Cults, vendettas, gambling: how a ten-year long feud led to a stage invasion at the CS2 major
Making sense of the chaos
Introduction
At the 2024 PGL Copenhagen CS2 Major, a quarter-final match between G2 Esports and MOUZ was interrupted by a stage invasion. This interruption was not shown on stream, but details quickly streamed out from social media.
The stage invaders, and their affiliates, claimed this was a protest against one of G2's sponsors CSGORoll, a Counter-Strike gambling website. On the surface, this is a believable claim. CSGORoll has been embroiled in controversy ever since they began to sponsor G2. Gambling websites have a history of shady practices throughout Counter-Strike's history.
But it very quickly emerged that this protest was organised by the owner of a competing Counter-Strike gambling website, CSGOEmpire. A live stream was being broadcast simultaneously, showing the owner surrounded by dancers, with a countdown timer.
This scratches the surface of what has been a decade-long feud between the owners' of these two websites. Even this blog post, which attempts to dive into this mess, can only scratch the surface of all of the drama here: the passage of time has rendered many of the media items inaccessible. Nonetheless, this is the best attempt I could do to try and make sense of this mess.
Understanding gambling in Counter-Strike
To those familiar with the CS gambling industry, feel free to skip this section. A TL;DR: CSGO has in-game items called skins. Skins have real-world value. Gambling websites use these skins as currency, despite Valve attempting to stop them.
In 2013, Valve introduced skins into Counter-Strike. These skins are acquired via opening cases (dropped for free during gameplay) with keys, which are purchasable with real-life money. Skins can be sold for Steam dollars ($ but only spendable on Steam1) via the Steam Community market, or traded with other users.
Individual skins are given value by people through a couple of factors: aesthetics (pretty skins are more valuable), and rarity (the amount of that skin in circulation, and the amount that is possible to be in circulation).
Through the trading functionality, these skins can be traded for real-world money - you can trade a skin to another Steam account, and money is given to you outside of Steam. Steam's API allowed sites to rapidly automate this process: you could trade your skins to a website, and that website would pay you once a buyer had been found. If the site is trustworthy, this removes the risk. This rapidly became a competitive market.
This same principle was co-opted by gambling websites: pay skins into the gambling website, and gain currency (sometimes it is the underlying skin directly, with the value of the bet being a calculated summation of the skin values, sometimes it is site credit you gamble directly, and you lose any and all claims over the initial deposited skin). You can then use the currency to bet on esport games, or play slots.
After various controversies (many casinos were fixing games, conspiring with content creators, or even owned by content creators who would not disclose their ownership of these websites), and legal threats from the Washington State Gambling commission, Valve would send cease and desist notices to these websites, as well as leveraging the fact that they could ban the accounts housing the skins. Valve would also implement some trading restrictions, such as the inability to trade recently acquired skins.
Sites (particularly OPSkins) tried to work around that by inventing an abstraction layer on top of the Steam API: you trade your skins to OPSkins, and then if you wanted to trade them to a friend, you'd make that trade on OPSkins, and transfer the ownership on the site. Now you can't withdraw that skin out, but your friend can. These trades have no penalty as they only occur on the overlay. Valve sent a cease-and-desist to OPSkins for this stunt, and OPSkins ceased to be a company.
This initially caused gambling and trading to stumble, but sites invented a new mechanism: peer-to-peer (P2P). For a skin marketplace, you would list your skin on the website, but keep it in your inventory. When another user wants to buy your skin, they would deposit the money on the website, and then send you a trade request. Once the trade request is completed, and the site observes it has gone through (by checking the inventories of the users), it would give the seller the deposited money. For gambling, this works exactly the same. You deposit CS skins, which get listed. Once someone purchases the skins, you have tokens on the website. To gamble, you wager those tokens. To withdraw, you use those tokens to buy skins.
This led to what you'd consider the modern CS trading industry. Where sites like OPSkins stumbled, CSFloat and Buff would take their places. Where CSGOLounge lost relevancy, CSGORoll and CSGOEmpire would rise to prominence.
Following the stage invasion, Valve attempted to stop P2P trading: these sites relied on the fact that they could observe your inventory by browsing your Steam profile. Now, Valve would block the ability to see skins that were recently traded for 10 days . Sites are now resorting to hijacking Steam sessions (potentially dangerous), or through trusting their users (with a dispute resolution process).
