Valve bans gambling sites from offering their products

The games developer company that owns and operates the Steam distribution portal has banned gambling sites from offering their products through its platform.

US.- Valve, the games developer that that owns and operates the Steam distribution portal as well as titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO), has banned gambling sites from offering their products through its platform. Valve expressed it will enforce the rules of its terms of service and request that all gambling sites immediately cease offering their services through OpenID.

The decision came after it the company found itself immerse in legal proceedings, including a class action lawsuit, due to it allowing what it is known as skins gambling, which had been expected to generate US$7.4 billion in bets this year,  through its OpenID API (application protocol interface).

Michael John McLeod, a Connecticut resident Michael John McLeod filed a lawsuit last month alleging that Valve and third-party sites CSGO Diamonds, CSGO Lounge and OPSkins “knowingly allowed, supported, and/or sponsored illegal gambling by allowing millions of Americans to link their individual Steam accounts to third- party websites”. Through those websites, the suit continues, skins for CSGO, which can be purchased from Valve, “can easily be traded and used as collateral for bets.”

“We’d like to clarify that we have no business relationships with any of these sites,” said Erik Johnson, a company spokesman, in a statement. “We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam. 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.”