Inevitably, given the seriousness of their activities, the owners of CSGOLotto have sought legal counsel in the form of Watson LLP. Said legal firm have issued a statement on behalf of CSGOLotto (Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin in particular, who is referenced directly), which can be read below.
“First and foremost, Trevor Martin values the support of his YouTube followers, and he is focused on publishing entertaining content for them.
“The ownership interests in CSGO Lotto have been public record since the company organized in December 2015.
“It is important to understand that winners on the website are randomly determined by both algorithms and computer code. The odds of winning games played at CSGO Lotto are not more or less favorable to any players. The company has fail-safe measures in place to prevent any person and any player from independently changing or manipulating the outcomes of any games played.
“CSGO Lotto finds it deeply troubling that statements against both the company and its owners are not supported by facts and lack a serious understanding of “gambling,” as that term is legally defined. In this way, CSGO Lotto is materially different from its competitors who operate other game play websites that may, in fact, cross the line of legality.
“There is also considerable misinformation concerning allegations that CSGO Lotto encourages minors of age 13 to participate in its games. This stems from a misunderstanding of the company’s privacy policy. The policy references minors aged 13 and under due to the company’s compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Contrary to what has been suggested, the company does not condone the usage of its website by minors under 18 years of age and, indeed, players must certify their age at the outset. Furthermore, statements released by the company on prior occasions are consistent with the company’s continued efforts to ensure that it does not collect the personal information of any minor.
“-Coleman Watson, Esq. Watson LLP”
Note that when it says ownership of the site was “public record”, this means it was possible for a member of the public to request business documents pertaining to CSGOLotto from December 2015 onwards. Not, for example, that Martin or Tom ‘ProSyndicate’ Cassell ever made ownership of the site public in their videos.
The next paragraph is addressing suggestions that, as owners of the site, Martin and Cassell may have been ‘playing’ with different odds than everybody else. Nothing has been proven there (the only thing we know for sure is that there is footage of Martin logging into the site as ‘CSGOLottoBot #5’), so no further comment.
The rest is a denial that CSGOLotto constitutes “gambling” as the term is (currently) legally defined, and a denial that CSGOLotto ever encouraged minors to play in their absolutely-not-gambling-coin-flip-skin-lotteries. The CSGOLotto Steam group still calls it “the premiere skin gambling site” though. Weird, huh.
Update 7 July: At least the Steam group used to say that. Like much of the potential evidence in this affair, it has been crudely altered or deleted after the fact. All references to gambling have mysteriously vanished.
Make of all that what you will.
Directly Related to this article
- Second Valve lawsuit includes CSGOLotto’s Martin and Cassell as defendants
- Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin pulls CSGOLotto apology video
- CSGOLotto legal counsel issues statement
- Valve, It’s Time To Admit You Have a Gambling Problem
- Game Attorney Morrison – more YouTubers have CS:GO gambling equity
- CSGOLotto cover-up “definitely illegal” says Video Game Attorney
- Team Envy distance themselves from Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin
- YouTubers TmarTn and Syndicate caught shilling their own CS:GO betting site
