be forced to create a few dozen customer service/content reviewer jobs to make sure the shit that's on Steam complies with regulations.

I could care less about Valve, really. Just because they're the best product on the market doesn't necessarily mean the product is that good.

 

[Leg End]

Australian gubment people can't into video games. In other news, Jack Thompson gets disbarred Is anyone surprised by this?

It will be a bad thing, as noted, Valve are not complicit nor do they encourage it. This is like to trying to declare a shop a gambling venue because someone made a bet for a snickers bar bought there.

This in a nutshell. If the senator saw EVE Online's gambling sites, he'd have a fucking stroke.

Classifying CS:GO as a gambling game isn't the best way to handle this, but there IS a massive amount of gambling going on through CS:GO. Just take a look at something like this and see how many betting sites revolve around the random drops of this game: http://betcsgo.org/ (looks innocuous, but probably still a shady site, so be warned!)

The important distinction is around, not through the game itself.

So before you follow your kneejerk reactions and declare "Damn those politicians!" know that they are not simply imagining things. This is actually happening, and large sums of money are being played for. And while in most western countries, gambling is regulated in various ways, stuff like random drops from games, which do trade for real-world money, have been exempt from these regulations. This is a problem, because it has even led to minors gambling over their steam wallets without the knowledge of their parents (note that many of these sites allow you to log in through your steam account).

That's an issue with parents giving their kids free access to their credit cards, which is as old as online buying itself. Actually even older but I digress.

So I agree that something should be done. You might find it silly that people pay actual money for CS:GO random drops, but it's the reality, and a lot of money is being moved without any kind of oversight.

If people want to be stupid with their money, let them. We don't need regulation for every little thing and barely anything.

Valve is going to have to deal with this sooner or later, because this kind of thing is only going to grow in any popular game that allows players to trade their items,

Again, it's not quite the game itself but the entire system around inventories itself. You can do the same thing with Team Fortress 2 or anything else.

and we have gambling regulations for a reason.

Multiple and most of them are bad. I'd say all but I might be missing some so I'm not going to be that absolute.

 

[Erttheking]

*Sigh* Well Jim did say the gambling scene would bring in attempts at legislation. Sadly he didn't predict the part where it was asinine legislation.

 

[DEAD34345]

Paying real money for a random chance to obtain one of various items sounds like gambling to me. The fact that those particular items are worth differing amounts of real money too makes it even clearer.

Why shouldn't this be regulated like any other kind of gambling?

Ignoring those gambling sites, I can go on steam right now and buy a case which contains a random skin, and each skin is worth a different amount of money when opened, which I can then cash in by selling the item on steam. There's no way Valve can say they're not complicit in that, since they're present in every step and even take a cut (twice). Is there any important way in which that's different to buying a lottery ticket worth a random amount of money?

That's an actual question by the way, I don't actually play CS:GO so it's entirely possible I'm just wrong about how something works. Feel free to correct me.

 

[bluegate]

Paying real money for a random chance to obtain one of various items sounds like gambling to me. The fact that those particular items are worth differing amounts of real money too makes it even clearer.

Why shouldn't this be regulated like any other kind of gambling?

Ignoring those gambling sites, I can go on steam right now and buy a case which contains a random skin, and each skin is worth a different amount of money when opened, which I can then cash in by selling the item on steam. There's no way Valve can say they're not complicit in that, since they're present in every step and even take a cut (twice). Is there any important way in which that's different to buying a lottery ticket worth a random amount of money?

That's an actual question by the way, I don't actually play CS:GO so it's entirely possible I'm just wrong about how something works. Feel free to correct me.

Muh games! Grown ups coming after muh garmez!?!?!!!?!!!!11!1

About time these shitty practices within games were recognized for what they actually are.

 

[Areloch]

Ignoring those gambling sites, I can go on steam right now and buy a case which contains a random skin, and each skin is worth a different amount of money when opened, which I can then cash in by selling the item on steam. There's no way Valve can say they're not complicit in that, since they're present in every step and even take a cut (twice). Is there any important way in which that's different to buying a lottery ticket worth a random amount of money?

That's an actual question by the way, I don't actually play CS:GO so it's entirely possible I'm just wrong about how something works. Feel free to correct me.

