Author: ESPN
Text Type: Article
Date: Friday June 2 2017
This article is about how a teenager named Elijah turned into a compulsive gambler influenced by two big Youtubers Trevor Marin (TmarTn) and Tom Cassell (Syndicate) and spent $8,365 of his parents money and they had no idea what he was getting up to.
This article shocked me when I seen that a little boy was becoming a addicted gambler at such a young age. The start of the article they talk about how two young millionaires named "TmarTn"and "Syndicate" changed skin gambling for the worse. For example when TmarTn was betting on these websites the main website used is called "csgolotto". TmarTn uploading video of him "Winning Big" but in reality its his own website that he made with Syndicate and they started to rigging the odds so that he wins every time. This means all the little kids watching his videos of winning big they think "Oh if he can win big, I can win big too" that's how the gambling addiction starts. Another example on how they changed the skin gambling scene is when they where uploading these videos they never told anyone in the description that they owned it or said anything to do with owning the site. An important lesson in this text is that just because you see people on the Internet winning big in gambling is that you don't need to go out and try to bet and win big just like Elijah did.
This article influenced my understanding of gambling and and how much they where ripping people off. I learnt that Valve this allowing people to make and rig sites for content. For example in the article they talk about skins and how skins has changed the game. They explain about how 5 billion was wagered over the year of 2016 through "coin flips" and "roulette". It's just like going to Vegas and betting at tables but they are in there room on the computer. Just like Elijah did and they are only kids. Another example of the money is Counter-Strike is that if you have expensive skins you are considered "cool" because you can show them off in game and too your friends just like Elijah when he spent $8,365 of his parents money on the game and skins. he stayed betting and gambling until he checked his account balance and it read: 4 cents. I relate well to this article because I watch these two youtubers and I have gambled with skins before. For me I think that this scandal is good because it stopped most gambling sites after the scandal was over because Valve (owners of csgo) sent out violation letter to the websites saying that they had to shutdown or they will get shutdown by valve in 24 hours because they where violating rules valve had.
