It’s Time to Regulate E-sport Gambling

With as popular as video games have become, the rise of e-sports should not surprise anyone. But with the rise of e-sports, has also come the rise of teenagers and other viewers gambling on e-sport games and even turning into serious gamblers, which is a serious problem.

It isn’t anything new to the video game world for actual money to be spent on virtual belongings. I’ve had friends buy better hockey players for their virtual teams in NHL video games and thought nothing of it. The video game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive puts a twist on this process. Valve, the games creator, put in a feature where weapons, or “skins” are acquired in the game, which seems fine, but Counter-Strike: Global Offensive takes it one step too far. A variety of third party web sites now operate in which players can trade, sell or even gamble skins, and Valve allows this. To make it worse, Valve created the software in which the websites operate and collects 15 percent off of the top (Navy-Williams, 2016).

Many people are comparing e-sports to other more traditional such as football or basketball, where gambling also takes place. Draft Kings is a daily fantasy-sports site that is fairly similar to the sites that support gambling on Global-Strike: Global Offensive. Draft Kings allows players to bet real world money on fantasy teams that they draft on a weekly basis. Draft Kings has seen a meteoric rise in popularity and is now worth over one billion dollars. Draft Kings, just as the gambling sites for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, skims some money off of the top of the wagers on their site to earn their profits (Kim, 2011).

Fantasy sports are considered a “game of skill” as defined by the criteria that; it is not dependent solely on the outcome of any single individual performance in any single sporting event; and has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, or their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (not by chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events, including any non-participant’s individual performances in such sports event (Kim, 2011).

Can this criteria be met for gamers playing Global-Strike: Counter Offensive? I think it would have a hard time passing through a court of law. While Global-Strike: Counter Offensive games might have an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the professional players playing, but gambling on lesser matches where not as much knowledge of the gamers would not fit this criteria. Global-Strike: Counter Offensive games also have results solely depend on the outcomes of single matches of the game. These two facts do not fit the criteria for which Draft Kings is allowed. This alone should make such gambling illegal.

The worst part about allowing Global Strike: Counter Offensive gambling sites is that this process is largely unregulated. Anyone, including vulnerable teenagers, can fall prey to these online gambling sites. (Navy-Williams, 2016). The fact that innocent teenagers are being preyed upon in such ways should sicken anyone.

E-sports don’t seem to be going away any time soon. How gambling, particularly in regard to teenage gambling, on such games has been allowed is totally beyond me. There seems to be a solid case for shutting down this back-alley, crooked gambling scheme. At the very least it needs to be regulated just as other online gambling sites are. Gambling will only pick up in numbers if left unregulated, leaving many people, primarily teenagers, at great risk to become serious gamblers. It is time for something to be done about it.

Works Cited

Kim, E. (2011, September 11). Billion-dollar sports-gambling startups Draft Kings and FanDuel are legal because of a loophole in the law. Retrieved from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-draft-kings-and-fanduel-are-legal-2015-4

Navy-Williams, J. B. (2016, April 20). Virtual Weapons are Turning Teen Gamers into Serious Gamblers. Retrieved from Bloomberg Businessweek: https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-virtual-guns-counterstrike-gambling/