Despite the fact that these procedures are in place, it is noteworthy that, despite Valve's explicit ban on using OpenID for gambling websites, practically all vendors in this space use 1-click sign in with Steam: including both of the websites we'll be looking at today.
The calm before the storm
This story is the tale of two upstarts, CSGOEmpire and CSGORoll. Both have been around since around 2016, as per the Internet Archive. In the past year, these sites have been publicly feuding.
There are a couple of accusations slung around by CSGOEmpire.
The initial claims (archive) were roughly summarized as follows: CSGORoll is shady because they lack liquidity on their trading platform, and users can only withdraw funds in skins - thus causing lengthy withdrawal times (which could incentivise users to gamble more as they can't get their money). Additionally, Roll allegedly restricts the withdrawal of skins above a certain value threshold, requiring Know Your Customer (KYC) checks (more discussion of KYC is had in the "Morality" section of this piece), also contributing to withdrawal times.
A further claim was made that CSGORoll is a ponzi scheme (archive).
To understand the ponzi claim, a brief primer on the reward systems used by CS gambling websites. Like the game they use as a currency, gambling websites have levelling and XP systems. By partaking in gambling activity, you can gain XP towards levels, and achieving level milestones often come with rewards, in the form of free spins on various gambling games (typically case openings).
Empire and Roll both engage in this practice. It's easy to understand why: incentives cause people to gamble and come back to the website.
Where Roll differs is that they offer daily rewards. For example, if you reach level 10, you get the chance to unlock a case for free. On Roll, that reward will be replenished every day.
The argument for this being a ponzi, is as follows: liabilities from this system will increase over time, as users can stop putting money into the system, but still get rewards out. If the volume of reward claimers overtakes the amount of money put into the system, this system will collapse due to a lack of money.
Roll, as of writing, does have a notice indicating the rewards system is not fixed, i.e. that they may take away these rewards at any point in time.
Levelling up should not be seen as an investment, daily frees are prone to change at all times, and do not expect that they will stay the same.
This notice has seemingly been around for a while: a September screenshot from CSGOEmpire (within the CSGOEmpire ponzi scheme documentation) also has this wording. However, the FAQ, going back to the oldest archive, does not feature the same strong wording.
CSGOEmpire's counter would be the screenshot where CSGORoll's owner claims he has no plans to nerf the daily rewards.
Dropping the reward program, or closing the website, is considered an exit from such a scheme. This isn't something unforeseen: HypeDrop, one of CSGOEmpire's sister brands, is planning to cease operations. The levels gained on HypeDrop are not transferrable elsewhere.
The idea that people will use these rewards as a profit venture is not insane to consider: various people have created spreadsheets on how to maximize their profits from CSGORoll, with these daily rewards being a core mechanism in how to do so. People have also developed bots to automate this process.
Whether or not this is a ponzi is a likely a complicated legal question.
The ferocity of the campaign
Were the feuding restricted to Google Docs and public warnings about their competitors, it would be understandable. It can be argued that Empire has acted against bad actors in the space before, frequently calling out competition for engaging in negative practices. They actively promote the concept of provably fair gambling, which is where users can validate the randomness used by gambling websites.
Where this gets strange is the ferocity of this campaign.
Invading the stage at the Copenhagen Major.
Screaming at the entrances to the Major, and chaining themselves to (movable) barriers.
Gluing themselves to a slot machine at the Paris Major.
Harassing content creators affiliated with CSGORoll, stalking them and beyond.
Why all this fuss?
Who is behind CSGOEmpire?
Monarch is the founder and owner of CSGOEmpire. He is also known by the aliases Joopii and dossiossi, or his real name, Ossi Ketola (this is not a dox2).
His early infamy came from RuneScape, including from a video called "The Art Of Scamming" (archive). In the video, he displays himself scamming various RuneScape users for a total of 512M GP.
In a forum post published in 2021 (archive) looking for penance, he admitted to stealing ~$12,000 (including interest) in RuneScape currency, starting in 2012 (RuneScape, like Counter-Strike, has a real-world trading economy not sanctioned by the developer). To his credit, he paid ~$24,000 into an initiative by the forum to refund those he scammed.
Beyond scamming, Ossi appears to have been involved in other unscrupulous activities. On a propaganda website (jofa.wtf), Ossi (or an affiliate) claims that he made €80,000 from DDoSing people.
