Those of you out there who know us best know that we here at h3h3Productions
are all about blasting ass, and it has been such a long time since I've just taken
such a nice steaming load on another person's chest and I feel like now is
the time to do it.
And luckily, I found one of the shadiest things I have ever seen on my time on
YouTube and trust me I won't lie
this is definitely me when I've seen all the shadiest shit on youtube and this is
worse than all of it.
I swear that I watched this one 10 times
Today we're talking about CS:GO gambling,
which is really something that's taken the internet by storm these past couple
years and it seems like these gambling sites are popping up all over the place
and there's some controversy stewing around it.
I know Gabe and Valve are memes; they're supposed to be the saviors of the
internet and all that, but underneath all this there's some really really shady
shit going on with Valve and even more with the people operating these sites
themselves and I kind of want to give you guys an overview from top down just
to show you how fucked up this shit has gotten. Now, according to this Bloomberg
article entitled 'virtual weapons are turning teen gamers into serious
gamblers,' they allege that these gambling sites take 2.3 billion trades just in
2015. 2.3 billion. That's a huge industry. For those of you who are not familiar
with Counter Strike, it is basically multiplayer game where you shoot each
other, but the big pull of the game right now is the virtual items you can own in
the game. So, you can get a really "cool-looking" AK-47 and they range in
price from one cent all the way up to like four thousand dollars, and the way
you obtain these skins is by buying a key that cost $2.50 to opening crates that
randomly drop in the game, and it feels like Valve itself has specifically
designed this "game" to operate almost exactly like a slot machine. When you
compare opening a crate in CS:GO
it looks almost identical to an online slot machine.
The only difference is that you have to be over the age of 21 or people will go to prison.
Opening crates?
everybody's welcome! Kids invited! Valve has created a loophole for themselves by
claiming that CS:GO skins aren't money and therefore it's not gambling,
but if you look, you can immediately sell these skins for real money.
In addition to Valve's own system for opening crates, tons of CS:GO gambling
sites have propped up in the past couple of years. These gambling sites are fairly simple;
you basically just put in your skins, do a coin toss against other players
essentially just putting all your money into a pile and flipping a coin to see
who wins.
Now this is when it gets really interesting: people have created a class
action lawsuit against Valve, suing them for helping these gambling sites.
So, what this lawsuit alleges is that "Valve knowingly allowed, supported, and/or
sponsored illegal gambling by allowing millions of Americans to link their
individual Steam accounts to third-party websites"
furthermore, "because Valve has helped to create an unregulated, international
gambling concern with no oversight, that targets teenagers, Plaintiffs and
the class have been damaged."
"This unregulated market is ripe for scams, cheating, fraud and other harm to users."
Their kids lost money and the parents came together saying, "Well, this is illegal,
why are you allowing my kids to gamble on your site?" and they have this
premonition like this is an unregulated gambling market
that's ripe for scams and fraud.
Ok. And this is where the story is going next, and this is when it gets so crazy
guys.
I'm going to be focusing on two extremely popular YouTubers by the name
of ProSyndicate and TmarTn and these guys are huge
CS:GO players. Together they have a combined sub count of well over 10 million.
Now, these two guys have a ton of CS:GO gambling videos on their YouTube
pages, where they're winning huge amounts of money. They have videos titled such as
"how to win $13,000 in five minutes with CS:GO betting."
Now if that title doesn't sound just like a get-rich-quick scheme then I'm the
fucking Pope. "Play now and win ten thousand dollars!" Right? Like are you creating
entertainment or you trying to get kids to gamble?
And, and they're both always playing on the same site:
CS:GO Lotto. "Know what? Today I woke up and thought, "Let's do something stupid" and
that certain thing of stupidness is...I'm putting my AWP
Dragon Lore, factory new, on the line. I'm gambling on CS:GO Lotto. I'm going for the
duel arena, 50-50 chance of winning."
What if I told you that they were being paid by CS Lotto
to, you know, introduce children to gambling and get people to go on their site.
