It has been revealed that YouTubers Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Tom “ProSyndicate” Cassell who promoted the Counter Strike: Global Offensive gambling site, CSGO Lotto, are in fact the owners of the site.

An investigation back YouTuber h3h3Productions discovered that both TmarTn and ProSyndicate were owners of CSGO Lotto with TmarTn as president and ProSyndicate as vice-president (their positions were revealed by YouTuber HonorTheCall). CSGO Lotto and other Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) gambling sites operate by allowing users to sell weapon skins that according to h3h3Productions sell from $0.01 to $4,000. To be able to gain a weapon skin in CSGO players must pay $2.50 for a key to unlock a crate, and after a short animation that resembles a slot machine, you receive a weapon skin.

The main issue behind the reveal that TmarTn and ProSyndicate own CSGO Lotto is that neither of them fully disclosed they owned the company when created video content promoting the site. To make matters worse the videos promoting the site play out as if they stumbled upon it and encouraged their fans to visit and use the site. The encouragement of their fans to use the site is also rather underhanded as some of their fans and CSGO users are under the age of eighteen, which is the minimum gambling age. Now while the site’s terms of use say you need to be eighteen or over to use the service, I could not see an enforcement of this policy.

So, what will happen to TmarTn and ProSyndicate? Well, the first issue is that in the promotional videos neither of them revealed they were affiliated with CSGO Lotto, although ProSyndicate did say that his videos were sponsored by CSGO Lotto. The failure to reveal that they were owners/affiliated with CSGO Lotto could get them in trouble with the FTC, who has stated all sponsored/branding videos must be fully disclosed.

The two owners could also run into issues with the Gambling Commission as the UK’s Gambling Commission told the BBC: “We are paying close attention to the growing popularity of virtual or in-game items (skins), which can be traded, sold or used as virtual currencies to gamble. If we suspect unlicensed gambling is taking place, we will write to the operator to inform them that they need a licence and will take further action if they do not stop.”

It will be interesting to see how this story progresses, as the two YouTubers promoted a gambling site without revealing they were owners, and could have potentially made it available to minors.

Source: BBC, Steamed (Kotaku)