Finnish 4chan, and a cult
A dispute between Ossi, and another RuneScape user, Jofa, spilled over into an astroturfing war on Ylilauta, the Finnish equivalent of 4chan.
Much of what happens here is self-documented, and critically, the foundational myth behind the cult. Thus, what is documented is likely distorted from the reality. But it is important to understand this, because it is used as a in-group identifier. Their actions are done behind the mythos of "Jofa", and without knowing what any of that means, it is perplexing to understand.
As is typical in online disputes on edgy forums, they doxed each other. They then attempted to cause each other to go viral within Ylilauta, by distributing pictures of each others' face and engaging in astroturfing campaigns.
During this process, the seeds of Ossi's cult would be planted. Here's a couple of notable people.
Kinkkinyymi (also known as Kinkki, DanielAU and Monarchslawyer) is the person who chained themselves to a barrier. During this time, he would perform stunts with the picture to further the cause. This includes taking the picture of Jofa to school and worshipping it, as well as worshipping a wall of Jofa's pictures at home, and in a bizarre video, walking out to his parents wearing nothing but a Jofa picture covering his genital region. A lot of these videos can be seen in this media pack hosted on Ylilauta (NSFW warning). He continues to exist within the cult, and continues to be degraded with names like "Chinese slave".
pureofrune, later known as Sticky_hand (video where Monarch gives away the alias), enters the story around this time. The mythos states that Ossi DDoSed him, and got arrested as a consequence. Within the campaign against CSGORoll, he would glue himself to CSGORoll slot machine at the Paris Major, and be seen shouting outside the Copenhagen Major about CSGORoll stealing his house (and repeating this claim in an interview with Danish news organization TV2 (archive, video not included), who do not appear to have actually published it themselves). Obviously, given his relationship with Ossi, this claim is a fabrication. In a livestream responding to journalist Richard Lewis’ critique, Ossi called him "fucking retarded" for not knowing this claim was a joke (archive), but of course, this requires specific background knowledge to actually know.
While the cult continues to centre themselves around Jofa, and the online campaign against him, the real Jofa has seemingly not been involved in many years. Any profiles calling themselves "Jofa" are unlikely to be related to Jofa himself, whoever he is.
Jofa is still used as the mark used to identify Ossi's group. People seemingly are still initiating themselves to the cause with his face, with at least one person getting it tattooed.
The first foray into gambling
All while this was going on, Ossi would start his first gambling websites, BigBoiBets. BigBoiBets uses the same business model as Empire and Roll: slot games, powered by in-game currency.
His partner-in-crime was another RuneScape player called iZinC. iZinC's, whose real name is Killian Mckeon-Eccles3, would later adopt the name EyE for his CS:GO operations.
This arrangement between Killian and Ossi very quickly fell apart.
Killian and Ossi became hostile to each other, and Killian proceeded to kick Ossi out from the enterprise. This would lead to many forum posts, and Google Docs, where each side tries to tell you who was the wronged party.
The original set of videos that Ossi produced are unavailable (this includes mirrors created by iZinC).
iZinC's Google Doc: iZinC's story - Google Docs, (archive) sourced from BigBoiBets temporarily closed | Sell & Trade Game Items | OSRS Gold | ELO.
Ossi's Google Doc, responding to the above: Nimetön asiakirja - Google Docs (archive)
Among the salacious claims was Ossi alleging that Killian wanted him to DDoS industry competitors (it appears that Killian paid an invoice (archive) to resolve a dispute around these attacks (archive), indicating this claim is truthful), and that Ossi was encouraged to take the study drug modafinil to improve his productivity. Killian would claim that Ossi was simply lazy, and contributed little to the website. Following Ossi's removal from BigBoiBets, he would claim that he was owed compensation for his equity in the website.
Ossi spun up a competitor in RSGambling, but this disappeared quickly. He would murmur about how Killian was behind a takedown of the site.
BigBoiBets would remain around for a couple of years. These years did have other issues arise, and a user named Xier0 has continued to hold a long standing grudge against Killian for this actions during this time. Nonetheless, the site looks like it continued operations mostly successfully, and would eventually be sold to a competitor.
Moving to CS
In 2016, both Killian and Ossi would move into the CSGO Gambling space. Ossi with CSGOEmpire, and Killian with CSGORoll. Killian also operates two other brands, HypeDrop, a mystery box website, and HypeUp, a crypto-casino - and formerly operated Wildcase.
