Is that really hard for Valve to block and ban all of gambling website?

[Ais Wallenstein]

Since any of those website need you to login to their website with your Steam account.

Just block their access. Or change all items to marketable only. Or they can create a dummy account to track their bots and ban them all.

[ReBoot]

Counter-question: Is it hard for people not to gamble if they don't want to gamble? Or simply think for themselves, for once?
As for removing trading, some forum folk root for that, but theres a heap of genuine use cases. Anecdotically, my GF enjoys Killing Floor 2 more with cosmetics and I gave her a couple when she started playing it. According to you, I should be unable to help her enjoy the game, thanks a lot (not)!

[Crazy Tiger]

What makes you think Valve has the power to shut down those websites? Close one and two more will come up.

Valve doesn't rule the internet.

[8ullfrog]

They're under the misconception that the scammers forward the login to gain access, rather than storing the details for use.

There is also the assumption that these gambling sites are the only source, when in many cases, it is user greed for "Free knives" or other "free" items that lead them to surrendering control of their accounts.

The fact that they are able to convince these pinnacles of humanity to deactivate their steam guard is somewhat surprising, but idiots gotta idiot.

[Ais Wallenstein]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Counter-question: Is it hard for people not to gamble if they don't want to gamble? Or simply think for themselves, for once?
As for removing trading, some forum folk root for that, but theres a heap of genuine use cases. Anecdotically, my GF enjoys Killing Floor 2 more with cosmetics and I gave her a couple when she started playing it. According to you, I should be unable to help her enjoy the game, thanks a lot (not)!

That game doesn't have "gift" feature?

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

What makes you think Valve has the power to shut down those websites? Close one and two more will come up.

Let's see if they still operating or not after Valve ban their bots + disable trade feature.

[Cathulhu]

And they'll just create new bots and websites. Ever heard of Don Quixote?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Ais Wallenstein:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Counter-question: Is it hard for people not to gamble if they don't want to gamble? Or simply think for themselves, for once?
As for removing trading, some forum folk root for that, but theres a heap of genuine use cases. Anecdotically, my GF enjoys Killing Floor 2 more with cosmetics and I gave her a couple when she started playing it. According to you, I should be unable to help her enjoy the game, thanks a lot (not)!

That game doesn't have "gift" feature?

Almost no games have such features. The vast majority of them rely on the trading system.

[Fox]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

What makes you think Valve has the power to shut down those websites? Close one and two more will come up.

Valve doesn't rule the internet.

Originally posted by 8ullfrog:

They're under the misconception that the scammers forward the login to gain access, rather than storing the details for use.

^Those, 100%.

Gambling websites still are around because items are tradeable/marketable, people want to gamble them, and it's legal in certain countries that just so happen to be the server hosts for them. Valve cannot do anything to close down their websites because their ToS being breached is nothing the hosts are mandated to care about, and while they can and do ban the bot accounts associated with those, others can easily be popped back up on the click on a button, and you have to do that all over again, since the bots are less and less likely to say "Hi, I work for gambling-website.antartica".

For the "needing Steam to log in", that's a Steam OpenID API, and you're back to the same issue : it's easy to lie on the Internet to nab an API, and if it's too hard to do because it'll be controlled with 100% accuracy, then just don't use those, pretend the user is on an "official log-in page" and use your customer's credentials as-is to auto log-in, check if the account is valid and perform operations on their behalf, hijacking them.

If one makes the items marketable only, there still are ways to exchange items if won in a gamble (and I'd bet more will be found if it happens), and traders, whether professional, casual, or even "accidental" ones like ReBoot (even if you don't want to profit, you still can trade for legitimate reasons !) will be very, very peeved at the move, making it a no-win scenario.

And maybe Valve does infiltrate such websites, though if they do, it's very likely it won't be talked about, since it'd need to not be broadcasted. In addition, the fact that one can just recreate a gambling website in days if one's old site gets shut down ensures that all that effort makes little more of a dent in the grand scheme of under-the-table gambling.

In short, yes, it's really that hard. At this point, there's little Valve, or any other developer or publisher having the same issue (I think Blizzard did at one point, though I'm not so sure), can do to curb it.

EDIT : Clarified some ambiguous formulations.

[Matt]

I'm not even quite sure I understand the request... What exactly do you mean by "ban a website?"

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by Ais Wallenstein:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

What makes you think Valve has the power to shut down those websites? Close one and two more will come up.

Let's see if they still operating or not after Valve ban their bots + disable trade feature.

Like I said, close one, two more come up. Valve doesn't have the power to stop them. Users have, by not using them.

[Ais Wallenstein]

Originally posted by Matt:

I'm not even quite sure I understand the request... What exactly do you mean by "ban a website?"

Their bots. Sorry about that.

[isomorphic_projection]

Originally posted by Matt:

I'm not even quite sure I understand the request... What exactly do you mean by "ban a website?"

He means, remove company's from the store page. Who clearly, demand login in with your steam account. Instead of a game account. Like i have steam login code. And for my multiplayer games a different login. And sometimes is goes wrong without the knowledge of the player. Like, you try to login with your game account, you click on it. And suddenly a popup or something, moves the page. And you click wrong without your own fault, cause when the page shifts the button moves.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by isomorphic_projection:

Originally posted by Matt:

I'm not even quite sure I understand the request... What exactly do you mean by "ban a website?"

He means, remove company's from the store page. Who clearly, demand login in with your steam account. Instead of a game account. Like i have steam login code. And for my multiplayer games a different login. And sometimes is goes wrong without the knowledge of the player. Like, you try to login with your game account, you click on it. And suddenly a popup or something, moves the page. And you click wrong without your own fault, cause when the page shifts the button moves.

Except that OP is talking about gambling sites for items which trick you into logging in with your Steam login.

Nowhere is OP talking about multiplayer game accounts or removing devs/pubs from the store pages.

[impeccable character]

Originally posted by Ais Wallenstein:

Since any of those website need you to login to their website with your Steam account.

Just block their access. Or change all items to marketable only. Or they can create a dummy account to track their bots and ban them all.

its obvious that you are new to computers and networking

[KillahInstinct]

Originally posted by Fox:

For the "needing Steam to log in", that's a Steam OpenID API, and you're back to the same issue : it's easy to lie on the Internet to nab an API, and if it's too hard to do because it'll be controlled with 100% accuracy, then just don't use those, pretend the user is on an "official log-in page" and use your customer's credentials as-is to auto log-in, check if the account is valid and perform operations on their behalf, hijacking them.

Just to clarify, this is already what's happening. Using the Steam OpenID API is safe for all intents and purposes, but people falling for look-alikes or direct copies is where the hijacked accounts are coming from.

The best, but not most practical, tip I saw in that regards is to manually go to the legit domain, login to Steam and then go to the site. If it's legit, it will automatically detect you're already logged in. If it isn't, it's a scam site mimicking.

[Kargor]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

As for removing trading, some forum folk root for that, but theres a heap of genuine use cases.

And despite my 15 day trading delay, I still get the occasional trading card exchange in my inbox.