In a welcome move earlier today, Valve made its position clear regarding the use of Steam's in-game item trading functionality, and its use by CS:GO weapon skin gambling sites. Basically, the company confirmed that it's not permitted, writing that the use of "the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements."

Valve wrote that it intends to send requests to gambling sites to cease their operations, and if they don't, Valve will "pursue the matter as necessary". Following that statement, Twitch has made one of its own, and while it's not necessarily a new update to its terms of service, it makes explicit that streaming gambling activities of this nature is not allowed at least in cases where the gambling runs contrary to the third-party's TOS, such as it does with Steam.

"As a reminder, per Twitch s Terms of Service, broadcasters are not permitted to stream content that breaks the terms of service or user agreements of third-parties," the statement reads.

"As such, content in which the broadcaster uses or promotes services that violate Valve s stated restrictions is prohibited on Twitch. Our Rules of Conduct lists other examples such as playing pirated games and playing on unauthorized private servers."

These statements follow revelations last week that two popular CS:GO streamers had not disclosed their co-ownership of CSGO Lotto, despite producing videos using the gambling site. That has prompted closer scrutiny of the skin gambling scene as a whole.

Valve has issued a statement on in-game trading in which it denies any connection to or relationship with CS:GO skin gambling sites. Furthermore, it warns that it will soon begin taking action against them, and hinted at possible negative consequences for players who use gambling sites as well.

The statement in full:

"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.

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. We'd like to clarify that we have no business relationships with any of these sites. We have never received any revenue from them. And Steam does not have a system for turning in-game items into real world currency.

These sites have basically pieced together their operations in two-part fashion. First, they are using the OpenID API as a way for users to prove ownership of their Steam accounts and items. 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). Second, they create automated Steam accounts that make the same web calls as individual Steam users.

Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity."

Valve is currently at the center of a lawsuit over CS:GO skin gambling, to which CSGO Lotto co-owners Trevor "Tmartn" Martin and Thomas Cassell were recently added. We said in our analysis of the suit that it is fundamentally flawed, but even so it looks like Valve is anxious to put the matter to bed or at the very least, to be seen doing its part to make it happen.

Following a successful debut season, The Esports Championship Series (ECS) will launch Season Two of its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league on October 7, 2016, organisers FACEIT announced today.

A familiar format will see 20 CS:GO teams going head-to-head ten from North America and ten from Europe and the tournament will hold its first ever open qualifiers for teams interested in joining the ECS. That last part is of course great news for potential emerging talent, which will see prospective inductees compete in four rounds taking place between August 5 to August 27.

Winners of each qualifying round will join up with four invited teams within each region s ECS developmental league; with the top two teams there competing against the bottom two of last term s ECS Season One. Finally, the two winners from each region s promotion matches will join the remaining eight teams from Season One to form Season Two.

If you think you ve got what it takes, you can sign up by heading this way if you re based in Europe, or this-a-way if you re based in North America.

In praise of this year s open qualification format, Michele Attisani, FACEIT s CBO, said: The open qualifiers will provide new teams the opportunity to showcase their talent to the world and join our top CS:GO esports league.

"It s our goal to provide new teams a chance to be recognized in the community and become stars, while providing current ECS teams a fresh pool of talent to test their skills against.

The ECS will provide a sum of $1.75M for Season Two that ll go toward the league s prize pool and supportive funds that will provide player stability, so reads an official statement.

Round one of Season Two kicks off between October 7-9. For more information on the ECS itself, including schedules, head over to its official site.

Update: Nearly three months later, s1mple the player who pulled off the amazing double-noscope worthy of in-game graffiti has commemorated it further by getting that graffiti tattooed on his arm. He tweeted a photo of the finished ink earlier today, which was apparently a birthday gift from his brother.

This comes off the back of s1mple playing out of his mind as ESL One New York this past weekend. The craziest moment of the tournament came when he threw his AWP over a wall as a distraction, before dropping down and taking out the last member of the opposing team. At this point, I think it's safe to say s1mple produces some of the most exciting clips in competitive CS:GO.

Original story: At ESL Cologne last weekend, Team Liquid became the first North American CS:GO team to make it into the final round of a major tournament. To do it, they had to defeat the team with the most major wins in CS:GO history: Fnatic, the Swedish superstars, the New England Patriots of Counter-Strike.

Liquid won their semifinal round against Fnatic two maps to none, an upset that's worth watching online or through CS:GO's in-game archive. Although there were several clutch plays from Liquid, a spectacular one came from s1mple in round 14 of the second map.