As far as I know, you can't ever turn any of that into actual cash. You could potentially sell or trade it for steam wallet cash or other items of value in the steam ecosystem, but you'll never(outside of going to a third party) get real cash out of the deal.

At which point, it's pretty much the same as demanding full gambling regulation on trading card games, because you pay money to get random cards and you could potentially sell those cards to someone or trade them to someone for other cards.

 

[Gorrath]

Ignoring those gambling sites, I can go on steam right now and buy a case which contains a random skin, and each skin is worth a different amount of money when opened, which I can then cash in by selling the item on steam. There's no way Valve can say they're not complicit in that, since they're present in every step and even take a cut (twice). Is there any important way in which that's different to buying a lottery ticket worth a random amount of money?

That's an actual question by the way, I don't actually play CS:GO so it's entirely possible I'm just wrong about how something works. Feel free to correct me.

As far as I know, you can't ever turn any of that into actual cash. You could potentially sell or trade it for steam wallet cash or other items of value in the steam ecosystem, but you'll never(outside of going to a third party) get real cash out of the deal.

At which point, it's pretty much the same as demanding full gambling regulation on trading card games, because you pay money to get random cards and you could potentially sell those cards to someone or trade them to someone for other cards.

I agree with you here. The idea that unlocking crates with random loot equates to gambling would also mean any kind of randomized product distribution would be the same. I don't think Magic The Gathering needs to be regulated under gambling laws just because you get random cards worth different real-world dollar amounts. One could build a gambling game out of MTG packs but it wouldn't be MTG that would need regulating, it would be the people running the gambling game.

 

[Neverhoodian]

A link to the article for those interested in reading more:
http://www.pcgamer.com/an-australian-politician-wants-counter-strike-go-to-be-defined-as-gambling/

Goddammit Valve, now look where you've ended up. Because of your unwillingness to act we now have to get governments involved, all because you couldn't be assed to maintain a minimum of oversight. You brought this upon yourselves.

I honestly don't know why folks still place Valve on such a high pedestal in this day and age when they've had such a dismal track record over the past few years. "Praise Gaben" my ass.

On the plus side, this may spell the end of the skeevy crates/keys money scheme that's spreading like a plague in the industry.

 

[Elijin]

I don't agree with just shoving it under existing gambling legislations, but I'm baffled at people saying Valve aren't complicit in this.

Sure, they didn't run the gambling sites creating all the fuss. They just ran a game where you put your $2 in, spin the lever and get goods ranging in worth from a few cents to a thousand dollars. If that's not gambling, what the hell is gambling?

And that's the thing, as an Australian, I can tell you that classifying it as a gambling game under the legislation in question means they're lumping it in with the slot machines. Which, the CS:GO cases could be easily argued to be in that class.

Its what happens when you combine a RNG lootbox system that can only be opened by paying money, with a sanctioned real money marketplace to trade the goods coming from those lootboxes. You create a slot machine proxy. Most games get around this by expressly forbidding the sale of digital goods for real money in their CoC/ToS (MMOs etc).

So yeah, I'm not on board for this to be covered in lazy blanket legislation, but they're also not wrong in viewing the implementation of cases in CSGO (and TF2) as gambling.

 

[Fat Hippo]

SNIP

Hell, I suppose it's a difference in ideology, but when it comes to gambling, I think it's better to protect the idiots to a certain extent rather than letting them be the victims of their own stupidity. When it comes to most lawmaking I'm more liberal than that, but the damage caused by people gambling themselves into complete destitution just seems worse than the decrease in freedom gambling regulation bring with them. Because those people usually aren't just damaging themselves, but also people around them, such as their families. Which is why I think a form of "hidden" gambling like this (although the actual mechanics of the gambling are almost identical to a slot-machine) should be controlled in the same way that other online gambling is.

Note that I DON'T think classifying CS:GO as a gambling game is the right way to approach this, but rather that something should change in general. This is certainly the wrong to do it, but Valve has been dragging their feet because they know perfectly well that are profiting a great deal from letting people use their game in this manner. They should have acted before it even got to this point.

 

[Amir Kondori]

Politicians are so out of touch, and for reason that seems to go double in Australia.

 

[DEAD34345]

-snip-

As far as I know, you can't ever turn any of that into actual cash. You could potentially sell or trade it for steam wallet cash or other items of value in the steam ecosystem, but you'll never(outside of going to a third party) get real cash out of the deal.

