Over the holiday weekend, a whole load of dirt got thrown into the already murky waters of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling scene. Popular YouTubers Trevor āTmarTnā Martin and Tom āProSyndicateā Cassell were revealed to be key staff of a skin gambling site theyāve promoted (sans overt disclosure of that fact) on multiple occasions.
CSGO Lotto is a site where you can gamble real money in hopes of winning Counter-Strike weapon skins, the rarest of which are worth hundreds and even thousands of dollars in real world cash. If you pay a few dollars, you watch a roulette-style apparatus select who wins an item. Sites like CSGO Lotto stand to rake in a handsome sum off these transactions. A Bloomberg report from earlier this year pegged the Counter-Strike gambling sceneās value (in 2015 alone) at $2.3 billion.
The controversy surrounding Martin, Cassell, and CSGO Lotto began when HonorTheCall posted a video in which they dug into major CSGO gambling site CSGO Lottoās incorporation details and discovered some pretty stunning information: the siteās president is Trevor Martin, and its VP is Thomas Cassell. Despite this, Martin has posted videos like āHOW TO WIN $13,000 IN 5 MINUTESā about CSGO Lotto, while Cassell has done things like taking a $50 sum and using it to rack up hundreds of dollars on the site.
In a lengthy video entitled āDeception, Lies, and CSGO,ā h3h3Productions dug even deeper:
In short, h3h3 was unable to find any instances of Martin or Cassell disclosing affiliation with CSGO Lottoālet alone high level operation of it. Responding to this in a video thatās since been made private, Martin claimed that, āThis is something that has never been a secret.ā Cassell, meanwhile, claimed (via Twitter) that, āIāve always disclosed that my CSGO videos were sponsored & even asked a YouTube employee if anything more was needed & they said it wasnāt.ā He also apologized to anyone who felt they were misled. Thatās someā¦ interesting wording, especially coming from a guy who previously found himself in hot water after failing to disclose financial ties to Dead Realm, a multiplayer horror game he promoted on his YouTube channel.
On top of that, in an earlier video about CSGO Lotto thatās since been made private (you can see it in h3h3ās video above, however), Martin said things like, āWe found this new site called CSGO Lotto, so Iāll link it down in the description if you guys want to check it out. We were betting on it today and I won a pot of like $69 or something like that, so it was a pretty small pot, but it was like the coolest feeling ever. I ended up following them [CSGO Lotto] on Twitter and stuff, and they hit me up and theyāre talking to me about potentially doing like a skin sponsorship.ā That is, as PC Gamer points out, a pretty strange way to talk about a site you helped found.
Martin has also claimed that CSGO Lotto videos did include disclosures, but if you run videos like āHOW TO WIN $13,000ā³ through the olā Wayback Machine, it appears that a very slight disclosureāāvideo made possible by CSGO Lottoāāwas added after the fact. Other videos, meanwhile, either lack the disclosure or have been made private.
Martin has also claimed that he wasnāt in charge of CSGO Lotto when that first video was posted, that it was a āfeelerā to see if partnering with the gambling site would be a worthwhile business venture. Again, however, the incorporation paperwork suggests otherwise.
Promoting a site like this sans disclosure is, of course, illegal, per rules laid out by the Federal Trade Commission last year. Itās also tough to look at a situation like this without wondering if Martin and Cassell were being entirely honest about their earnings on CSGO Lotto. If they control it, after all, flubbing the numbers isnāt outside the realm of possibility. I should stress, however, that I am merely speculating on widely held sentiment. It has not been proven that Martin or Cassell did anything to that effect. That said, a YouTuber named PsiSyndicate (no relation to ProSyndicate) has since claimed that a different CSGO gambling site rigged their system so he could win big and post a video promoting his earnings. So, if you buy his account of events, it is a thing that can happen in CSGOās bandit-friendly Wild West of a gambling scene.
I reached out to both Martin and Cassell for comment. While the latter has yet to respond, the former said, āWe are not making any statements at this point in time.ā However, they are hoping to have something ready later today.
Until then, this is decidedly not a good look for a reportedly multi-billion dollar scene thatās already facing scrutiny due to a pending lawsuit against Valve over the legality of facilitating what essentially amounts to unregulated gambling. Regulation, youād hope, would stop something like Martin and Cassellās shady dealings from occurring. Or at least, itād discourage people from attempting to game the system.
The bottom line: Valve needs to drop the hands-off approach and grab ahold of this thing asap. The Counter-Strike gambling scene might be helping funnel millions into Valveās pockets, but they can no longer afford to stay silent about it.
Update 7/6/16: Martin has issued an apology video in which he seems decidedly not very sorry. He once again claimed his connection to CSGO Lotto has been āa matter of public recordā since the company first came into existence. Weird, seeing as he previously claimed one of his videos was a āfeelerā to see if he should partner with the site. In that video, he sure made it seem like heād never heard of it before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjyGQV2i9eU
He went on to then do the actual, you know, apologizing. Kinda. āI owe you guys an apology,ā he said. āI am sorry to each and every one of you who felt like that was not made clear enough to you.ā So yeah, sorry you felt that way! A real stand-up moment of responsibility and penance, there. What a guy.
He added, āI am committed to making sure my YouTube channel and all of my other businesses are in compliance with the law.ā At this time, however, many of his CSGO Lotto videos are still set to private, and his next steps are unclear.
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