There's no easy way to see how successful they were immediately. However, over the years, both would go on to have strong presences in the CS gambling industry.
CSGORoll would become incredibly notable within the industry following their title sponsorship of G2, one of the best teams in the world (at the time). This sponsorship would draw ire, even outside of the fact that a slots site was sponsoring an esports team.
Two notable incidents:
Days after superstar's m0nesy's 18th birthday, CSGORoll released a promotional video prominently featuring him. It was evident that G2 were waiting for the moment that it would be legal to promote CSGORoll to release the advert.
At the BLAST Paris Major, G2 and CSGORoll had a particularly prominent sponsorship space within the exhibition foyer within the arena, with a literal slot machine. As someone present at the event, this was by far the biggest attraction within the exhibition area.
Heads butt, again
It appears the animosity from before had subsided, and Killian and Ossi were friends. They were sweet talking each other in the DMs (archive, talking about boxing matches and even reminiscing over BigBoiBets (archive).
However, there were signs of fracturing. Killian expressed this frustration at CSGOEmpire trying to expose websites in 2021, as well as being frustrated at CSGOEmpire for beefing with bibaNator (another thread about it).
According to Ossi, Killian had decided to sabotage CSGOEmpire (the proof is an unlabelled email to an alleged payment processor about CSGOEmpire not being legally compliant.) Equally, CSGORoll's sponsorship of G2 in May 2023 also brought the site to new prominence, possibly drawing the ire of Empire.
Whatever the case, the furore between the two parties would erupt again.
During this time, Ossi expanded his group. One introduction is SakaZumba. Unlike the other main members, he did not emerge out of the RuneScape world. The story told by Ossi is that he was a failed robber, whom they called out for a rap video a year later. His entrance into the cult would include some videos where he and Sticky_hand would walk around a casino convention, spouting comments about their distaste of CSGORoll, as well as a truly terrible song.
SakaZumba is the person that, in the end, rushed the stage at the Copenhagen Major.
Warren (on Twitter as varriancewarren) is another person of note. He titles himself as an "Assistant" at CSGOEmpire, and is seemingly involved in both the publication of dossiers, and partakes into the trolling and harassment that CSGOEmpire is known for.
In May 2023, Ossi would publish a Google Document called the CSGORoll Files. This would be the start of the public campaign from CSGOEmpire and his affiliates against CSGORoll.
In July 2023, Ossi posted a Google Document, proclaiming his fight against a supposed "CSGO Gambling cartel" (archive).
However, I’m not sure how badly I have fucked up so far. I am not normally a fearful person, but the fear that my family is experiencing really hurts me deeply. My family is scared as fuck, because of Killian. It’s so painful to see your loved ones having panic attacks, being depressed and losing weight, not being able to eat, due to sheer fear. Fuck this shit.
Killian is a fucking psychopath, the worst person I have ever met, and he has hundreds of millions of dollars, and all the reasons in the world to get me killed. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s been absolutely crazy about competitors, and he has taken down so many competitors of his in the most dirty ways. He has literally bribed a bunch of people to get his “friend’s” companies taken down. It’s just disgusting. I truly hope that there’s a special room in hell for him. Although I know that as of right now, he’s in hell, on earth.
All his achievements have been built by slave work. When I was 14, he force fed me Modafinil to stay up all day and all night, sometimes working 35-hour work shifts to build his company. And there are countless people out there who have exploited him in a similar manner.
Now, imagine how fucking scary this is. Killian and CSGORoll’s management literally hosted a party where they’re holding a “Death to Ossi” sign. In the meantime, 7 black cars appear in my villa, full of arabs. Fucking luckily I managed to escape, but one can only wonder what these people were up to. After that, they’ve sent spies to get into job interviews on my company, and they even managed to sneak some girls into my property through dating apps.
The "Death to Ossi" sign comes from this video that CSGOEmpire shared, allegedly coming from a party hosted by Killian. The ordering of that sign by Killian has been denied (how that sign ended up there, then, remains a mystery).
But oh boy, do I have interesting stuff planned for Killian and his associates.
Imagine what I can achieve with my dedication, and with the resources I have. Several people will go to prison, and Killian’s life is literally ruined. There is nothing he can do about it. And even if I were to be killed, it’s too late. I have a sophisticated deadman switch and substantial wealth, and the cat is out of the bag.