At which point, it's pretty much the same as demanding full gambling regulation on trading card games, because you pay money to get random cards and you could potentially sell those cards to someone or trade them to someone for other cards.

What you're saying makes sense, I guess that's the legal difference, but it's also just obviously stupid. All of those items are regularly transferable into real money, and steam itself even accepts "steam wallet money" as an alternative for real money. All you've really done is convinced me that Magic: The Gathering absolutely is gambling and needs regulation too.

Actually, hell, if that's the important point then why is what goes on in casinos considered gambling? After all, you can only win or lose plastic chips, so no harm done? Or if there's just some law against that specifically, maybe I should open a casino in which the prizes are given in precious metals. Children of all ages welcome.

What gets regulated and what doesn't seems totally arbitrary. You joke about regulating trading card games, but maybe the world would be better if children couldn't be manipulated into spending all their money on packs searching for rare cards they have no chance to get. Would it really be a bad thing if those games had to abandon the randomized part and just sell the damn cards[footnote]A bad thing for the world I mean. Obviously it would be bad for their profits.[/footnote]?

 

[WindKnight]

If it leads to the removal of keys, great. Ive got tons of crates Id love to open without having to pay over $2 each. Valve and those sites need to stop this bullshit.

That said, politicians and games don't mix well. Australia is also notably inept with dealing with gaming, so who knows if this will be a good or bad thing.

Keep in mind, Florida technically banned the internet in a rushed attempt to ban online gaming. This may go wrong if people rush it or aren't careful

 

[Areloch]

-snip-

As far as I know, you can't ever turn any of that into actual cash. You could potentially sell or trade it for steam wallet cash or other items of value in the steam ecosystem, but you'll never(outside of going to a third party) get real cash out of the deal.

At which point, it's pretty much the same as demanding full gambling regulation on trading card games, because you pay money to get random cards and you could potentially sell those cards to someone or trade them to someone for other cards.

What you're saying makes sense, I guess that's the legal difference, but it's also just obviously stupid. All of those items are regularly transferable into real money, and steam itself even accepts "steam wallet money" as an alternative for real money. All you've really done is convinced me that Magic: The Gathering absolutely is gambling and needs regulation too.

Actually, hell, if that's the important point then why is what goes on in casinos considered gambling? After all, you can only win or lose plastic chips, so no harm done? Or if there's just some law against that specifically, maybe I should open a casino in which the prizes are given in precious metals. Children of all ages welcome.

What gets regulated and what doesn't seems totally arbitrary. You joke about regulating trading card games, but maybe the world would be better if children couldn't be manipulated into spending all their money on packs searching for rare cards they have no chance to get. Would it really be a bad thing if those games had to abandon the randomized part and just sell the damn cards[footnote]A bad thing for the world I mean. Obviously it would be bad for their profits.[/footnote]?

Casinos are different because you can go from Cash->Chips->Cash all inside the same establishment. The casino is directly responsible for the control of taking and giving you back actual, real money.

Likewise, if Valve had taken cash, gave a loot crate, and then gave you the option of selling the item from the crate and getting actual cash back, then that could be pretty reasonably considered to be the same as a casino.

But, what arbitrary articles people decide to sell or trade to others for the potential of profit doesn't fall under the same scope if they do it completely separate from the original goods provider.

By that logic, any and every instance in which you "Pay money for a thing, don't get exactly what you want, and then trade or sell it", it becomes gambling.

At that broad scope, the used games market could be considered gambling. You pay money for a game, but since you don't know that you'll like it or not, you try it out, hate it, and then either sell/trade it to someone else, or trade it back into the store to get credit to pick up another game. Same thing for used cars, and so on.

You can't reasonably hold the original provider of a good accountable for the end user's secondary activities with the good unless they are directly and expressly the controlling point for the transitions of both cash->good->cash. Otherwise a whole bunch of standard economic systems can be considered gambling.

As for "maybe the world would be better if children couldn't be manipulated into spending all their money on packs searching for rare cards they have no chance to get". Maybe the world would be a better place if parents actually raised and taught their kids and the kids can make rational, weighted decisions about whether the chance to get a card they want is worth it or not.