<story><title>Steam warns users against gambling site after YouTube stars discovered as owners</title><url>http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-04-youtube-stars-criticised-after-it-emerges-they-owned-gambling-site-they-promoted</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>balls187</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s actually really similar to japans Pachinko system where you don&amp;#x27;t win money.. but you win something that can be traded for money right around the corner.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s how most (all?) real life casinos work too. You get chips, which are exchanged for money.</text></item><item><author>bluejellybean</author><text>The amount of fraud and thieves inside the community would make your eyes spin. I&amp;#x27;ve had to straight block trading with a large chunk of the world.&lt;p&gt;A big part of this stems from the concept that in-game items are not _really_ money. It allows these online casinos to flourish because  it&amp;#x27;s &amp;#x27;just in-game skins&amp;#x27;! It&amp;#x27;s actually really similar to japans Pachinko system where you don&amp;#x27;t win money.. but you win something that can be traded for money right around the corner.  In reality land, I can cash out of valves ecosystem for around 20% of in-game currency and some of those skins are worth thousands of dollars...&lt;p&gt;These gambling sites really piss me off because they hurt the community. You have to remember, we&amp;#x27;re talking about young teenagers getting robbed from these guys, and it&amp;#x27;s not just their lunch money. We are easily talking hundreds of thousands to millions in revenue each year.</text></item><item><author>eertami</author><text>Real shady stuff and definitely immoral. The most telling part of this whole debacle for me came from a (now deleted) tweet by TmarTn[1] where he states:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; That being said, everything we&amp;#x27;ve done up until this point has been legal, that has been a #1 priority of ours. The day it becomes illegal is the day we cease activity.&lt;p&gt;So just because something is apparently not illegal (questionable, actually), it is apparently an acceptable thing to do. Hopefully legal action is successful against these frauds.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;wHdZG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;wHdZG&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ams6110</author><text>Casino chips are just proxies for cash and they exchange 1:1. They are not an &amp;quot;underground&amp;quot; currency at all.&lt;p&gt;Also you are (presumably) verified to be 18 (or 21?) years of age to gamble in a casino.</text></comment>
<story><title>Steam warns users against gambling site after YouTube stars discovered as owners</title><url>http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-04-youtube-stars-criticised-after-it-emerges-they-owned-gambling-site-they-promoted</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>balls187</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s actually really similar to japans Pachinko system where you don&amp;#x27;t win money.. but you win something that can be traded for money right around the corner.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s how most (all?) real life casinos work too. You get chips, which are exchanged for money.</text></item><item><author>bluejellybean</author><text>The amount of fraud and thieves inside the community would make your eyes spin. I&amp;#x27;ve had to straight block trading with a large chunk of the world.&lt;p&gt;A big part of this stems from the concept that in-game items are not _really_ money. It allows these online casinos to flourish because  it&amp;#x27;s &amp;#x27;just in-game skins&amp;#x27;! It&amp;#x27;s actually really similar to japans Pachinko system where you don&amp;#x27;t win money.. but you win something that can be traded for money right around the corner.  In reality land, I can cash out of valves ecosystem for around 20% of in-game currency and some of those skins are worth thousands of dollars...&lt;p&gt;These gambling sites really piss me off because they hurt the community. You have to remember, we&amp;#x27;re talking about young teenagers getting robbed from these guys, and it&amp;#x27;s not just their lunch money. We are easily talking hundreds of thousands to millions in revenue each year.</text></item><item><author>eertami</author><text>Real shady stuff and definitely immoral. The most telling part of this whole debacle for me came from a (now deleted) tweet by TmarTn[1] where he states:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; That being said, everything we&amp;#x27;ve done up until this point has been legal, that has been a #1 priority of ours. The day it becomes illegal is the day we cease activity.&lt;p&gt;So just because something is apparently not illegal (questionable, actually), it is apparently an acceptable thing to do. Hopefully legal action is successful against these frauds.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;wHdZG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;wHdZG&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Liru</author><text>Yeah, but gambling is illegal in Japan.&lt;p&gt;To compare, in most casinos, the casino itself sells you the chips and buys them back. No need to fuss about location since it&amp;#x27;s all done in one place.&lt;p&gt;In the Pachinko system, you go into the &amp;quot;casino&amp;quot;, spend money on a machine, win the &amp;quot;chips&amp;quot; yourself, then go to another &amp;quot;casino&amp;quot; nearby to sell the &amp;quot;chips&amp;quot; for actual cash.</text></comment>