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Industry News
2016/07

CS: GO Gambling And Betting Streams Banned By Twitch

Betting and gambling in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been getting dropped left and right from various outlets, institutions and distribution services faster than Alicia Silverstone’s movie career after Batman & Robin. Twitch has now joined in on the efforts to prohibit streamers from broadcasting betting or gambling on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive sites.

Over on the official Twitch website they’ve updated their terms of service and usage agreement in light of Valve officially coming out against illegal and unsanctioned gambling sites for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that use Valve’s OpenID API to integrate Steam accounts into their gambling and betting services.

Valve announced that using the OpenID API for illicit purposes was against their terms of service and that they would be cracking down on these sites.

In light of Valve’s announcement, Twitch wrote…

“[…] per Twitch’s Terms of Service, broadcasters are not permitted to stream content that breaks the terms of service or user agreements of third-parties. As such, content in which the broadcaster uses or promotes services that violate Valve’s stated restrictions is prohibited on Twitch. Our Rules of Conduct lists other examples such as playing pirated games and playing on unauthorized private servers.”

Whether or not you agree with all of Twitch’s decisions, in this particular case they’re clearly coming down against the gambling sites that break Steam’s subscriber agreement and breach Valve’s terms of service for using Steam.

Many of these sites and the promotion of these sites have  been broadcast on YouTube channels that cater towards kids and teenagers playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is illegal across most states in the United States. Many of these sites also operate outside of the United States, but the FTC did mention that they can go after these sites if any citizen within the United States feels as if they’ve been misled or defrauded.

The FTC is currently aware of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling scandal, and various lawyers are attempting to get in on various lawsuits that some individuals are filing against places such as CS: GO Lotto.

(Main image courtesy of Jowdarkangel)

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