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Valve Sends Cease And Desist Notice To CS:GO Gambling Sites
Last week, shortly after YouTubers Tom Cassell and Trevor Martin were outed as owners of CS:GO Lotto, a site both of them promoted in their content without disclosing ownership, Valve issued a statement that the company would go after gambling companies centered around tradeable Steam items. Turns out Valve is living up to its promise, having sent out a cease and desist letter to 23 gambling sites centered around Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
Here's the statement from Valve:
We are aware that you are operating one of the gambling sites listed below. You are using Steam accounts to conduct this business. Your use of Steam is subject to the terms of the Steam Subscriber Agreement (“SSA”). Under the SSA Steam and Steam services are licensed for persona, non-commercial use only. Your commercial use of Steam accounts is unlicensed and in violation of the SSA. You should immediately cease and desist further use of your Steam accounts for any commercial purposes. If you fail to do this within ten (10) days Valve will pursue all available remedies including without limitation terminating your accounts.
A full copy of the letter is included right here.
You can read news editor Mike Futter's opinion piece about holding the media and influencers accountable in light of this whole debacle here.
Our Take
It's good that Valve has taken steps to address this controversy and hopefully sets a precedent for how the company will address unscrupulous and predatory operations in the future.
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