Just imagine that a new casino is opening in the neighborhood. However, bets are not made with money, but with surprise egg figures and Panini stickers. Sounds harmless at first, after all, Smurfs, Happy Hippos and football scrapbooks only collect dust in the basement anyway. But now a famous influencer has bet his “Shopping Smurfette” (2021, estimated value: 3 euros) and won an “Eierlaufschlumpf” (1984, estimated value: 999 euros) live in the stream. From now on the kids are queuing up in front of the casino, first blowing up the leftovers in the cellar and then going to the kiosk next door to buy pallets of cheap Surprise Egg figures to use on the roulette table.
That sounds absurd, but it is reality in the platform economy of gaming. Virtual objects have been an integral part of popular games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Sometimes the in-game items are purely cosmetic, sometimes they bring specific game advantages. On distribution platforms like Steam the virtual guns and items of clothing can also be traded among the players. Sometimes moon prices are requested (an AK-47 in the “Wild Lotus” design can cost between 2,000 and 10,000 dollars), but mostly these are largely worthless items that cannot be sold for a profit. And for this annoying ballast in the inventory, various online casino platforms are now making a tempting offer: With us you can use your junk items as a bet and maybe make a big profit!
The YouTube-Channel People Make Games, who regularly reports investigatively on the gaming industry, has now dedicated an entire video to this game of chance with virtual objects (a second part of the research follows). And what comes out there is pretty amazing. Influencers who rake in big profits live in their streams turn out to be investors in the gambling platforms and have diligently helped out with their own opportunities. The distribution platform Steam capitalizes on increased demand for in-game items (ie wager) through percentage share of sales, but washes their hands in (libertarian) innocence because gambling ends up happening outside of their own platform (but using their API). Interviews with gamblers, some of whom already came into contact with gambling on virtual objects when they were minors, report high losses and pathological betting behaviour. So far there is no effective regulation.
Despite some major controversies in the past, games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive continue to support a thriving, unregulated gambling scene. And these days, Valve seems pretty disinterested about trying to police this space. We take a look at what that’s meant for players who’ve gambled away life-altering amounts of money and try to make sense of Valve’s decision not to step in and do something about it.