eSports skin scandal surfaces

The eSports skin gambling operator CSGO Diamonds and a former sponsored player identified only as moE took to social media in a very public argument Monday, with the player revealing that he was given advance knowledge of the outcomes of virtual dice rolls to ensure that he would produce winning results in his Twitch livestreamed activity in order to give him more credibility and entertainment value.

When the parties fell out, it apparently resulted in withheld winnings, prompting the player to take to Twitter exposing the unethical practice and forcing the operator to apologise and acknowledge its conduct had not been acceptable.

CSGO Diamonds is a gambling platform where players deposit skins, convert their value to “Diamonds” and then wager Diamonds on variable-odds outcomes based on dice rolling, the publication eSports Betting reports. Diamonds can then be used to purchase skins on the site’s marketplace, with one Diamond worth arounbd $1 in skins value.

The bad publicity started Sunday when moE revealed details on Twitter of the arrangement with CSGO Diamonds, complaining that the operator was preventing him from withdrawing $26,000 in virtual currency diamonds in his CSGO account. The expose followed an earlier social media threat by the player and caster to unveil questionable practises by the operator.

CSGO admitted to the moE arrangement on Monday, acknowledging that it was a mistake from which it had learned, and claiming that its motive was to make moE’s Twitch stream “more entertaining”.

“This happened in both directions, at times we provided him a future roll and other times he would ask us for a roll result while on stream,” CSGO admitted. “This is what he is threatening to ‘expose’ us with, although he had a willing part in this too.”

The operator went on to reveal that it had a sponsorship agreement with moE which, in return for between 110 and 130 hours exposure a month on his Twitch stream he would receive 10 percent of monthly profits. The operator noted that the agreement gave moE Diamonds to wager…but not withdraw.

The agreement failed when moE’s promised Twitch hours were not achieved and the operator wanted to either renegotiate the deal or discontinue it and pay moE a severance, the operator alleged. It was at this stage that the player tried to leverage Twitter to retain the original deal, and CSGO responded by deciding that severance was the preferred route.

“We decided to offer him the severance payment and part ways,” the CSGO rsponse reveals. “He agreed to the payment and to part ways. Following this, we found out that he had been providing false, negative information regarding our site to our sponsors. He has now taken to Twitter, regarding the withdrawal of Diamonds that, as mentioned previously, were never to be withdrawn as part of the original agreement.”

The row has highlighted the need for regulation in the skins gambling sector, which is very lucrative, industry experts have pointed out in their assessment of the CSGO debacle.

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