TechRaptor staff writers and editors have covered recent scandals involving third-party Counter Strike: Global Offensive skin gambling websites and YouTube stars. The third-party websites were a way for players to gamble skins they owned on Valve's Steam gaming platform, in the hopes of owning skins that had high real world value. These YouTube stars promoted CS: GO skin gambling websites without disclosing their involvement with the websites - our readers can refresh themselves on the situations with our prior articles.

Today, July 13, 2016, Valve has issued a response to these scandals, and how the company plans on addressing player concerns as well as the lawsuit filed against them.

In this announcement from Erik Johnson, Valve clarifies that their company has no business relationships with any of the gambling websites - which make use of Steam's trading system - nor do they have any systems in place to let Steam users turn items into real world currency. In addition, Valve receives no revenue from these gambling websites, or the sale of Steam in-game items.

Valve will be sending notices to these gambling websites instructing them to cease their operations, as it violates not just the Steam user agreements, but also the OpenID API user agreements. The OpenID API user agreements were broken by the gambling websites creating automated Steam accounts that mimic activities performed by regular, individual Steam accounts.

Johnson's closing remarks urges players to consider how they use the Steam Marketplace to manage their in-game inventories in light of this announcement.

There has been no public response to this announcement from the CS: GO Lotto gambling website, its owners, or from the websites recently-acquired legal counsel, Watson LLP (readers can familiarize themselves with Watson LLP's response to the initial scandals here regarding the CS: GO Lotto situation).

Readers can also read the thoughts of Bryce Blum, Ryan Morrison, and Jeff Ifrah - three attorneys who work in the e-sports industry - on the recent scandals in their reddit "Ask Me Anything" thread.

Stay tuned to TechRaptor for continuing coverage on the gambling scandals and further responses from Valve.

What are your thoughts on the gambling scandals? Do you agree with Valve's response? Let us know in the comment section below.