S1mple's first noscope is impressive enough, delivered as he hits the ground. The second is ludicrous, tagging the Fnatic player at a range that no mortal has a right to. Even though Liquid were ahead 10-4 at this point, it was a round that Liquid weren't supposed to win against a team that's more than capable of staging a comeback in the second half of the match. It surely dealt some emotional damage to the Swedes.

One of the creators of de_cache, FMPONE, felt the need to commemorate this sick play by adding a graffiti tag on the wall near where it happened. The revision hasn't been submitted yet by FMPONE, so you won't see it in game at this time, but the art depicts a falling angel with a scopeless rifle between the two CT entrances to bombsite B.

"It's an excellent example of when the casters and everyone, including myself, counts a player out, but that player believes in themselves fully and outperforms all expectations in a great moment," FMPONE told me today. "I thought the casting from James Bardolph and DDK sealed the deal and moved me to make it just as much as the excellent play, as well."

American himself, FMPONE says that he isn't partial to Team Liquid, but admits that "the fact that this play was instrumental in the very first NA grand finalist is critical."

There's a few of these kinds of map references in CS:GO, little signatures of moments, or even bugs, that add permanence and history to a context that otherwise never seems to change.

Liquid fell in the finals to Brazilian squad SK Gaming, who took their second consecutive major, another massive achievement for the South American team. But this moment by s1mple, and the milestone for North American Counter-Strike that it signifies, should live on in de_cache as a memory of what Liquid achieved.

It's a relatively quiet week as regards the variety of eSports on hand, but it certainly doesn't lack for quality. Some of the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players are winning fortunes in Germany as we speak, while pro players from other games are earning their spots for championship matches scheduled for later this month and Beyond the Summit is testing the waters with their first Overwatch cup.ESL One Cologne 2016The ESL One Cologne event for Counter-Strike Global Offensive is currently in full swing in Germany, where almost 20,000 fans have packed into the Lanxness Arena. The event's been going on since Tuesday, but on Saturday and Sunday, the final two teams standing will face off beginning at 08:00 CEST/15:20 PDT. There's a whopping $1 million prize at stake, so be sure to watch the action on either the ESL's Twitch page for GS:GO or the mirror on the ESL's main site, which complements the footage with useful stats.Hearthstone Starladder Season 2 LAN FinalsYesterday marked the beginning of StarLadder's Season 2 LAN finals for Hearthstone in Shanghai, China, and the impressive lineup of eight players will compete through Sunday. The actual playoffs will begin tomorrow at 04:00 CEST/18:00 PST and run throughout the day on StarLadder's Twitch channel. The last match of the finals will take place at 11:30 CEST/04:30 PDT. As of the time of writing, the final contestants haven't been decided.Rocket League Championship Series Online FinalsAfter several weeks of qualifying rounds, the brackets for the Rocket League Championship Series Online Finals have at last been decided. The North American matches will take place on Saturday beginning at 21:00 CEST/ 12:00 PDT and the European matches will take place on Sunday starting at 18:00 CEST/9:00 PDT. There's a $5,000 prize pool at stake and the winners will go on to the live finals in Los Angeles on August 6-7. Be sure to turn into the Rocket League Twitch channel for coverage and check out the official Rocket League eSports page for more information.Beyond The Summit Overwatch CupBeyond the Summit is typically known for its work with Dota 2, but this weekend will see their first foray into Overwatch competitions with the first BTS Overwatch Cup with a prize pool of $10,000. The matches on Saturday and Sunday and a followup up on July 23 and 24 will feature a double elimination bracket that decide who moves on to the final championship on August 6-7. The first match kicks off tomorrow with EnvyUs battling 1Shot on July 9 at 20:00 CEST/11:00 PDT, and you can watch it on Twitch. You can find the full schedule at BTS's website here.League of Legends: NA Championship SeriesThe NCA LCS has been going on for a few weeks now, but the excitement's only getting more intense for North American players as the series continues. There are two matches going on today, but the real action will happen on the weekend when eight teams clash on both Saturday and Sunday. As always, you can get more information about the matches and their contestants at lolesports.com.Speedruns: Games Done QuickLast week we told you about how Games Done Quick was hosting a speedrun marathon benefiting M decins Sans Fronti res (even though it's not exactly eSports), and it's still going on if you missed it over the first few days. Saturday is the only full day left on the schedule, but that should be enough if you're excited about watching really fast playthroughs of games like Pikmin, Super Metroid, and Final Fantasy VI for charity. Be sure to check out the livestream here.

