Laundering Money through Steam?

[[N]ova Shikirori™]

On a podcast, a discussion popped up where Dota 2 betting came up as a topic. A guy was showing how Dota 2 betting worked last week on UPF, and they were talking about how people launder money through Steam.

They used an example of if you were a drug dealer who had drug money, you would just go from Target to gas station to Walmart to CVS etc buying Steam giftcards to buy hats, to then sell those hats to get the money back.

I'm guessing that this can happen with TF2 hats as well. What I think is interesting, and dumb at the same time is that if you think about it, the "drug dealer" loses money. About 20-40% as someone put it.

What do you guys think about this? It's pretty amazing to me that something like this is happening. People nowadays I swear.

[Grey Devil]

You could just buy a Steam card, then buy/trade games themselves rather than items. Might take forever to flip the game keys unless you get really into the grey market for game keys, and still i'm not sure how efficient that'd be versus any other method for money laundering. I'm not exactly a criminal so i can't say.

[Zealren]

That seems like a stupid idea since you cant get the money back, you turn drug money into steam cash and then you could only ever use that money on steam after buying the initial steam card the rest seems pointless 

[Grey Devil]

That seems like a stupid idea since you cant get the money back, you turn drug money into steam cash and then you could only ever use that money on steam after buying the initial steam card the rest seems pointless 

With the steam game key grey market you can actually get cash. But it being the grey market you'd have to make sure to make the transaction with someone with good reputation.. but you know. It's the grey market.

[[N]ova Shikirori™]

Crab I'm waiting for the day that your post count is '12345'

Really looking forward to seeing that haha