We have an odd relationship with gambling in the UK. You'd be hard-pressed to find a high street or city centre that doesn't have at least a couple of bookmakers' shops mixed into it, offering bets on everything from horse racing and football to whether or not Kate Winslet will cry if she wins an Oscar (yes that was a real thing). But how does esports fit in?

According to a recent study by the UK's Gambling Commission, the percentage of British adults who have at some point in their lives placed a bet on esports is 8.5 per cent, with three per cent having placed those bets in the month the study was conducted. That's a surprising statistic for a sport many consider to be still quite niche. And it makes sense most of those bets will be online, given the nature of esports and the audience for it. But it also got me wondering: just how easy it is to walk into a betting shop and wager some cash on an esports event?

To find out, I picked three (at the time of betting) upcoming and current events to bet on, with the intention of gambling on three specific teams to win either the tournament or a particular match. These were Team Liquid to win the ESL One Dota 2 tournament, Ninjas in Pyjamas to win that day's ECS CS:GO season six game, and for the Overwatch World Cup, I had to back the home nation and bet on the UK. Secondly, I decided I had to be able to place the bet in store. We all know you can bet on esports online, so that didn't count.

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Chinese Dota 2 fans have hit out at Valve following a perceived lack of action after racist taunts were used in esports matches.

After the first incident (via ResetEra), on 1st November compLexity Gaming confirmed it had "been made aware of an inappropriate comment by one of [its] players" and "does not condone intolerance of any kind", reporting it would sanction the player - Andrei "skem" Ong - with a formal reprimand and "maximum fine".

A few days later, in a separate incident, another player - this time Carlo "Kuku" Palad - used the same taunt against a Chinese team. Incensed by the lack of consequence from the tournament organisers and Valve itself, Chinese fans started writing emails and review bombing Dota 2 to get Valve to notice their dissatisfaction at how the incidents were dealt with, adding almost 6,000 negative reviews to Dota 2's Steam page since 7th November.

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Don't expect to see esports in the Olympic Games any time soon. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach believes the video games being played still promote violence and killing too much to be included.

"We cannot have in the Olympic programme a game which is promoting violence or discrimination," Bach told the Associated Press during the recent Asian Games - an event where esports were, for the first time, a feature, albeit as a demonstration sport only. "So-called killer games. They, from our point of view, are contradictory to the Olympic values and cannot therefore be accepted."

It's an arguably hypocritical stance given the long list of combat or weapon sports already in the Olympic Games: boxing, martial arts, fencing, shooting, archery and so on. Bach himself was even once an Olympic gold-medalist fencer.

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Gabe Newell is the hallowed leader of one of gaming's most powerful companies, Valve, but we don't often see him. He's like some whispered-about deity at the top of a mystical tower.

Nor do we often see much humour from Valve. It's all serious Steam business these days and Dota 2 and Counter-Strike GO. But, hold your breath, here's a new Dota 2 video from Valve which does something about that.

The video features Gabe Newell recording voice lines - Mega-Kills Announcer lines - for Dota 2. He's in a recording booth and he's being prepped for what should be an easy hour's work. Except, he's awful - he's as wooden as a door and can't stop introducing himself before delivering the lines. Some lines he can't even say. His avoiding the word "three" - yes it's the Half-Life 3 meme in action - is a wonder to behold.

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On 5th August, five expert Dota 2 players sat down to play against a team of bots created by non-profit research lab OpenAI. They lost decisively. Just a few days from now that same team of bots, perhaps with the benefit of a few more weeks of training, will appear on stage at the biggest tournament in Dota 2 - The International - and play against a team of the world's best professional players. Winning there that would be a huge victory, a milestone for both AI and the games industry, and after seeing the bots' performance earlier this month it seems like the most likely outcome. You might be forgiven for feeling like this was the end of an era for game AI as we know it.

It all feels a bit sudden, too. At last year's International tournament OpenAI were a surprise appearance, turning up to show off their bot that could play 1v1 Mid - a simpler custom game mode for two players - and beat top professionals. It was an impressive display, but it also felt like the kind of game an AI would be naturally good at. It was simple, short, with very clear goals and a lot of emphasis on reaction time. The real challenge, everyone pointed out, would be playing the full game.

OpenAI's bots don't play the full game quite yet, but less than 12 months later they are surprisingly close, far closer than myself or many of my peers would have guessed they'd be this time last year. With a few notable game mechanics disabled, and only 18 of the 115 heroes available to play, the bots nevertheless exhibit precise calculation, aggressive fighting styles and an unstoppable sense of momentum. When they're not exhibiting superhuman skill, they're throwing out decade-old Dota 2 conventions and finding new ways to play heroes, distribute resources and take objectives.

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Overnight, Valve accidentally launched Steam.tv - what looks like a take on Twitch - early. The company pulled the website offline shortly after, but not before people got a chance to play around with it.

Cnet went hands-on with Steam.tv in the hour or so that it was online, and said it was showing The International - the big Dota 2 tournament that's going on right now.

Accessible via Steam.tv is the new Steam Chat friends list and group chats, Cnet reports, and you're able to watch videos with friends. There's voice chat, too.

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Valve has changed the way Dota 2 works for Dutch players so they can see what's in a loot box before they buy it.

The change comes in response to demands from the Dutch Gaming Authority about the way loot boxes work in some games.

In June, Valve pulled item trading and Steam Marketplace transfers for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 in the Netherlands in response to a threat from Dutch authorities to prosecute video game companies who failed to alter their game's design after it found some loot boxes were gambling.

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Valve has stepped up its anti-cheat measures and issued almost 95,000 bans in the last week alone.

In July 2017, we reported that on 6th July Valve banned over 40K Steam accounts for cheating, making it the single largest banhammer the company had ever deployed.

Emphasis on "had", though.

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It seems the Netherlands' threat to prosecute video game companies over loot boxes has claimed its first victim: Valve.

Players of CS:GO and Dota 2 in the Netherlands were today greeted with a message from Valve saying the company had pulled item trading and Steam Marketplace transfers for both games.

Valve said the move was in response to the Dutch threat to prosecute video game companies who failed to alter their game's design by 20th June after it found some loot boxes were gambling.

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The Netherlands has determined some loot boxes are gambling - and warned video game publishers to modify their loot boxes to remove "addiction-sensitive" elements before mid-June.

The Dutch gaming authority said it had looked into loot boxes in 10 games (it sounds like they picked the 10 most popular games on Twitch), and found four contravened its Betting and Gaming Act. It said the content of these loot boxes was determined by chance and, crucially, the prizes could be traded outside of the game. Therefore, the prizes have a market value.

"Offering this type of game of chance to Dutch players without a licence is prohibited," the Dutch gaming authority concluded.

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