And they didn't even disclose it in the description, they didn't say paid by, they
didn't say sponsored.
What if I told you that these two slimy fucks actually own this website!
TmarTn is the President and ProSyndicate is the Vice President.
They created it together. They don't disclose it in the description,
They don't disclose it in the videos.
They own this site.
"Now, why is this shady?" Because if they own the site, they have access to the
back end of the website. They can control the outcome of every bet. They can fake
the results to make promoting videos and by the way, it's illegal to not disclose
if you've been paid or work for a company to promote or review that product.
So no, they don't work for them. They fucking own it, dude!
I mean, I've have never heard of a gambling site that allows their employees,
let alone their owners to play on it because it's highly immoral and shady as fuck.
Now, here's a video by Syndicate entitled winning big money money money!!
whoo whoo
"Kids, come on, anyone can play of any age!", and here in the description
he says "site used CS:GO Lotto" like it's almost incidental, like "oh and by the way
this is the site I used so if you guys, you know, want to do this
not that it affects me but you can click this link, site used."
[ProSyndicate]: "Ladies and gentlemen welcome your faces today to the ultimatum of gambling
on CS:GO Lotto, where today we are throwing down with a starting bid of 50 dollars,
then 100 dollars, then 200, then 400, then 800"
So here he, you know, fairy tale story,
you know, fifty dollars up to thousands in a 30 minute video.
Terrific stuff here, guys.
[ProSyndicate]: "I've never said.. (gasps) We won already!
Yes! That's what I'm talking about! (cheering)
Do you think it's possible he faked his reaction, and faked the
actual results of the bet? It's possible, it's very possible.
I don't know if he did, but it's possible and that's why you don't gamble on your own site.
It doesn't need to be said, it's just.. it's obscene. Now this isn't even the first
time that ProSyndicate has been in trouble with the FTC for not disclosing
his ties to a game he's reviewed. In 2005, he reviewed— showed himself playing
a game many times on a channel called "Dead Realm" that he was an owner of.
He invested in this game, and he posted videos of him playing it and didn't
disclose his financial ties to the game. You would think that by now he would
have learned his lesson and would be more forthcoming about his ties to these
institutions, but he's still dishonest about it.
Now, how do we know that they own it? This YouTuber, the small YouTuber who did this
amazing research called 'HonorTheCall', by the way the link is in the description,
check this guy out, he's done amazing research.
He basically discovered the registration of the business that has all of their names on it.
So there's no doubt that these guys own this company,
and since he kind of busted this story,
they've been in full damage control mode.
TmarTn went to his YouTube channel and posted this vlog saying "yes I'm the
part owner of CSGOLotto.com, full story", and he tries to explain how it's not that big of a deal...
[TmarTn]: "Basically what's 'breaking news' now, is that myself and a few other people
including Tom, or ProSyndicate, own CS:GO Lotto, and this is something that has never been a secret"
Well, that's nice to say, but me and a team of researchers haven't been able to
find one example of him disclosing that
he's the owner of this site, nor has ProSyndicate, in fact I went to his
LinkedIn and even there when he proudly displays all these achievements as a businessman
CS:GO Lotto is suspiciously missing from that list.
I mean that's quite an achievement, dude, you own a CS:GO gambling site,
that probably generates a lot of revenue.
I would definitely put that on my LinkedIn if that was something I was
proud of as a businessman.
Certainly, I wouldn't want to hide that or conceal that from anybody, right?
Not unless I was doing something shady.
Watch this clip, and tell me if this is a man who is disclosing he's the owner of
this site.
