As the controversial world of Counter-Strike skin betting continues to unravel, another personality has been accused of failing to disclose ownership of a site.
James “PhantomL0rd” Varga, a YouTuber and Twitch streamer with a combined audience of almost two million, allegedly owns the site CSGO Shuffle—something he didn’t reveal even as he bet on the site in videos.
Richard Lewis broke the story on July 16. The veteran esports reporter received a set of Skype logs from an unknown party who’d hacked the owner of the CSGO Shuffle domain, French web developer Duhau Joris. These logs show Phantoml0rd apparently discussing ownership with Joris, as well as asking to have skins deposited in his account and for the results of rolls before they happened.
Over the course of their conversations the pair discuss tens of thousands of dollars in checks passing between them. They also argue when Phantoml0rd asks for skins to bet with on stream with Phantoml0rd describing it as “a unique moment of massive advertising.”
In another part of the logs, Phantoml0rd appears to ask for results from the site before they happen in order to manipulate the outcomes for his content.
None of Phantoml0rd’s YouTube videos that feature CSGO Shuffle have any kind of disclosure on them—something which would appear to breach FTC guidelines.
Phantoml0rd also claims in the conversations that CSGO Wild is owned by “the FaZe COD guys.” This accusation has been made on multiple occasions, including by Lewis, but denied by FaZe owner Nordan “Rain” Shat.
This is the second such ownership scandal in recent weeks. Earlier this month, an anonymous YouTuber revealed that Thomas “ProSyndicate” Cassell and Trevor “Tmartn” Martin (who is also a co-owner of Team EnVyUs) were the owners of CSGO Lotto. They also bet on the site in videos without disclosing their relationship.
With further reveals promised by Lewis, and two class action lawsuits already underway, this scandal promises to drag more popular personalities into the sunlight before it is over.