I know that my stories may sound insane, but trust me, let me cook. I can’t wait to show you the endgame. Outsiders who have only seen the tip of the iceberg without context are questioning my sanity, but a fun story, I’ve been analyzed by top tier psychologists, I’ve ran them through the Jception, and I’ve explained them about my plans with psychological warfare to make Killian back off. I actually pay this one company 200k per year to have a team of medical experts who take really good care of me, and they’ve given me my blessing, even a hats off. I take very good care of my health, and I appear to be psychologically just fine. Genuinely I think that all of this insanity with Stickyhand, Saka Zumba, global servants and all the cults, is quite rational, and you’ll see how I will tie all the loose ends together. I’m a simple man who ends up in fights, and instead of punching them, I’m somewhat smart and my punches manifestate in more abstract ways.
The bbox situation
Mentioned in the manifesto above is a user called "bbox". Around June 2023 (shortly after the dispute started), bbox would claim that HypeDrop was preventing him from withdrawing $3.9 million worth of winnings (bbox has since privated the account used to make those claims: CSGOEmpire's post on the issue).
CSGOEmpire ran with this, continually trying to harass CSGORoll about them not processing the withdrawal. This went as far as producing a now-deleted website, "hasbboxbeenpaidyet.com", and spreading leaflets about this at events sponsored by HypeDrop.
(other tweets include 1, 2, 3, as well as a mention in a blog post by Warren)
HypeDrop responded in July 2023, saying they could not validate the KYC documents produced by bbox. In October 2023, Killian would respond more convincingly, stating that the KYC documents provided by bbox did not match his claimed identity, and that the user was involved in other unscrupulous activities.
This response was so convincing that even Warren admitted that the likelihood was that bbox themselves were a scammer. They have since stopped posting about bbox, and the website was disabled around that date.
This doesn't feel right
Warren posted a tweet claiming that they were not harassing anyone. The tweet itself contains a screenshot of a message posted by Warren, alluding to the potential of legal investigations if they did not engage in a "rational discussion".
In another tweet, Ossi says Seb must agree to a "truce" to stop them from contacting his family.
As someone who isn't a lawyer, I can't state whether or not this is blackmail, but it certainly doesn't feel ethical.
A side-quest against Clash
Clash is a gambling site ran by an individual called "HobbesHD". Killian had already called them out in March 2023, to the point where Clash sought out a lawyer to defend themselves.
Either way, after initially being friendly with Ossi, these two would also feud. Empire produced yet another Google Doc, alleging that Clash too are running a ponzi scheme, and that their provably fair system does not work.
The retaliation from Hobbes appears to be posting videos from when Ossi was younger. Ossi claims the clip shows a staged incident of Ossi instructing another kid to burn themselves with a cigarette (the clips posted by Hobbes are seemingly inaccessible, but Ossi helpfully mirrored some of them himself, although it looks as if his full mirrors have been deleted).
Around this time, a random Twitter account would post some tweets accusing Ossi of child abuse, seemingly based on the aforementioned videos. None of this archived, so not much further can be gleamed from it.
It all makes sense
In a September 2023 tweet from his alt, dossiossi (archive), Ossi turns up the insanity. It does try to handwave critique by claiming it is sarcasm, but it is evident to anyone reading that this is a thin veil over the true nature of this post.
It’s absurd to think that Killian was there, witnessing the Jofaception, and despite knowing the deep lore, he still decided to fuck with me. God fucking damn it, here we go again, I’m going to ensure there will never be a third, a person who truly knows the lore and still decides to do it. I will make sure.
We recently created the barebones of the “Ossi’s castle” cult, and we have some really good members there, but right now I’m looking to hire some people who can actually help us achieve our goals.
We need excellent trolls all across the board. We need capable people who can find the most creative angles to fuck someones life (without breaking the law. I would never do anything illegal xd)
We need deep researchers. We need to start building our file of intel about each individual.
We need private detectives
We need lawyers. We will spend big money in attempt to get these people in legal trouble
We need media and influencers to push these messages. For example, when we stage a fake suicide by bbox in front of Grim’s house, it has to spread like wildfire on media and all social media channels.
Grim as an example, we need detectives following him around 24/7/365.
We need to send spies, and we need to send girls. I’m going to ensure that one day, Grim will fall deeply in love, and one day the girl will whisper “Jofa” in their ear and disappear. I’ve planted girls before, for years.
