Hem
En pojke sitter i sitt rum och spelar Counter-Strike på sin dator mitten av 00-talet. Spelet har genomgått flera uppdateringar och nylanseringar sedan dess: bland annat har så kallade skins fått en mer framträdande roll. (MONS BRUNIUS / TT Nyhetsbyrån)

Kringgår lagen för gambling: ”Sitter i nian och spelar roulett”

Närmare 20 sajter som är tillgängliga i Sverige erbjuder gambling med så kallade ”skins”, som kan vara värda mycket pengar, i bland annat Counter-Strike. Det helt utan ålderskontroll, rapporterar Uppdrag Granskning.

– Det är som att vi sitter i nian på högstadiet och spelar roulett och slots. Det är galet, säger streamern Yacine Lahgmari, en av de som kritiserat systemet.

Eftersom sajterna låter spelarna satsa med skins istället för pengar som insats kringgår sajterna svensk lagstiftning, som annars förbjuder kasinoliknande spel för minderåriga.

– Att minderåriga gamblar är såklart problematiskt. Men vår strategi är att vi vill ha stränga kundkännedomsregler samtidigt som vår verksamhet inte får bli helt olönsam, säger ”Monarch”, ägare till en av sajterna, till tv-programmet.

bakgrund
 
Gambling med ”skins”
Wikipedia (en)
In video games, skin gambling is the use of virtual goods, often cosmetic in-game items such as "skins", as virtual currency to bet on the outcome of professional matches or on other games of chance. It is commonly associated with the community surrounding Counter-Strike 2 (formerly Counter-Strike: Global Offensive), but the practice exists in other games such as Electronic Arts's FIFA. Valve, the developer of the Counter-Strike series, also runs the Steam marketplace which can be interfaced by third-parties to enable trading, buying, and selling of skins from players' Steam inventories for real-world or digital currency. Valve condemns the gambling practices as it violates the platform's terms of service. Valve added random skin rewards as part of an update to Global Offensive in 2013, believing that players would use these to trade with other players and bolster both the player community and its Steam marketplace. A number of websites were created to bypass monetary restrictions Valve set on the Steam marketplace to aid in high-value trading and allowing users to receive cash value for skins. Some of these sites subsequently added the ability to gamble on the results of professional matches or in games of chance with these skins, which in 2016 was estimated to handle around $5 billion of the virtual goods. These sites, along with Valve and various video game streamers, have come under scrutiny due to ethical and legal questions relating to gambling on sporting matches, underage gambling, undisclosed promotion, and outcome rigging. Evidence of such unethical practices was discovered in June 2016, and led to two formal lawsuits filed against these sites and Valve in the following month. Valve subsequently has taken steps to stop such sites from using Steam's interface for enabling gambling, leading to about half of these sites closing down while driving more of the skin gambling into an underground economy.
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