Gambling using one of the world's most popular video games is getting out of control and nothing is being done in Australia to protect young people from it, experts have told the ABC.

Key points: Gamers are risking serious money gambling "skins"

Gamers are risking serious money gambling "skins" There are no age restrictions and it takes just seconds to sign up

There are no age restrictions and it takes just seconds to sign up Industry experts say regulations are "hopelessly" out dated

Gamers are using Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) — a hugely successful first person shooter game — to bet on virtual weapons that have real world value.

Players of any age can obtain the weapons — called skins — in the game and can then gamble them on unregulated third-party websites.

There are hundreds of websites where the skins can be used to bet on games of black jack, roulette or even a coin flip.

All the skins have a value based on their rarity. Prices range from less than a dollar up to more than $2,000.

Just like chips in a casino, players can cash out their skins at any time or simply use them in game.

The ABC has spoken to a number of young gamers who have gambled skins. In one case, a teenager stole his parent's credit card and gambled away thousands of dollars.

Jordan Bruce, an 18-year-old gamer from Brisbane, said he played CS:GO for about a year before he started getting into the gambling.

Like many of the gamers the ABC spoke to, he started with small bets with his friends before things started getting out of control.

"[I] bet all my money on skins, I was that much into it, then it started getting bad," he said.

'I hated myself' ... Jordan Bruce stole his dad's credit card to skins gamble. ( ABC News: Norman Hermant )

He stole his father's credit card and gambled away about $1,800.

How does it work? The skins act in a similar way to chips in a casino: users buy them from an online market and can then take them to websites

The skins act in a similar way to chips in a casino: users buy them from an online market and can then take them to websites There are hundreds of skins websites where gamers can bet on games of black jack, roulette, or even a coin flip

There are hundreds of skins websites where gamers can bet on games of black jack, roulette, or even a coin flip All the skins have a value based on their rarity. Prices range from less than $1 up to more than $2,000

All the skins have a value based on their rarity. Prices range from less than $1 up to more than $2,000 The skins don't change the performance of a gun in CS:GO, just how it looks

The skins don't change the performance of a gun in CS:GO, just how it looks It takes just seconds to set up a gambling account for Counter-Strike players

It takes just seconds to set up a gambling account for Counter-Strike players There is no age limit on the gambling website and no responsible gambling messages, as is required in Australia

"I just had that urge. I hated it and I hated myself after it, but at the time I just thought 'I won't get caught'," Jordan said.

His father Andrew Bruce confronted him after the payments showed up on his credit card statement.

"I was horrified that there had been so much money spent on a service, that up until that time, I didn't know about," Mr Bruce said.

Jordan is not alone. He said his some of his friends were also heavily involved in skins.

Nason Pybus, 18, from Sydney said he dabbled in skins gambling but cashed out when the stakes started getting high.

"It was actually quite surreal that I'd have these skins in game but I was making quite a bit of money off them. It didn't seem like the stakes were high, but they were," he said.

Nason Pybus cashed out his skins before losing money. ( ABC News: Mark Doman )

Popular Twitch, YouTube personalities encouraging gaming

In the gaming world, broadcasting yourself playing video games is huge and skins gambling attracts a big audience.

YouTube videos of big wins and losses have hundreds of thousands of views and some of the top players on the video game broadcasting website Twitch stream gambling to thousands.

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Young gamers told the ABC watching the excitement of these online personalities gambling made them want to get involved.

"Seeing how much they go in, how much they got out of it and just wanting to be like that," Jordan Bruce said.

The emergence of skins gambling has sparked concern in the industry.

Rahul Sood — founder of US-based eSports gambling betting website Unikrn — said the ease with which children can watch and get involved in the gambling makes him seriously uncomfortable.

"It's just so easy to do and because there's no oversight and no regulation, there are sites from all over the world that are accepting bets and nobody seems to care," he said.

Mr Sood said he wants to hear from Counter-Strike's developers Valve about where they stand on children gambling using the marketplace they created.

"We would love for them to work with good operators and come up with a system that can solve some of the issues that are happening out there but I haven't seen anything publically from them," he said.

Australia's internet gambling regulations 'pre-date Facebook'

Dr Sally Gainsbury, an online gambling expert from Southern Cross University, said when it comes to oversight of this kind of gambling in Australia, the regulations were "hopelessly out of date".

"The regulation for internet gambling was actually created before Facebook even existed," she said.

She said there had been several reviews looking to bring the internet gambling regulation up-to-date, but none even touched on the concept of gambling in video games.

"There's very little effort being put into updating the internet gambling regulation. It's unlikely that anything will be done about it any time soon," she said.

A response from the Department of Communications suggests government policy is confused — at best. The Department says the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits online gambling services.

But it also says networked computer games are not prohibited even when they are played for money, because computer games are primarily regarded as games of skill.

Valve, Steam and Twitch did not respond to the ABC's request for comment.