But just in case god doesn’t exist, we must build a hell on earth for these people. Jofa will be their god. Every knee shall bow.
In a stream roughly around the same time, surrounded by midgets and strippers, he talks about the "lore" mentioned earlier in this post. At roughly 12:52 (timestamp), he talks about the "Ossi's castle" cult, and states he will be giving "glory and gold" to those helping him with his mission.
This raises some eyebrows: given his position, he likely has a pipeline into some of the most addicted and high-risk people in the world. Offering them money to harass and stalk someone seems exploitative.
This would not be the last time Ossi offers money (archive) for people to engage in harassment.
Being offended by the behaviour of your competitors is one thing. Trying to call out bad actors in the industry would normally be a good thing. But actively creating stage invasions (it appears they were also considering acting at the Paris Major, with Sticky_hand having already glued himself to the CSGORoll slot machine), threatening to handcuff yourself to players, and stalking people is another kettle of fish.
The harassment of Grim is particularly notable. Grim (Sebastian Ring Gjerlaugsen) is a relatively small YouTuber. He has less than 100,000 subscribers, and his most viewed video has 282,000 views. His Kick is also relatively small, hitting around 200 viewers and 11k viewers. That being said, his legal entity reported roughly $5 million USD in profit in 2022.
Grim has a sponsorship deal with CSGORoll, and decided to continue with it despite messages from Ossi requesting him to stop it.
Following this, Ossi and his affiliates have done the following:
Going to his home town, and putting up posters and spreading flyers: article from Ha-Halden, a local newspaper
Returning, this time dressed in camo gear and masks, to further harass him in his town
Some first-party tweets, bragging about this
The second time around, they hosted a livestream of his house.
Threatening to set someone on fire outside of Grim's house (archive, with the full thread), with a view to create fake news about someone losing their house to one of Killian's websites and pinning the blame on Grim as a vector.
Falsely copyright claiming his content on YouTube.
Paying Twitter account to spread fake news about him (archive)
Grim is hardly the only harassment victim: TDM_HeyZeus has reported on Empire targeting people on CSGORoll with mass reports to trigger Steam's automated banning mechanisms (and Ossi has seemingly threatened a C&D, but it's unclear for what, or if this is yet another "joke"). Sparkles has also talked about being harassed, including at the Copenhagen Major. Very close to the time of the stage invasion, Empire affiliates hacked the Twitter account of CSGORoll.
This is an absurd level of harassment and attacking. It seems illogical, and over the top, until you take the whole history into account.
Ossi made his name with harassment, doxing, and publicity stunts. He honed his skills on Ylilauta, and can only ever see these actions succeed for him.
Ossi and Killian's history was particularly inflammatory. They have developed a mutual distaste of each other, and the anger allows him to continue with the insanity, where most normal people would have stopped.
This was never about stopping illegal gambling. It was never about stopping ponzi schemes, no matter the validity of the claims. Despite continuing to call another site, Rollbit, a scam, and the Rollbit owner allegedly poaching his staff, it doesn't appear as if he used any of these tactics in that dispute.
It was about settling personal vendettas. Anyone aligning themselves with Killian is just another name that needs to be stomped out.
Ossi has set up an entire institution, designed to help him harass people. With access to gambling money, he can amplify his anger well beyond his typical voice. And many of the people closest to him have been subservient to him since their childhoods. All put together, it is a pretty potent set of factors that cause him to act as an irrational individual.
From that angle, the stage invasion makes sense. The spectacle of it was always the point, but the contributing factors towards this escalation makes no sense from an external perspective, until you connect the dots together.
Post-script
Morality
Both sides will argue on behalf of hypothetical children. Both sides, historically, and presently, have presented inadequate controls to stop children from gambling.
There is no Know Your Customer process when acquiring CS:GO skins. Steam cards can be purchased easily from major retailers, with no age verification. Thus, children can quite easily get their hands on skins. I know this because, as a child, I acquired skins without the explicit knowledge of my parents. Valve had no idea I was a child.
You can sign up for either CSGOEmpire, or CSGORoll using your Steam account, and begin playing slot machines. Back in the day, while underaged, me and multiple friends gambled on the biggest site at the time, CSGOLounge (I estimate a friend of mine lost $500 worth of skins).
