The dark side: Money Laundering and gambling in eSports and gaming industry

Money laundering and gambling in esports is a big problems that has time and again caused multiple problems with game companies. Consider Counter-Strike Global Offensive is one of the most popular video games of this era, which was developed by Seattle based, Valve. In this ultra-popular game, players have an option to become ‘Terrorists,’ i.e., to plant bombs at secret locations or hold people as hostages or become the soldiers who are the good ones fighting with the corrupt influenced individuals out there. 

In a blog post released in October, 2019, Valve very randomly spoke about how in Counter-Strike: Global offensive players did not have the liberty to swap the ‘Pot Keys’ for the various items in the games such as stickers, uncommon knives, weapons or the special edition of stickers. 

Valve recently, in an interview, said that many of the fraud networks have landed at Counter-Strike: Global offensive keys for the purpose of liquidation. At this vulnerable stage, each of the transactions bet it major or minor, which has been earlier purchased or sold in the market, is suspected to be spam. There has been a recent revelation about her fact that bribery and money laundering have become very prevalent, and this is rooted in one of the most prominent companies of the video game of the globe accounts for one of the primary traditions activities in the industry. 

An RSUI research analyst and the defense & Security think tank; Kayla Izenman has recently co-authorized a study on money laundering in the online games sector spoke about how surprising it was even to witness the kind of vocabulary which was used by the players.  

Valve did come out with some problematic findings which spoke about how the offenders have been given access to make use of the loopholes in the online market of games for almost 10 + years. These offenders have either by extracting the vast profits from various other sources of illegal activities or collecting the numbers of the stolen credit cards. 

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Money laundering and gambling in esports is a serious issue

The fraudsters have been seen to purchase a wide variety of virtual currencies or real items that depends on the crime proceeds and then gradually sell it to some unhappy player. These fraudsters sell it with massive discounts and use the online market as a source of medium. It was just a year ago when a researcher-made an inquiry of cybersecurity into the hit-game fortnight. Sixgill, the researcher found out that the in-game currency of Fortnite- V-bucks we’re being sold in the dark web and there have been people who have bought it. 

After further research, Sixgill found out goods worth thousands of dollars were there on eBay. The importance of the game Fortnite has grown significantly. Hence the virtual objects have turned out to be a much bigger business, and this has eventually led to the fraudsters aiming more and more for it. 

There are a few virtual weapons that do hold value, but mostly, the other skin provides the players with an extensive opportunity to express their views in the online space through their personal avatars. Behind the various Multi-player games such as Counterstrike and Fortnite, the Mukti dollar companies have clearly defied from accommodating ‘Know your Client’ demands or any other laws pertaining to anti-money for the purpose of processors of payments. 

The Valve’s shutdown of its Counter strike Global offensive keys trading does suggest that the developers of the game might do a lot more with their own networks. By having access to the player’s accounts, it becomes difficult to trade the digital assets, and there is a tracking system for the objects when they are traveled from one user to the other.