Valve on Wednesday broke its silence regarding its potential involvement in controversial Counter-Strike: Global Offensive gambling sites such as CSGO Lotto and GSGO Lounge.
In a brief statement, Valve's Erik Johnson said gambling sites that leverage the Steam trading system have pieced together their operations in two-part fashion.
The sites are using the OpenID API as a way for users to prove ownership of their Steam accounts and items. Any other information they have regarding a user's Steam account is either manually entered by the gamer or obtained from the player's Steam Community profile (assuming the user has made their profile public).
Gambling sites are also creating automated Steam accounts that make the same web calls as individual Steam users which Johnson said is not allowed by its API or its user agreements.
He also clarified that Valve has no business relationships with any gambling sites and that they've never received any revenue from them. He added that Steam does not have a system in place for turning in-game items into real world currency.
That said, Valve will soon be sending cease-and-desist letters to gambling sites, requesting that they stop operating through Steam. Johnson said they will further pursue the matter as necessary, presumably if they run into sites that aren't willing to cooperate.
Lastly, Johnson said users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game inventory and trade activity.