Skin arbitrage exists because CS2 prices are not the same everywhere. The Steam Community Market, cash marketplaces and trading bots each have their own buyers, their own fees and their own price levels. When the gap between two sites is bigger than the cost of moving the skin across, an arbitrage trader can buy low on one and sell high on the other.
How does CS2 arbitrage work in practice?
The classic route runs from a cash marketplace to Steam. Cash prices sit below Steam prices because cash is worth more than Steam Wallet funds. A trader buys a skin for cash at, say, 70 percent of the Steam price and lists it on Steam, where it sells for full price into Steam Wallet. That wallet balance then buys new skins or games. The trader never gets money out, but they turn 70 dollars of cash into 100 dollars of Steam value before fees.
The reverse route moves Steam Wallet balance back into cash. A trader buys skins on Steam with wallet funds, then sells them on a cash site for less than the Steam price. They lose value on paper but gain real money. This only pays when the trader already has wallet funds they cannot spend.
What eats arbitrage profit?
Fees come first. The Steam Community Market takes a 5 percent Steam fee plus a 10 percent CS2 fee on every sale. Third-party sites take their own seller fees and often a withdrawal fee, and those differ by site, so check the marketplace fees page. Then come holds. Items bought on the Steam Market cannot be traded for 7 days, and items received in a trade are trade protected for 7 days. Prices can move a lot in a week, and the gap you saw when you bought may be gone by the time you can sell.
Spread is the last cost. A wide gap between buy and sell prices on a thin market can wipe out a small arbitrage margin. Run the numbers with the trade profit calculator before you commit money, and treat any margin under 10 percent as too thin to survive fees, holds and price moves.