xQc Pulls Super Rare CS2 Skeleton Knife Despite Improbable Odds

xQc, a popular streamer of video gaming and casino content, real name of Félix Lengyel, had another thing to be particularly pleased about on Monday when, during a live stream, he opened a loot box containing the Counter-Strike 2 item, the Skeleton Knife.

Rare Chance Item Won on Stream by xQc

xQc made sure to share the news on his X account, pointing out that the odds of pulling off a Skeleton Knife were fixed at 1 in 2,500,000. The reward was contained in a yellow mystery box, and the firebrand streamer caught it all on camera.

Loot boxes have been a controversial game mechanic, with many countries around the world outright prohibiting them to underage individuals or at least debating their resemblance to gambling.

In places such as Belgium and the Netherlands, loot boxes are prohibited outright, while jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States have been debating whether loot boxes aren’t too much like gambling, offering random rewards based on chance.

Valve, the owner of the Counter-Strike franchise, was targeted by a class-action lawsuit because of secondary marketplaces that allowed skins to be traded or sold for money but also gambled with for the chance to get even more skins as a reward.

This prompted the company to move rapidly against such marketplaces, issuing cease-and-desist letters against the most prominent and above-board operators. This, though, allowed a secondary black market to thrive.

To this very day, there are different ways to go onto the Internet and gamble with a skin through such a website, even though the legality of the practice is, at best, a grey area. As to xQc’s win, the skin he pulled off could be sold for $1,000 on secondary markets or thereabouts.

Loot Boxes Bring in a Decent Penny to Valve’s Operations

However, Valve has explicitly prohibited the sale of skins at such places and has insisted that skins have no real-world value and are exclusively confined to the game’s ecosystem. Loot box sales are crucial for the business model of companies such as Valve and Electronic Arts.

Players spent around $1 billion on loot boxes in 2023 alone to purchase Valve’s digital containers. There has already been mounting evidence to suggest the link between loot boxes and behavioral addiction.