Skins out, coins in. One of the sites which was at the centre of the recent skins betting controversy, CSGOLounge, has now relaunched with a new coin betting product. 
The following announcement was made earlier this week. It read as follows:
“As of today, we will be releasing our new Lounge betting system. This entails a couple of new features including; coins, betting, rankings, notifications, and more. Users will now have the option to place Lounge Coins as a bet on csgolounge. We have multiple tracking and ranking features so you can see the top predictors, highest winners and other stats.
“With this, comes a new new look and a new notification system that will inform users about recent bet outcomes, announcements, new match posts, etc. Other features, are currently being worked on and will roll out as soon as possible.”
Users were also notified that the company is “working on a solution for items withdrawal, please stay tuned for upcoming updates”. There were some disgruntled comments on Reddit regarding this, and the discussion of how what real money value the ‘100 coins’ (that each player starts with) is actually worth.
Another thing that isn’t clear just yet is how CSGOLounge is monetising this new site. A few other ex-skins betting sites have gone down a similar route to this; the likes of CSGOFast, CSGOCosmos and CSGOStrong to name three.
CSGOLounge was far by the largest skins betting site of these however, and according to a report by Narus Advisors and Esports Betting Report it took in $1 billion in skins wagers between January and August 2016, before it adhered to Valve’s cease and desist letter.
Esports Insider says: Many expected skins sites to bounce back in some form but how long the likes of CSGOLounge survives, and more importantly what features it adds to monetise the new product, remains up in the air. We’ll be watching closely.