YouTuber for Counter-Strike Turns Down £5.5 Million to Promote Gambling Sites Because They Use Skins

In order to protect his reputation, YouTuber “Heyzeus” revealed that he declined millions of dollars to promote Counter-Strike 2 gambling sites.

Even though CS2 (formerly known as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive /CS: GO/) is a free-to-play game, it has loot boxes with weapon skins that players are ready to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, which makes Valve’s multiplayer tactical first-person shooter game, one of the most popular video games ever, extremely profitable. After all, a widely accepted betting area for Counter-Strike bettors involves placing wagers on the outcome of a match at eSports betting sites using player skins and items as currency.

If the Counter-Strike content creator under the pseudonym “Anomaly”, the world record holder for the most case openings (6,500 cases and losing £13,000), is to be trusted, it’s not worth the chase; he also stated that “it should be illegal” after opening them.

At unaffiliated websites, where users may wager their skins for increased payouts akin to roulette, the skins are also profitable. “Heyzeus”, a different Counter-Strike 2 influencer to “Anomaly”, has now disclosed how much money he would’ve made had he taken sponsorship offers from these platforms.

“Heyzeus” Was Offered Numerous Deals in Four Years

“Heyzeus” shared a video on YouTube (the name of his channel is @TDM_Heyzeus) with his 424,000 subscribers, explaining that if he had taken the deals that were given to him, which could’ve paid up to $500,000 (£400,000) a month, he would’ve made $6.9 (£5.5 million) between 2019 and 2023.

The content producer added that over the course of the four years, he was presented with numerous offers. These included the first $500 (£400) per video, along with a fee for signing up to the third-party website, as well as $200,000 (£160,000) per month and the previously mentioned £400,000 per month payment.

“Heyzeus” stated that he turned down the initial offers in order to protect his name, but he acknowledged that there are those who choose to take the rich offers.

“It’s a lot of money. People say think about the kids (that are using skins to gamble) but if you’re making the content, you can’t see those kids.”

However, he said, you can observe the money’s transformative power on your own psyche. That’s the reason so many find it difficult to say no.

Fans Complain About Lot of Cheaters in CS2 Recently

Fans of Counter-Strike 2 have been complaining a lot lately about how many cheats there are in the game and how little support Valve’s anti-cheat system provides. Things grew even worse when two of the most well-known Counter-Strike content makers, “Warowl” and “Anomaly”, partially or completely departed the game due to a flaw that let anyone utilize cheats by utilizing simple text commands while playing.

“Anomaly”, who’s most renowned for opening cases containing purchasable weapons, shared a video on social media that shows what you get when you open 6,500 cases—not much, despite his declaration that he was going to stop playing the game. “Anomaly” claimed to have set a world record for the most cases opened in a single sitting when he spent 20 hours opening all 6,500 cases, each of which yielded a weapon skin. A total of £18,600 was spent on the case opening extravaganza: £5,500 was spent on all the cases, and £13,100 was spent on the keys he also needed to open the cases. “Anomaly” disclosed that the value of his new skins was only £5,600. That means that after initially spending £18,600 for all of the skins, he’d lose £13,000 if he sold them all at market value.

For years, fans have been criticizing Valve for introducing a gambling element to the game with these loot boxes, wherein players compete to unlock skins valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.