Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

YouTuber on trial for allegedly promoting ‘FIFA’ video game lottery

By

fbi investigates theft fifa coins fifa17demo
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Two men are on trial in the United Kingdom after having been charged with offenses under the country’s Gambling Act in September. Craig Douglas and Dylan Rigby stand accused of promoting a lottery and advertising unlawful gambling, having operated a website that allowed visitors to wager real-world money in an attempt to win the virtual currency used in EA’s FIFA video game franchise.

Douglas is better known as Nepenthez, the moniker he uses on his highly successful YouTube channel. More than 1.3 million people subscribe to his channel, which is still receiving upwards of 100,000 views on its daily FIFA 17 videos.

Recommended Videos

This case is thought to be the first prosecution of its kind relating to video games, according to a report by BBC News. FIFA is one of many titles that feature content that can be handed from one user to another, facilitating the kind of lottery than Douglas and Rigby are accused of operating.

Related

While this case pertains to a lottery, other sites might offer up a game of chance like a slot machine, or allow users to bet on the outcome of a virtual contest — a football match taking place in FIFA 17, for example. Players typically wager either virtual currency or cosmetic items used in a particular game.

Unfortunately, the fact that both virtual currency and cosmetic items have a real-world value means that these activities are tantamount to traditional gambling. Worse yet, it seems that Douglas and Rigby weren’t taking the proper measures to ensure that minors couldn’t access their service.

In June 2015, Douglas was confronted on Twitter over the fact that people under the age of 18 could access the lottery, according to a report from PCGamesN. “Let us worry about that kind of stuff, yeah,” he replied in a now-deleted tweet, before telling the individual to “go annoy someone else.”

This case could set a precedent for future legal action relating to this new form of online gambling. It’s perhaps past time for legislation to be tightened up, as estimates indicate that the global market for betting on video games exceeds 4 billion pounds (equivalent to about $4.87 billion).

Both Douglas and Rigby pleaded not guilty at Birmingham Magistrates’ Court on Friday. The case has been adjourned until February 6, 2017.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Brad Jones
Brad Jones
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…
5 video games to play after you’ve watched Black Adam
Lego Black Adam with lightning coming out of him in the game Lego DC Super-Villains.

Dwayne Johnson will make his grand DCEU debut with the upcoming Black Adam. Starring as the classic DC antihero, the seemingly infallible Johnson will attempt to inject a jolt of much-needed electricity into the otherwise gloomy and decaying DCEU. And, with Black Adam shaping to be one of the most powerful characters in the DCEU and some help from a fan-favorite character who spent too much time away from the screen, the highly-anticipated film has everything to win at the box office.

Seeing The Rock doing his sparkly thing might leave some fans in the mood for other similar properties. And while multiple films might scratch that itch -- indeed, the current cinematic market has superhero films up the wazoo -- several video games will also get the job done. Whether they have Black Adam as a playable character or major antagonist or simply feature similar themes or settings, these games will satisfy fans looking for something similar to Black Adam.
Injustice: Gods Among Us / Injustice 2

Read more
Can you ever really own a video game? Players explain pitfalls of digital ownership
Living room with Microsoft Xbox Series X (L) and Sony PlayStation 5 home video game consoles alongside a television and soundbar.

Buying a game is easy. Keeping it is more difficult in 2022. Delisted games, closed digital storefronts, and shuttered online servers are major concerns in the digital ownership era. That unfortunate reality became clearer this summer following the announcement that Assassin's Creed Liberation will be removed from Steam, along with news that the XCOM 2, Killzone: Mercenaries, and Killzone: Shadowfall servers will shut down in August 2022.

The modern era of video game ownership is complex, bringing as many pros as it does cons. While buying digitally is convenient and can be less expensive than purchasing physically, it also comes with a myriad of problems -- especially when games are removed from digital storefronts altogether. Sometimes, players can lose access to certain games even if they already own them.

Read more
A YouTuber has created a much smaller, thinner PS5 Slim
A PS5 Slim design by Youtuber DIY Perks.

Sony has a history of releasing slim versions of its consoles, which has been the case with models like the PlayStation 2 and PS4. The PS5, which is massive compared to its predecessors, is nearly 2 years old, and YouTuber Matt Perks (aka DIY Perks) took matters into his own hands and shrunk it down to size to create the world's first (unofficial) PS5 Slim.

At 2 centimeters thick, the PS5 Slim looks like a copper plate compared to the original PS5's black-and-white Wi-Fi router design, whereas the slim versions of the other consoles matched the aesthetics of their original counterparts. That's because DIY Perks had to get rid of some parts to ensure that his console met the requirements of looking as skinny as possible, as you can see in the full video.

Read more