The past week has been an ugly one for the CS:GO gambling scene. First it came to light that popular YouTubers Trevor 'TmarTn' Martin and Tom 'ProSyndicate' Cassell were actually the owners of a gambling site they'd been promoting on their channels, without any disclosure of that ownership or the gross conflict of interest. Shortly after that, another YouTuber, Lewis PsiSyndicate Stewart revealed that some of the random CS:GO skin unboxings he'd posted on his channel were rigged as well.

Now Stewart has shared the email exchanges between him and skin gambling site Steamloto the source of his CS:GO loot in which the site very blatantly invites him to create a rigged video. Steamloto is not CSGO Lotto, the site that Cassell and TmarTn created.

Stewart's email chain, which goes all the way back to October 2015, begins with a brief explanation of how the site works and an inquiry about buying an ad video, but then quickly shifts into a request for something more underhanded. In response to Stewart's suggestion for a video with 5 or 10 of the knives, advertising it as a kind of new up and coming CSGO website idea, Andrew Pryamov of Steamloto wrote, Well, how about you make a video where you try to open like 2-3 restricted ones, and ~2 covert ones. And on your last attempt you get FT Dragon Lore (you'll keep it as a payment).

A Dragon Lore AWP is one of the most coveted skins in CS:GO. Although CS:GO weapon prices fluctuate over time, according to CSGO Analyst they're currently worth $700 or more. Stewart made the video as requested, and he did in fact get his Dragon Lore AWP and also made a big deal of selling his tremendous stroke of good fortune and surprise.

In late May of this year, Steamloto requested the creation of another video, and again, there seems to be little interest in transparency or disclosure. Stewart actually recommended that it be set up in a way that it's transparent it was rigged, but Pryamov asks that the second video be kept the same as the first, with just a notation that it's sponsored : In other words, acknowledgment that Steamloto paid for the promotion, but not that the unboxing was rigged.

Again, this shady Steamloto promotion isn't related to the CSGO Lotto scam, but it does provide insight into how lucrative skin gambling can be Stewart claimed in his admission that he got $3200 worth of skins for making the two videos and how widespread the problem of undisclosed conflicts of interest really is.

I couldn't put a number on it, he said in an email. It's just a lot of new site owners are willing to throw for example $1000 in skins at you just to play on their site, because they know they can easily make more in return from a video which garners 30k views. Rates can vary from $500-$2500 or so [in skins] in [a channel] my size, just for one video, he added, and "sometimes PayPal money is involved, sometimes it's not. [It's] all a lot of mixed stuff.

Unlike the owners of CSGO Lotto, Stewart said he's not facing any legal consequences for his role in promoting Steamloto, because he's just not big enough for anyone to care that much about it. Getting in front of the trouble by acknowledging that the videos were rigged, and giving away the skins he received for them, no doubt helped as well. But on the whole, CS:GO skin gambling is a big mess for the FTC, he said.

We've put together a detailed breakdown of how CS:GO skin gambling works, along with an analysis of why the CS:GO gambling lawsuit brought against Valve last month (and to which CSGO Lotto co-owners Martin and Cassell were recently added) is "fundamentally flawed." If you're at all curious about why this is a big deal, they're both absolutely worth your time.

Thanks, Eurogamer.

$2.3 billion. That's how much Bloomberg reports the market for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting is worth. That's serious money, and it's attracting a lot of scrutiny. One CS:GO player has even taken it upon himself to file a lawsuit against Valve, claiming that the operator of Steam has knowingly allowed an illegal online gambling market and has been complicit in creating, sustaining and facilitating that market. The complainant, Michael John McLeod, believes the blame lies not with the many CS:GO betting sites, but with Valve for enabling and supporting their existence. But while his accusation is worth consideration, his arguments are deeply flawed.

McLeod makes numerous comparisons to casinos, claiming Valve owns the league, sells the casino chips, and receives a piece of the casino's income. This analogy only works, though, if you completely ignore the nature of the skins being traded. For those unfamiliar with how CS:GO betting works, players earn cases as they play the game which they can open to receive random skins for their weapons. Opening cases requires buying keys with real money, and once acquired, skins can be traded with other players. This is where the gambling component comes in: many websites allow users to stake their skins on the outcomes of CS:GO matches or even simple coin flips.

The crucial differentiator here that undermines McLeod's analogy is the fact that skins, unlike casino chips, do not exist primarily as a form of non-money currency. Whereas casinos use chips to exploit legal loopholes in staking cash and to distance gamblers from the money they ve already essentially spent, Valve implemented skins as a means of customization and creative expression, both for the makers of the skins and those who use them. The use of skins evolved later, goes beyond their intended purpose, and was seemingly driven by third-parties, which weakens McLeod's argument that Valve built and supports the betting economy.

