Hey, you just won a Counterstrike: Global Offensive match! Time to shell out a few bucks, unlock that weapon case and see what's inside, right? Not so fast! You might be better off just buying that ultra-rare knife on the Steam store. Here's proof.
In the video above, game design commentator and YouTuber 3kliksphilip shows off how much money you can potentially spend try to randomly acquire one of the elite weapon rewards in the game. He uses a simulator made by redditor OrelStealth, which you can try for yourself here. At 1:53 in the video, the simulation spends more than $300 for a version of AK-47 that tops out at about $232 on the Steam Community Market.
By the time the much-desired Karambit knife shows up in an unlocked case, $1484.04 of imaginary player cash has been spent. That's more than three times the current top price of $400.
The moral of the story? You're probably better off buying from your fellow players. It'll cost less.
Note: This post originally misidentified who made the simulator, as now noted above, it was created by redditor OrelStealth