[TmarTn]: "Now what I was talking about earlier, I wanted to talk to you guys about
at the end of the video,
I've been starting to bet a little bit more, Brock like obviously you guys
know he loves betting he has posted a lot of betting videos on his
channel and stuff, and he's been hitting me up and we found this new site called
CS:GO Lotto so link down the description if you guys wanna check it out but we're
betting on today and I won a pot of like 69 dollars or something
like that so it's a pretty small pot but it was like the coolest feeling ever and
I ended up following them on Twitter, and they hit me up and they're
talking to me about potentially doing like a skin sponsorship, like they'll
give me skins to be able to bet on the site, and I've been
considering doing it like I think that'd be kind of cool"
Wow, dude, how cool(!) You got a sponsorship from this new site that you fucking own?
That's like the shadiest thing I have ever seen in my life. I feel like I need
to play that again.
[TmarTn]: "This is something that has never been a secret"
"and we found this new site called CS:GO Lotto"
"Faking something like that and it kind of being deceiving
like that would be one of the worst things you could possibly do"
"We were betting on it today and I want a pot of like 69 dollars or something like that
so it's a pretty small pot but it was like the coolest feeling ever"
"I don't know how you could sleep at night knowing that you put down other people with
misinformation and it caused them harm, like how could you live with yourself?"
".. like the coolest feeling ever, and I ended up following them on Twitter and stuff"
"How could you live with yourself?" "and we found this new site called CS:GO Lotto
so I'll link it down in the description if you guys want to check it out"
[Ethan quoting TmarTn]: "I found a new site that I think you guys are gonna like"
How the fuck do you live with yourself, dog?
[TmarTn]: "The problem with that would be if I didn't divulge that
information, and I do you can look at the descriptions of every single one of my
CS:GO Lotto videos"
But he says I didn't do anything wrong here guys
that's just why I'm going to go through the description of all my videos and
update it to put a disclaimer insinuating that I knew I was doing something shady.
My favorite part about this claim is that if you just go to his videos, you
can simply check the Google cache and see that he has just added the disclaimer
since this news came out, and even if you go to this video I just showed you where
he lies about CS:GO Lotto approaching him, he still didn't put a disclaimer in
description as of this time right now.
All it says is "Best place for gambling skins: CSGOLotto.com"
Not to mention the disclaimer he's added says "Don't play if you're underage"
but the privacy policy on the website forbids only children from under the age of 13.
So which one is it, dude, 13 or 18? Now, the second video of his broke again on
Scarce's news channel
"But he actually had a very good response to this,
he said that "I do own the site now and I didn't back then, at that point it was a feeler
video to see if my viewers would enjoy that type of content and whether or not
I should invest in the business"
Basically what he's saying is that he
didn't own the company at the time of making that video, so technically he wasn't lying.
If you look at the company charter here, you can clearly see that he was the
owner from day one.
Not only that, but he's the dude who FILED it.
He's the incorporator, he's the guy who did the papers and signed it out, put his name
on it and said "I own this company".
And all of his officers are there, ProSyndicate is one of them, they were there from day one.
So, I don't really understand what you're trying to say, TmarTn?
Were you the owner or were you not because clearly the charter shows
that you are the original incorporator. As someone who loves new media,
I love eSports, I love YouTube, when this kind of thing is allowed to go on
it cheapens everything we do.
That's why we here at h3h3productions have decided to make our own
CS:GO gambling site called BabyGambles.net.
We believe that 13 years old is way too old to get started gambling, and we
want the age to go down to five, because if you're old enough to play with blocks,
you're definitely old enough to play with crates! We believe that children
should feel the crushing defeat and crippling self-loathing that comes along
with gambling, because it's never too young to start hating yourself and despising your life.
So join us today at babybets.com/h3h3, by the way I am not
affiliated with the site, I just use it myself,
I play with my children, they have a lot of fun. I am not affiliated in any way with the site,
it's just incidental, please check it out.
Thank you, guys. CSbabybets.gov
Thank you, guys.
And if all this wasn't disturbing enough, we found something way worse.
This will shake the gaming community to the core. Gabe Newell is a brony.
[Gabe Newell]: "I watch My Little Pony"
[Interviewer]: "Haha, you're a brony?"
[Gabe]: "Yep" [Interviewer]: "Oh my gosh"