Fut Coin Gambling
FIFA Ultimate Team 'gambling' claims gather pace Amid calls to bring FUT under the watchful eyes of a gambling body, latest reports suggest a class-action lawsuit has been filed against EA Sports in California.
FUT Watch found the code for a pop-up message in the game's latest patch, which states, 'FIFA Ultimate Team is currently not accessible due to a demand from the authorities of your region.' EA has a history with local gambling authorities and lawmakers in both Europe and North America, of course. Buy FIFA 20 coins from reputable FUT sellers via G2G.com secure marketplace. Cheap, safe and 24/7 service. According to BBC News, Craig 'Nepenthez' Douglas - who has 1.3 million subscribers - was criticised for promoting gambling with FIFA Ultimate Team coins. He appeared in court in Birmingham, UK, on.
Popular FIFA YouTuber NepentheZ has been fined £91,000 after pleading guilty for UK Gambling Act offences.
NepentheZ, real name Craig Douglas, ran the FUT Galaxy website which allowed players to exchange FUT coins to money for gambling on real-life football games.
Douglas was fined £91,000 and his business partner Dylan Rigby was fined £164,000, ran the unregulated site that saw children allowed to exchange virtual currency for real money.
Birmingham Magistrates’ Court heard that one 14-year-old had lost £586 in a single day on the site.
NepentheZ took to Twitter to say it was the conclusion of the ‘worst year of his life’.
The worst year of my life concluded today. I have so much to say, but you’ll take whatever judgement you feel needed from the press.
— NepentheZ (@NepentheZ) February 6, 2017
I want to thank all of those that have supported me through my journey. I would understand any viewers choice to no longer watch my content
— NepentheZ (@NepentheZ) February 6, 2017
I owe a huge apology to my family and close friends for putting them through this process, and appreciate all those that stood by me.
— NepentheZ (@NepentheZ) February 6, 2017
Sentencing the pair to pay the costs, District Judge Jack McGarva said the pair turned a blind eye to the illegality of children gambling.
He added: “The aggravating features of these offences are they were committed over a relatively long period of around six months.
“Children were gambling on your site. It’s impossible for me to know how many or the effect on them.
“In my opinion both of you were aware of the use of the site by children and the attractiveness of it to children. At the very least you both turned a blind eye to it.”
Douglas, 32, from Ferndown, Dorset, admitted a charge of being an officer of a firm that provided facilities for gambling without an operating licence, and a further offence relating to the advertising of unlawful gambling.
Rigby, 33, from Colchester, Essex, pleaded guilty to two charges connected to the provision of facilities for gambling, and a third offence linked to advertising illegal gambling.
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Soccer might be the world’s most popular sport, and it has also inspired one of the world’s most popular video games. Electronic Arts’ franchise, FIFA has captured the attention of tens of millions of gamers across the globe by giving them control over a virtual version of their favorite club. But it has also turned the heads of national governments — Belgium and the Netherlands — that claim one of FIFA’s game modes are akin to gambling.
FIFA Ultimate Team — or FUT for short — allows gamers to build their very own soccer club with in-game cards. Users have two options: “Grind” for countless hours to amass enough in-game currency to purchase better players or spend real cash on in-game coins to purchase virtual “packs” that give you a chance to get some of the game’s best athletes. But you don’t know which players you’ll get until you buy a pack with coins — coins that can be sold for real money on the black market.
Much the same as the reaction that was caused by the Battlefront 2 loot crate controversy, FUT has also prompted certain European government agencies to consider regulating this game mode as if it was gambling. But EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson sees things differently.
“We don’t believe that FIFA Ultimate Team – all loot boxes are gambling,” he said during an investor call on Tuesday. “Firstly, players always receive a specified number of items in each FUT pack. And secondly, we don’t provide or authorize any way to cash out or sell items in virtual currency for real-world money. We forbid the transfer of items of in-the-game currency outside, we also actively seek to eliminate that where it’s going on in an illegal environment.”
However, unauthorized exchanges for gamers to sell FUT coins came into existence shortly after the feature came into popularity.
These comments come in light of the Dutch Gaming Authority and the Belgian Gaming Commission, may be in violation of countries’ gambling laws. Koen Geens, the Belgian minister of justice, issued an April 25 statement that EA must remove FUT packs or face a fine of up to 800,000 euros.
“The games with paid loot boxes, as currently offered in our country, are therefore in violation of the gaming legislation and can be dealt with under criminal law,” reads a translated version of the statement. “The loot boxes must therefore also be removed.”
EA’s biggest defense against these claims is that users can’t cash out in-game items for money. They have also implemented certain restrictions to FIFA that keep users from using in-game loopholes to purchase cards for real money. Those illicit FUT sites still exist and allow those willing to use their service to turn virtual coins into actual money.
While there are still ongoing issues with black market FUT transfers, this microtransaction-fueled game mode probably isn’t going anywhere simply because of how much money it nets EA. During the same investor call, EA CFO Blake Jorgensen reported that the company made $1.58 billion in fourth-quarter revenue. The Ultimate Team feature across all of its sports games was cited as a major driving factor.
Seeing as this is such a crucial revenue driver it is unlikely that EA will outrightly remove its pack feature. The Entertainment Software Rating Board announced in February that it will begin specifically labeling games with these types of loot boxes. But anything other than drastic legal action won’t make EA shutter Ultimate Team.
Fut Coin Gambling Game
As the mircostransaction economy continues to skyrocket in the gaming industry, the line between video games and gambling has blurred.