An attendee at the BLAST Paris Major staged a protest against CS:GO gambling site CSGORoll by gluing his hand to a skin slot machine that was available at the G2 Esports booth.
Shortly before the Paris Major began, G2, one of the favorites going into the event, announced a partnership with CSGORoll.
The announcement was met with some backlash, both because of the nature of CSGORoll’s business, and for using Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov in a promotional video, the day after he turned 18.
CSGORoll was emblazoned on the team’s jersey at the event, where they crashed out in 12-14th place, and featured at the team’s booth in the arena. As part of the promotion, a physical slot machine was available for passers-by to use, with skins as the prizes.
CS:GO fan stages anti-CSGORoll protest
A viral clip shared by G2 even showed a lucky fan winning an AWP Dragon Lore – one of the most expensive skins in Counter-Strike – using the slot machine. However, not everyone was happy about the booth.
In another video, a protester glued his hand to the machine, and while security took steps to remove him, he shouted that CSGORoll was a “scam” and had “no license.”
At one point, the protester also claims that he lost his house “to this f**king company.”
A crowd of onlookers booed at some points and asked how long he would take so others could play.
After a few minutes, a total of five security staff surrounded the protester and removed him from the machine, to cheers from the waiting crowd.
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On Twitter, in now-deleted Tweets, CSGORoll alleged that the protester was actually set up by a rival skin gambling site, CS:GO Empire. “This person was paid by a competitor as part of their defamation and sabotage campaign,” they claimed.
They also alleged that the individual was supplied with “defamatory leaflets” criticizing CSGRoll that were handed out to members of the crowd.
CS:GO Empire responded, and did not deny involvement in the incident directly. Instead, they used the opportunity to question CSGORoll’s business practices.
Hi @CSGORoll, now that we got your attention, how about you finally respond to this?
It has already been 13 days since we posted a document regarding many of your malicious activities, and so far you have completely ignored this, while hiding any comments about this in your chat…
— CSGOEmpire (@CSGOEmpire) May 23, 2023
What is CSGORoll?
CSGORoll is one of the best-known skins gambling sites, although it describes itself as the “Largest CSGO P2P Skins Marketplace” in its Twitter bio.
On May 17, the Australian government banned the site and deemed it to be illegal, issuing a warning to its owner, Feral Holdings Limited.
All CS:GO gambling exists in a grey area of sorts. Steam’s Subscriber Agreement prohibits the use of skins and other items for commercial use, with gambling listed as one example.
However, the practice has existed in one form or another for years, and the value of CS:GO skins has continued to increase over that time. Despite the wave of cease and desists issued by Valve against 23 gambling sites in 2016, there are still a number of places to wager items.
