Valve blocks Team Fortress 2 gambling sites

Valve Software has blocked more gambling websites from using its data, announcing that it would cut off access to several exploiting multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2.

“Some gambling websites started leveraging TF2 items,” Valve wrote in a brief statement posted Friday. “Today we began the process of blocking TF2 gambling accounts as well. We recommend you don’t trade with these sites.”

In October of last year the Washington State Gambling Commission threatened legal action against Valve Software, demanding proof that they were in compliance with state law. At issue was the practice of “skin gambling” common among players of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Valve was quick to dispute that it was at fault. The company maintains that its data, which is open for limited use by other websites, does not make them complicit in illegal activities.

Nonetheless, Valve has begun to block these sites from using that data.

“Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements,” states Valve’s official statement, issued in July of last year.

Valve, as well as two gambling sites, were named in a lawsuit filed in a Connecticut court in June seeking unspecified damages.