McLeod posits that Valve has created and currently supports a secondary marketplace where these in-game purchases can be gambled and cashed out. Claiming that Valve created the betting economy is bold, implying that Valve wittingly contributed to the creation of the third-party gambling sites. McLeod highlights the fact that users are able to link their Steam accounts to these sites, insisting that it requires permission and cooperation from Valve. This is incorrect. For a site to implement Steam account linking, it simply needs a Steam Web API key, a token that anyone with a Steam account can acquire. There is no vetting or approval process involved, and Valve certainly does not [know] exactly what these sites are, what users are doing.

Furthermore, McLeod misrepresents the process of converting skins into currency on these betting sites. He claims Valve specifically allows players to transfer skins to third-party [sites] when this is not the case. By linking a Steam account to one of these sites, that site is only able to view a user's Steam inventory, not interact with it directly. To transfer skins, a user must engage in bot trading, which is a flimsy workaround where dummy Steam accounts created by the sites act as middlemen for the bets. This is in clear violation of Steam's Terms of Service, first in Section 4 with reference to bots:

You may not use Cheats, automation software (bots), mods, hacks, or any other unauthorized third-party software, to modify or automate any Subscription Marketplace process.

As well as in reference to external trading in Section 3, Subsection D:

You also understand and acknowledge that Subscriptions traded, sold or purchased in any Subscription Marketplace are license rights, that you have no ownership interest in such Subscriptions, and that Valve does not recognize any transfers of Subscriptions (including transfers by operation of law) that are made outside of Steam.

McLeod points out the presence of the Steam logo on the betting sites, implying that it reflects tacit cooperation on Valve's part. Ignoring the fact that anyone can past the Steam logo on their site without permission from Valve, the page that users are taken to upon clicking the Steam link expressly states that the site in question is not affiliated with Steam or Valve. Nevertheless, McLeod claims this is more evidence of collusion between Valve and the betting sites.

The lawsuit has attracted the attention of lawyers with experience in the esports industry. A recent AMA on Reddit hosted by legal professionals Bryce Blum, Ryan Morrison, and Jeff Ifrah supports the notion that the arguments against Valve hold little weight. Ifrah believes that Holding Valve responsible for every single thing that a player or gambler might do with a skin once it is out of Valve s hands of course sounds harsh, saying that the only valid argument might be that Valve could have done more to slow the success of the secondary skin betting market. Blum agrees, saying I ve yet to speak to an attorney that reviewed the complaint and thought the case was likely to get past a motion to dismiss.

Following McLeod's lawsuit, an anonymous mother has filed a similar suit against not just Valve, but Trevor Martin and Thomas Cassell, the owners of CS:GO betting site CSGO Lotto. Martin and Cassell are accused of deceiving viewers of their YouTube betting videos, in which they do not disclose that they own the site they are betting on. Their addition to the lawsuit, however, is a pursuant claim that does not affect the arguments against Valve.

McLeod's arguments fall apart under proper consideration. That's not to say, though, that Valve is necessarily innocent in all this. Legal precedent for the betting of virtual goods is lacking, and it will take cases like McLeod's to establish clear and decisive rules. Valve might be responsible for not taking sufficient steps to regulate the betting economy, but such a verdict cannot be made on McLeod's weak evidence alone. Illegal and/or unethical gambling should not be taken lightly. If we're going to discuss it, let's at least make sure we have the facts straight.

A Polygon report says CSGO Lotto co-owners Trevor "Tmartn" Martin and Thomas Cassell have been added to a class action lawsuit filed last month against Valve. The suit alleges that Valve has knowingly allowed an illegal online gambling market to flourish around the purchase, trade, and wagering of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive skins.

CSGO Lounge, CSGO Diamonds, and OPSkins are already cited in the action as unnamed co-conspirators, but the Polygon report says the amendment now names Martin and Cassell as defendants also. As owners of the site, they actively promote Lotto as a gambling service, including to minors, it says.

It's probably not the end of Martin and Cassell's legal woes, but it's certainly an interesting beginning. This lawsuit covers much greater range, and with far broader implications, than the simple question of what the CSGO Lotto owners did, and which regulations they broke along the way, and that could actually make it tougher to successfully prosecute. We'll be taking a closer look at the case against Valve in an upcoming story, but for now I don't think anyone should consider this a slam-dunk.

Martin posted an apology video yesterday, but quickly removed it following a powerful wave of criticism of his obvious effort to shift blame and dodge responsibility. Following this, Martin's lawyer told Eurogamer there would be "no further public comments on the matter."