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Report: CS:GO Lotto And Its Owners Pulled Into A Lawsuit Against Valve
It was recently uncovered that popular YouTubers Tom “ProSyndicate” Cassell and Trevor “TmarTn” Martin are owners of the website CS:GO Lotto – a website they promoted without openly revealing their ownership of the affiliated company. It has called into question the ethics of online influencers, and now a new wrinkle has appeared as the two, and their website CS:GO Lotto, have been pulled into a lawsuit levied against Valve and Counter Strike: GO related to whether or not the trading and selling of the game's randomized skins constitutes gambling.
Polygon reports that Cassell and Martin have been added as an addendum to the lawsuit against Valve which was filed in late June by an anonymous parent on behalf of their child. The lawsuit accuses Valve of knowingly creating system where the game's weapon skins have begun to function like a currency and are being traded and used to place bets.
A filing with the addendum has been submitted, but but hasn't yet been published to the federal district court electronic filing system. We will update this story when we are able to uncover the document with the new information.
[Source: Polygon]
Our Take
There are a lot of difficult factors at play here and I get the sense, especially following Martin's pulled apology video and tweets like this from Cassell, that the two don't quite realize exactly the position they have put themselves in. Something more than a slap on the wrist is in order here and it has the potential to have wide ramifications on the world on online streaming personalities. This is a story absolutely worth keeping tabs on.
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