Before we will be jumping into the large green numbers, that some lucky fellows have managed to bring home, let’s have some trivia on the CS:GO skin industry, and where it came from initially.
When CS:GO was released, initially without the market we know today, I doubt many people had foreseen the massive interest in gambling in-game items such as crates, keys, and weapons. Imagine if they had never released the skins, crates, and keys that we all love today? Approximately 1000+ websites would have no reason to exist. I am of course talking about the almost endless array of cs:go skin gambling sites. Whether it allows you to dice, roll or stake your stuff.
Before this massive betting community had grown itself independent, when the trading system was first launched by Valve, they explained within a statement that the arms bazaar, which was web-based, might allow Counter Strike gamers “experience most of the thrills of black market guns trafficking while avoiding dark warehouses becoming knifed while passing around dangerous environments.” It had been assumed to be a ‘troll’ statement by Valve. However, the mention of the markets that are dark was real.
Some people may argue whether or not computer games is indeed a sport, however, it’s a minimum of something in accordance with other more mainstream sports, such as soccer or basketball: Folks enjoy wagering real money on the outcomes.
When a sport is popular, so is betting on it. This wasn’t always the case for e-sports but it is slowly catching up to mainstream games with billions of dollars being traded, staked, gambled, and even donated, every single year.
For CS:GO, the debut of the trading system resulted in a highly active marketplace that was moving huge amounts of real-world value. Individuals purchase skins for money, then make use of those to put wagers that are on-line on professional matches or simply bet their items against the stuff of other gamers.
Staking with your counter strike weapons is basically just like gambling with real cash because there’s a fluid marketplace that secures the value of your items by having lots of buyers and sellers creating a slightly varying price for every in-game stuff. When a new box or crate is released, usually following a “mission” release, the price is often very high the first few hours-days, until players have unlocked enough that the market value decreases due to basic supply and demand.
CS:GO reputation increased drastically in the wake of the skin release, as well as the betting options tied to them. Valve inc. has sold 21,000,000 copies of this incredibly popular game and during the course of its life, it has generated $567 million in total income since it initially debuted nearly 4 years ago.
As in any other betting industry, the stakes are sometimes very high, let’s take a look on some of the biggest wins in the history of CS:GO skin gambling.
A lot of people from the community have become familiar with m0E, a dedicated cs:go player and streamer. He is also one of the most popular personalities in the Counter Strike section of Twitch, and also a very wagering happy personality.
While streaming to his many viewers world-wide, he spent most of his day gambling on csgoroll. The site allows you to convert your skins and items into Gold which you can use to wager on their platform. After some relatively low wages, m0E decides to up the stakes and after a few crazy wins he ends up with $400,000 profit. The majority of his winning came through a lucky green hit on their roulette-type game. With a $20,000 stake, it resulted in a whopping $160,000 win.
This $100,000 prize pool was picked up by ShiftIt with roughly 20% chance of winning the pool, so he had about $20,000 in the pool. Phantoml0rd had about $12,000. If absolutely no memories pop up then I highly recommend you check the video and enjoy seeing someone else lose a ton of money. Spoiler alert: He breaks stuff.
On the same day this massive $100,000 pool was raised, the previous daily high was $88,000 so if you just hang around long enough, you will get your chance to win big in digital goodies, alongside some of the most prominent names in the communities while they are taking a break from a serious everyday life.
Another prominent gambler and gamer worth mentioning is SideArms. Through his youtube channel and Twitch streams, he provides entertainment for the masses by losing and winning tons of money.
In one of his videos published to youtube, he lands some impressive wins and ends up with not one, but two AWP – Dragon Lore. This item is a rare and fabled one, also the only weapon available in the game with a direct connection to a playable map in CS:GO, Cobblestone.
The value of AWP – Dragon Lore swings around $500 – $2000 depending on the quality of the skin, i.e if its factory new or battle scarred condition, or somewhere in-between.
This brings his winnings all the way up to about $2000 dollars, just from those AWPs, his winnings included over 120 different n-game items. Considering his chances of winning were less than %10 it is a notable win, and SideArms himself was joyful, to say the least.
The average pools attract at $134,000 in bets, in accordance with sports betting watchdog SportIM, however, many bring in considerably more. Among the most famous bets so far this season, a Goal competition between groups called Luminosity and Fnatic, received nearly $1.2 million in wagers from players all over the globe.
So what are you waiting for? Go find your favorite CS:GO skin gambling site and put your items on the line for a chance to win even greater stuff. Or just to see all the crazy and rare weapons switching hands like the stock on Wallstreet.