Two prominent gaming creators on YouTube allegedly promoted a gambling website on their channels without revealing that they owned the site. This revelation — involving The Syndicate Project, or Tom Cassell, who has nearly 10 million subscribers, and TmarTn, or Trevor Martin, with more than 3 million subscribers — was made in a new video by h3h3Productions, a channel that often provides commentary on site-wide goings-on.
Cassell and Martin’s gambling site, called CSGO Lotto, operates within an increasingly popular online gambling realm centered upon the popular first-person shooter game Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Skin betting, as the practice is called, eludes a legal loophole that lets young people gamble on the outcome of Counter Strike matches with skins (or weapon accessories) that can be bought and sold for actual money. Skin betting has become a booming business, according to Bloomberg: In 2015, 3 million people wagered $2.3 billion in skins.
According to h3h3Productions, Cassell and Martin posted several skin betting videos on their channels in which they promoted CSGO Lotto (there are many such sites in existence) without ever disclosing that they were co-owners. One now-privated video by Martin was reportedly titled How To Win $13,000 In 5 Minutes. However, Martin was ultimately discovered to be the president of the site and Cassell the vice president, according to business registration papers uncovered by another creator named Honor The Call. “If they own the site, they have access to the back end of the website,” explains h3h3Productions’ Ethan Klein (see below). “They can control the outcome of every bet, they can fake the results to make promoting videos, and it’s illegal to not disclose if you’ve been paid or work for a company to promote or review that product.”
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Following the revelation, Martin made a now-deleted video claiming that his ownership of CSGO Lotto has “never been a secret,” and then went back in and added disclaimers within the descriptions of his videos that mentioned the site, according to h3h3Productions.
For his part, Cassell tweeted, “I apologize to anyone who feels mislead regarding the ownership of CSGO Lotto. I will always be more transparent from here on out! I do, however, stand very firmly behind the fact that CSGO Lotto has never and will never scam/steal from players. I’ve always disclosed that my CSGO videos were sponsored and even asked a YouTube employee if anything more was needed and they said it wasn’t. Transparency from here on out!”
Check out h3h3Productions’ investigation — first uncovered by HonorTheCall — in full below:
