The Attorney General of the State of New York, Letitia James of the United States, filed a lawsuit in the Manhattan State Court on Wednesday, accusing the game giant, Valve, of promoting illegal gambling through the “trophysics box” under the flag and of risking addiction to children. According to the James Office, games such as Anti-Terrorism Elite 2 (Fortress 2 of the Regiment) and DOTA 2 charge users a fee to gain access to virtual rare items.
In his petition, James noted that Valve’s trophy box was essentially a “typical act of gambling”, in violation of the New York State Constitution and criminal law. These virtual items are often difficult to obtain and are largely worthless. “V earned billions of dollars by making illegal gambling between children and adults to obtain valuable virtual prizes. These functions are addictive, harmful and illegal.” The trophies allow players to use real money to buy the opportunity to open virtual treasure boxes to win virtual items such as role decorations, weapons and so on, thereby demonstrating the role of players and satisfying their vanity. Such items do not normally perform critical functions in any game, but the James office has indicated that they can still be sold online at significant prices. It is alleged that some of the rarest items can be traded for thousands of dollars online, and that an AK-47 skin of the Anti-Terrorism Elite has recently been sold for more than $1 million.
She noted that the sale of trophies facilitated V. ‘ s unique business model of allowing players to resell virtual items on the Steam market and other platforms. It was stressed in the petition that “V society trophy boxes are particularly harmful because they are very popular with children and young people”. According to data from the Department of Public Health of the State of Massachusetts in the United States, children exposed to gambling before the age of 12 are four times more likely to be in trouble when they reach adulthood. In his petition, James claimed that V Society promoted gambling in its games, contrary to the state of New York. She requested the company to stop the act, pay compensation and damages to the users and impose a fine of three times the illegal proceeds. “The trophy box, like other forms of gambling, can lead to addiction and actual harm. Children and young people are attracted to the vanity of winning expensive virtual items, and they rush to the market.”
According to the James office, the demand for trophies not only attracts online speculators and investors who help to push high value, but also leads to cows targeting third-party online markets. Not only does it facilitate these third-party markets, but it also operates its “Steam Market”, where players can sell goods and use the proceeds for other games, hardware or virtual items. The game trophy box has previously triggered a number of regulatory actions. In January 2025, the United States Federal Trade Commission imposed a $20 million fine on Cognosphere, an overseas distributor of the Oracle, to deceive children and other players about the chances of winning high-value trophy boxes, and demanded that the trophy boxes should not be sold to children under 16 years of age without parental consent, and Cognosphe did not admit to misconduct.
