[steelbrain]

I’m out of the loop here. What does gambling here refer to? Is it the Steam trading cards?

[haunter]

Counter Strike skins https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin_gambling

It's the whole ecosystem, Valve selling keys (making $1b in 2023 alone [0]) and the numbers are only going up since [1]

On top of that they take a cut form every single transaction so even just people selling cases between each other makes Valve a fuckton of money.

And there are the 3rd party sites which are running on the SteamAPI where people can bet these cases, keys, and skins on CS matches. It's an insane system running freely without any oversight from anyone

0, https://insider-gaming.com/valve-cs-cases-earnings/

1, https://www.dexerto.com/counter-strike-2/valve-made-insane-a...

[haiku2077]

And the 3rd party sites mostly target children who can't gamble at a regulated casino but can get keys through gameplay/steam gift cards

[wlesieutre]

I would think “loot boxes” but Steam doesn’t have anything close to a monopoly on that

[some_random]

Loot boxes are nothing next to the CS:GO (and others) item marketplace