Overzealous Washington State Gambling Regulators Target Popular Video Game Developer
Valve’s Steam platform's been used by players to facilitate games of chance, and the company is in hot water with regulators who want their skim as a result.
As in many American states, gambling is legal in Washington if overseen by politicians' friends and if the house—the government—gets its cut. The state hosts tribal casinos, raffles, card rooms, bingo, fund-raising casino nights, amusement games, and a state lottery. But state residents can't legally wager online because "Internet gambling has never been authorized and is illegal in Washington State," according to the Washington State Gambling Commission.
Strictly speaking, regulators aren't accusing Valve of actually operating games of chance. They're not even accused of offering a venue for gaming. Instead, the company is allegedly "guilty," if that's the right word, of letting players exchange in-game items—known as "skins"—with one another. This is somehow a violation because players and third-party companies working independently of Valve found a way of using those skins as markers in betting on other platforms that have nothing to do with Valve.
Basically, players discovered they could use the neato stuff they acquired in the game as poker chips.
"The Gambling Commission expects Valve to take whatever actions are necessary to stop third party websites from using 'skins' for gambling through its Steam Platform system, including preventing these sites from using their accounts and 'bots' to facilitate gambling transactions," according to a press release issued October 5. The Commission was quite cross that skins continued to be used in gambling months after it first "contacted Valve Corporation in February 2016" about the issue.
