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CSGO Lotto, one of the biggest, most controversial gambling sites in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive community, stopped taking bets the day after it was named in a lawsuit, nearly a week ago. A pop-up notification on the site indicates that the shutdown was to avoid heavy Steam traffic during the the ESL One Cologne 2016 major event, but that has since ended and bets are still not allowed.
"All game modes will be shut down due to the high Majors traffic expected on Steam over this weekend," the notification, dated July 8, reads.
Yet the ESL One Cologne, which offers a $1 million prize pool and whose final attracted more than 1 million concurrent viewers, wrapped on July 10.
Owner and vice president Trevor "Tmartn" Martin and Tom "Syndicate" Cassell have continued to be active on YouTube and social media in the meantime; neither one has spoken about their website’s downtime or when to expect its return.
We’ve reached out to Martin and his legal team regarding CSGO Lotto’s lengthy downtime. We’ll update accordingly.
Fellow YouTubers brought to light that the pair was the team behind CSGO Lotto, discovering that Martin and Syndicate had not disclosed their business relationship to the website in promotional videos. Martin has since spoken out, first claiming that the information had always been public record before issuing an apology that has since been taken down.
On July 7, days after they were revealed to own CSGO Lotto, Martin and Cassell were added to a lawsuit filed by a Global Offensive player against several other major betting sites, like CSGO Lounge and OPSkins. The lawsuit accuses the sites, along with Valve Corporation, of running "illegal" weapon skins trading markets, aimed at underage users.
CSGO Diamonds, another site named in the suit, is also currently down for maintenance. The site tweeted this morning that it "will be back up ASAP."
Yesterday, Valve, which developed the popular shooter, announced it would begin cracking down on betting sites that require players to login through Steam. That includes many Global Offensive gambling sites, including CSGO Lotto. Twitch followed suit, and gambling broadcasts have since been banned from the platform.
