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'CS:GO' gambling lawsuit dismissed because plaintiff never opened game
Valve was accused of facilitating illegal gambling
By Andy Brown
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Credit: Valve
A lawsuit over skin gambling in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) has been dismissed, partly because one of the plaintiffs had never opened Steam or CS:GO.
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On January 7, a federal court in the US dismissed a claim that Valve was responsible for sites that let users – including minors – wager CS:GO skins, which can be sold for real money.
As reported by PC Gamer, part of the reason for this dismissal was down to the fact that one of the plaintiffs had never opened or even played CS:GO or Steam, both of which are owned by Valve.
The lawsuit was first filed by parents who discovered their children were using third-party websites to gamble CS:GO skins. The legal action said that Valve "facilitated" this illegal gambling and was misleading about its business.
Despite that, plaintiffs were unable to convince arbitrators that Valve were the "proprietor" of these skin gambling sites. Although the suit made it out of arbitration and into the court room, it was dismissed as arbitrators had already made a judgement.
As it was ruled that Valve was not involved in skin gambling, plaintiffs pivoted to claim that skin cases in CS:GO were in themselves a form of gambling, which minors could gamble with. The plaintiffs said that these skin cases were disguised as a game, which deceived parents into giving children the money to buy these cases.
This was dismissed by US District Judge James L Robart because the plaintiffs in question "never visited a Valve or Steam website, never used Steam, never played CS:GO, and never saw or read any representations from Valve about CS:GO, keys, or weapon cases".
The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the plaintiffs involved can't bring the same claims to court again.
In other news, Activision's Bobby Kotick has been named the second highest paid CEO in the gaming industry – despite repeated claims of workplace misconduct.