It is last July, and after several months of investigation, Jeff aka Houngoungagne publishes a video called “the dark reality behind CS:GO (illegal gambling, lies and addiction).” The one who considers himself “the YouTube boomer” – followed by 730,000 people on this platform, to which should be added 106,100 subscribers on Twitch – decides to sound the alarm on an environment that he particularly likes, the stage CS:GO. In his video, he explores everything: the link between online betting sites and influencers, licenses, the lack of protection for minors. A real bomb in the industry.
After the video was released, the first messages arrived in his inbox. They are influencers, streamers, publishers. Everyone congratulates him on his investigation but the bomb turns into a damp squib. No awareness disrupts their daily lives. “The next day, I saw them live promoting the same crap sites and nothing has changed,” Jeff now regrets. After the excitement of the first days, Jeff even suffered a few waves of hatred online, including death threats.
Some players will decide to give her the nickname “Greta Thunberg of the CS:GO “. “My fight is not against gambling with your money, but against the idea that these kinds of products are so accessible to any age and anywhere when they shouldn’t be. »
The responsibility of influencers
For the vast majority of young bettors interviewed, videos from streamers and tournaments are in fact a gateway to these online casinos. “It’s hard to miss these sites. There are promotions on YouTube videos, sponsorships. They are omnipresent,” underlines John, 21 years old. Léo, 16 years old, was able to register thanks to the sponsorship of a YouTuber. Same thing for Ismaël, 19 years old. “As these videos entertained me on YouTube, I started trying to play on these sites with free daily bonuses or codes that some sponsored influencers shared. »
For these streamers, online betting sites are big investors. Pharaonic sums are offered to them to see the logo of the casino sites appear on the lives. In turn, Jeff was offered an astronomical offer a few months ago. For eight YouTube videos per month and twenty monthly Twitch streams, a site paid $120,000 per month to which was added $1,500 for each twenty minutes of live. A football player’s salary that Jeff refused out of ethics. “Not only are the sites illegal, but they are also immoral in their operation. »
But in this very competitive world, Jeff is the only one to speak out against this well-oiled mechanism. Very few influential players CS:GO followed his example. “When there is so much money at stake, when we earn 600,000 euros a year, we have very little interest in having perspective on what brings us so much money. » Followed by 10,300 subscribers on Twitch, Gauthierlele admits to being sponsored by a site, Farmskin. “It allows us to make a living from streaming. »
Previously sponsored by another site, it wanted to renegotiate “its market value” without making a living from it. When asked about his relationship to ethics, Gauthier claims to be aware of the paradox. He played online betting sites when he was still a minor. He even experienced the “infernal spiral” of gambling. So he explains that he does prevention on online betting during each session on his networks. “Our job is of course to tell everyone that these sites are like casinos. We know that it has caused misfortune and will continue to cause misfortune. It must be said that you have to go there for the pleasure of betting because the site will always be a winner in the long term. »
“We know these sites cause misfortune”
Yet prevention is still too insufficient. According to Jeff, there is even a real “phenomenon of trivialization”. “Their favorite YouTubers make videos on the sites and earn tens of thousands of euros. When they play, they scream, they look happy, they are excited and obviously it’s attractive. If in three clicks, your favorite Youtuber has won between 15,000 and 20,000 euros, you tell yourself that you will try too. »
Pushing the trivialization a little too far, certain unions have sometimes caused palpable embarrassment. Last May, during the Paris Major, the powerful G2 team announced a new partnership with the online betting site CSGORoll. Big announcement which deserved a commercial video with the new star player, a man named mONESY. Problem is, this young Russian professional was only born in May 2005 and was not yet eighteen when he shot the first professional clips for his sponsor. Immediate discomfort in the community, who wonder how this partnership came to be. The recriminations, however, remain discreet: Monesy is still the advertising face of CSGORoll, which leaves us skeptical, to say the least, about the actors’ desire to prevent the very young public from losing money they don’t have, on sites he should not frequent.