How Valve is Profiting from Steam's Back-Door Casinos

> Underage gambling in the sense of spending real money to redeem things that may be impossible to redeem without spending it? Critically, Valve allows you to trade items. This results in a couple of downstream effects: 1. Items have real-world value because they can be traded for money outside of Steam. Multiple sites exist for people to convert items into real-world money (certain rare items have been sold for >$1m [0]). 2. As these items have value, they can serve as a surrogate for money in casinos, or for sports betting. 3. This can even lead to money laundering [1]. As such, skins should be considered money, but the sites running these services don't. Therefore, it is trivial for a child to walk into a game store, buy Steam credit, use that credit to buy skins, and then spend that money on literal gambling (as very few sites have KYC). I know because I've actively partaken in it as a child. Even cryptocurrency is harder: most legitimate exchanges attempt to do identity validation. Some video resources that might be useful: - Coffeezilla: [link] - People Make Games: [this video] [0]: [link] [1]: [link]

I went with the total honesty approach. It doesn't seem to have affected them negatively in my case. I mean, I still enjoy Santa Claus to some degree. I don't think thinking it's real is a critical component of the experience. My kids enjoy the elf on the shelf sort of thing, and they were always fully aware the elf is not actually getting up to shenanigans at night. Nevertheless it's fun for the entire family, because it stretches us parents to be creative a little bit every night as well. Most recently the elf was starring as Batman in a three-night, three-act structure in which he menanced Joker, then the tables were turned with the Joker having hijacked the Batmobile and running over Bat-Elf, then there was a climactic showdown involving the Lego train tracks the next night. Nobody needed to think these adventures are actually real to enjoy them. I come in in between; the stories are important for other reasons, but it is in no way mandatory to tell them they're real. Maybe in the 19th century it was less of a big deal, reality was more real in a lot of ways. But in a world of deep fakes, CGI, incredibly organized special interest groups comparable to the size of entire powerful medieval cities a few centuries ago, etc. etc. I need all the trust I can get if I'm going to train them to survive in the unbelievably hostile environment they're trying to grow up in now. Recently I was showing my kids how they're being targeted by video game gambling: [this video] and I was musing o