Honestly it’s both valve’s fault and the legal system. They’ve tried to combat these sites with the trade window system back in like 2015 2016 I think, but their csgo and tf2 trading economy struggles when you have to wait a week to do stuff.
It also doesn’t help when a lot of these sites dodge being legally a casino, and get away with it.
I mean, we can point at the legal system, but as you said, casinos just find new loopholes to circumvent the law. Ultimately, Valve is the group with the power to remove any gambling-adjacent mechanics from their games, but they have been pretty flaccid regarding changes because they know that they will lose money from it.
Crackdowns won’t stop the gambling on CS, legislation and enforcement won’t change it, but making items non-tradeable, or damaging item value or appeal through any method, can stop the gambling - but at the cost of CS’s financial success and overall appeal.
I agree in general with the other commenter that it’d be difficult to do it systemically, which is why it should fall back to moderation.
Valve could say they don’t like gambling, make that a policy, and then say anyone caught doing so will lose their inventories or somesuch, then hire a team of people to sift through Steam marketplace trade data and identify gambling transactions for punishment. It would cost Valve money and wouldn’t end gambling by a long shot, but the goal would be to try to destroy the highest profile accounts who cause new players to want to gamble.
Basically instead of sitting on their hands and getting money, they could … try a little.
Honestly it’s both valve’s fault and the legal system. They’ve tried to combat these sites with the trade window system back in like 2015 2016 I think, but their csgo and tf2 trading economy struggles when you have to wait a week to do stuff.
It also doesn’t help when a lot of these sites dodge being legally a casino, and get away with it.
I mean, we can point at the legal system, but as you said, casinos just find new loopholes to circumvent the law. Ultimately, Valve is the group with the power to remove any gambling-adjacent mechanics from their games, but they have been pretty flaccid regarding changes because they know that they will lose money from it.
Crackdowns won’t stop the gambling on CS, legislation and enforcement won’t change it, but making items non-tradeable, or damaging item value or appeal through any method, can stop the gambling - but at the cost of CS’s financial success and overall appeal.
Is there a proposal to do this that doesn’t gut other legitimate parts of their trading system?
I agree in general with the other commenter that it’d be difficult to do it systemically, which is why it should fall back to moderation.
Valve could say they don’t like gambling, make that a policy, and then say anyone caught doing so will lose their inventories or somesuch, then hire a team of people to sift through Steam marketplace trade data and identify gambling transactions for punishment. It would cost Valve money and wouldn’t end gambling by a long shot, but the goal would be to try to destroy the highest profile accounts who cause new players to want to gamble.
Basically instead of sitting on their hands and getting money, they could … try a little.