H3H3 Productions Uncovers Massive YouTube Gambling Scam

Ethan Klein of YouTube’s h3h3 Productions won’t let silly little things like lawsuits slow him down in his quest for justice. He’s gone after pranksters, creepers, and all-around YouTube douchebags for years. But his latest discovery might his shadiest one yet.

In the above video, Klein details the seedy world behind Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling and two of its most apparently corrupt practitioners. Klein accuses popular YouTubers ProSyndicate and TmarTn of owning and operating CS:GO Lotto, a CS:GO gambling site, without disclosing to their millions of subscribers that they had the power to rig bets in their favor — a deliberate, malevolent non-disclosure with the intent of luring gamblers, many of them underage, to the site.

CS:GO features a system in which skins for various weapons, which can be sold online for cash, appear at random from crates. Several websites have sprung up to take advantage of this glorified digital roulette, including CSGO Diamonds, CSGO Lounge, and OPSkins.

So far, these sites have managed to avoid being classified as gambling sites — though a pending lawsuit against CS:GO developer Valve may change all that. Since they’re not technically “gambling,” these websites have a lower age of entry than proper gambling sites — according to their website, CS:GO Lotto requires participants to be only 13 years of age, as opposed to 18 or 21 depending on the jurisdiction.

In other words: people too young to legally gamble — or fully understand the consequences of gambling — are targets of sites that offer a form of gambling. But it gets worse.

YouTubers ProSyndicate and TmarTn, who between them have over 10 million subscribers, have for some time been posting videos of themselves winning bets and making money on CS:GO Lotto. However, according to Klein and an official Florida business filing, these two are among the owners and admins of the site — a fact Klein says neither of them disclosed until after the scandal broke.

The rabbit hole goes even deeper. Redditor Fluffybro_Jr posted a comment in which he presents evidence that TmarTn controlled at least one robot account on the site — an account which gamblers are supposed to give skins to as part of the gambling process. In other words, not only does TmarTn have a conflict of interest betting on the site he is said to own, but he has the ability to rig bets in his favor. The original video with this evidence has been taken down by TmarTn, but as of this writing Fluffybro_Jr’s reupload of the video remains up on YouTube.

If these allegations are true, they will not only rock the gaming and YouTube communities, but potentially have legal repercussions. Stay tuned here for more updates to this story.

What do you think? Is there a need of gambling regulation and strict laws? Is this a major scandal, or are these YouTubers innocent? Let us know in the comments below or @WhatsTrending on Twitter!