Valve has banned roughly 40 CS:GO accounts for trading, with the result that more than $2 million worth of in-game items have been lost. Any account that receives a community ban can no longer trade items, and so their stockpiles of CS:GO skins, stickers, gloves, knives, and the like are now in limbo. Other traders are apparently taking this as a warning, and selling everything they’ve got. 

Back in June, gambling site CSGOEmpire released a spreadsheet listing CS:GO traders they accused of being part of a scheme to launder cryptocurrency through CSGORoll, a rival gambling site. According to Dexerto, all but one of the accounts in that document were among those caught in this latest ban wave, and there has been speculation that Valve targeted them deliberately.

We’ve reached out to Valve to ask if these accounts were chosen because of their connection to CSGORoll, but have not received a reply. Without that confirmation there’s no way to know for sure if that’s why they were chosen, or if they or simply happened to be caught in the same ban wave. 

CSGOEmpire has been taking it as definitive proof of a victory over its rival, however, who it accused of having “illegally laundered $12.7m in crypto over the last month alone” as well as attempting blackmail to prevent the list being made public.

CSGORoll’s owner made a public statement on Twitter to deny the accusations of money laundering, as well as declaring the site is not engaging in gambling. “I own a gamified skins trading platform,” he wrote, “by law, this is not classified as a casino in our largest markets because we do not offer cash withdrawals.”

Steam’s online conduct rules restrict users from engaging in “commercial activity” on the platform, including “running contests; gambling; buying or selling Steam accounts; selling content, gift cards, or other items”.