Second, they create automated Steam accounts that make the same web calls as individual Steam users. Any other information they obtain about a user's Steam account is either manually disclosed by the user or obtained from the user’s Steam Community profile (when the user has chosen to make their profile public). First, they are using the OpenID API as a way for users to prove ownership of their Steam accounts and items. These sites have basically pieced together their operations in a two-part fashion.

And Steam does not have a system for turning in-game items into real world currency. We have never received any revenue from them. We’d like to clarify that we have no business relationships with any of these sites. Since then a number of gambling sites started leveraging the Steam trading system, and there’s been some false assumptions about our involvement with these sites. 'In 2011, we added a feature to Steam that enabled users to trade in-game items as a way to make it easier for people to get the items they wanted in games featuring in-game economies. Thankfully, it appears that Valve has finally awoken from their slumber and are now taking steps to hopefully get ride of these gambling websites, once and for all. Here's the full quote from their recent announcement: While the legality of such an act is questionable, mostly because the laws surrounding gambling with 'totally not real money' are still a bit shakey, the morality of such an act is quite reprehensible given that children form the majority of the audience for these types of CS:GO gambling videos. cheating) in order to positively promote a betting website they owned, all the while disclosing absolutely nothing about the whole ordeal.

In short, a couple of popular CS:GO Youtubers have been found gaming the system (ie. Unless you've somehow managed to avoid almost all gaming-related news sources for the past few weeks, you've probably heard about the whole CS:GO Lotto mess.

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