It feels like half of Twitch is opening Counter-Strike cases again.
If you’ve watched some of the biggest names on Twitch lately, like Jynxzi, xQc, or TimTheTatman, you might get the impression that Counter-Strike 2 is back in the spotlight. Case openings in particular seem to be everywhere again. At the same time, Valve has now been hit with two lawsuits in the US, raising the question of how much gambling is actually behind CS cases.
Counter-Strike Case Openings Are Taking Over Twitch Again
If you’ve been on Twitch in the past few days, chances are you’ve seen the clip of Jynxzi finally pulling a gold from a case, only to end his stream immediately afterwards out of frustration over the knife he got. When introducing him to Counter-Strike, ohnePixel revealed that he has likely lost around $70K on cases himself, investing roughly 100K and getting only 30K back. He warned Jynxzi that cases are “not profitable.” Jynxzi seemed just as frustrated after allegedly spending around $5K and the most valuable item he got was knife, which is worth barely more than $100.
Meanwhile, Stable Ronaldo pulled a knife in one of his first cases. Over the next few streams he casually kept opening more, occasionally together with xQc. At the same time, TimTheTatman also returned to Counter-Strike 2, opening cases almost every time he died in a round, with no gold in sight. The next day he was playing together with Nadeshot, again opening cases nearly every round, though this time at least Nadeshot managed to pull a pair of gloves.
CS Cases Under Fire As Valve Faces Two Gambling Lawsuits
While many streamers are back on CS opening cases and playing the game, Valve now finds itself confronted with two separate lawsuits. The first was filed by the state of New York, and the state of Washington has since followed with a lawsuit of its own.
The state accuses Valve of modeling its loot boxes after casino slot machines. According to the complaint, this system represents an illegal form of gambling and deliberately exposes children to these mechanics. Valve has released the official probabilities for the different item tiers that can be obtained from CS cases, and the chance of receiving the rarest items is below one percent.
So even if it can be fun to open a few cases once in a while, you have to remember that it is still gambling. And let’s be real here: it works exactly like slot machines. You pay, then you wait and hope that you get something good. There is no way to influence the outcome or gain any advantage. So in the end, be careful with cases, because not everyone can afford to lose 70K opening them.
