Controversial Counter-Strike Skin Betting Exposed
In the midst of the ongoing scandal surrounding Counter-Strike skin betting, another prominent figure has been accused of concealing ownership of a betting site.
James “PhantomL0rd” Varga, a popular YouTuber and Twitch streamer with almost two million followers, allegedly owns the site CSGO Shuffle. Shockingly, he never disclosed his ownership while betting on the site in his videos.
On July 16th, Richard Lewis, a veteran esports reporter, broke the story. He received hacked Skype logs from the owner of the CSGO Shuffle domain, French web developer Duhau Joris. These logs show Phantoml0rd discussing ownership with Joris, requesting skins deposited into his account, and asking for advanced roll results.
Throughout their conversations, Phantoml0rd and Joris mention checks worth tens of thousands of dollars passing between them. Phantoml0rd even refers to betting on stream as “a unique moment of massive advertising.”
Furthermore, Phantoml0rd is seen in the logs asking for the site’s results before they happen in order to manipulate the outcomes for his content.
Interestingly, none of Phantoml0rd’s YouTube videos featuring CSGO Shuffle have any form of disclosure, which appears to be in violation of FTC guidelines.
Additionally, Phantoml0rd claims in the logs that CSGO Wild is owned by “the FaZe COD guys,” an accusation also made by Lewis but denied by FaZe owner Nordan “Rain” Shat.
This marks the second ownership scandal in recent weeks. Previously, Thomas “ProSyndicate” Cassell and Trevor “Tmartn” Martin (also a co-owner of Team EnVyUs) were revealed to be the owners of CSGO Lotto, in which they also bet without disclosing their relationship.
With more revelations promised by Lewis and ongoing class action lawsuits, this scandal is poised to expose more popular personalities.