An article from SVT.se, published on April 3rd 2024, confirmed CSGOEmpire has no measures to prevent minors from signing up. This would track with statements made by Ossi in 2020, where he said he would not implement KYC because it presented a competitive risk to his website, a point of view he has continued to express in various tweets.
Here is the account of a user admitting to gambling $8000 without provided any proof of identity - seemingly confirmed by a member of Empire staff manually locking his account following the admission on Twitter.
CSGORoll has only enforced mandatory KYC in April 13th - note I have not validated whether this process actually works. (CSGOEmpire would claim this is to avoid paying out rewards.)
Both websites sit side to side in being blocked by regulators. The Danish Gambling Authority blocked both. The Swiss authorities blocked CSGOEmpire. The Australian Communications and Media Authority issued a formal warning to CSGORoll for operating illegally in Australia. The Swedish regulator has banned CSGOEmpire.
As for gambling licenses, CSGOEmpire currently holds one in Curaçao, while CSGORoll is unlicensed. CSGOEmpire seems to have gotten their license sometime in 2020: the earlier captures of their website on archive.org do not have the relevant digital seal to indicate proper licensing. They may have even lost their license more than once.
Of course, Curaçao licenses are not known for being particularly effective, with the Dutch Government stepping in to improve their effectiveness, but this change is taking some time to be enacted. Once this process is completed, it remains to be seen whether these websites will be able to keep their licenses.
Both sides carelessly throwing around suicide accusations
This situation is not entirely clear, because many of the tweets around it have been deleted.
It appears that both CSGOEmpire and HypeDrop have had people claim to commit suicide over gambling losses, and this quickly became a weapon to accost the other site over.
These claims are extremely sketchy, at best. I don't have too much insight here, so I'll just drop the tweets here.
HypeDrop scrutiny
As mentioned earlier, HypeDrop is a sister company to CSGORoll, albeit one that is shutting down. Either way, there was recently a critical video about the website published.
Valve's role in this
Despite Valve's prior stance on gambling, the Paris Major - a Valve-sanctioned and sponsored event, with tight integration with the game - featured a gambling sponsor right outside of the main arena. This was entirely unacceptable.
HOUNGOUNGAGNE's video on gambling also highlights the other ways in which Valve falls short (part 1 of the series is also a worthwhile watch).
Videos cannot be unbiased, if they're unironically using the word Jofa
Critically analysing CSGORoll, their business practices and their relationship with G2 can be done without ever invoking CSGOEmpire.
So, whenever a video talks about Jofa, or spends an unhealthy amount of time talking about Empire, it brings into question the neutrality of the videos' author.
Beefs with other influencers
m0E
m0E is a former CS:GO professional player, who in 2016 was exposed for being in cahoots with gambling websites CSGODiamonds to fix games in his benefit.
CSGOEmpire sponsored m0E following this event, but it turned sour after the business relationship ended, and m0E entered into a relationship with Rollbit, a casino that CSGOEmpire claims is owned by the same person as CSGODiamonds.
Both have shared a war of words over Twitter, mOE with a response to some previous events, and Ossi publishing their own manifesto on an relatively unknown alt.
This dispute continues to go on, with m0E being mentioned in Ossi's September 2023 manifesto.
bibaNator
bibaNator is a CS personality, known historically for frag movies, but these days is a gambling streamer.
Ossi and him had some disagreement back in 2021. The animosity is still present from Ossi's side.
Who needs enemies
Immediately following the stage invasion, Ossi shared articles linking to "roemer.news", accusing Felix Roemer, the founder of Gamdom of being behind the stage invasion. The site hosts equally bizarre articles, accusing Felix of insane things. They even paid upblissed, a Twitter personality, for a fake tweet about his death.
You'd think with his history with Killian that this was yet another enemy.
What would you say if I told you they were friends? From sleeping in the same bed, to gifting expensive watches, they clearly enjoy each others' company. They even agree on CSGORoll, and Gamdom is thanked in one of the CSGORoll manifestos.
With friends like these?
Footnotes
"Steam Wallet funds have no cash value and are not exchangeable for cash. Steam Wallet funds that are deemed unclaimed property may be turned over to the applicable authority." - Steam Subscriber Agreement
His real name is used to play poker: Ossi Ketola | Poker Players | PokerNews), as well as forming part of his other aliases.
Killian's name is over the business documentation related to his companies, and an Google Document published in 2014 contains a link to an Imgur screenshot containing it. I don't consider this a dox either.