Match fixing or influencing results in esports

What is match fixing?

The English term match fixing refers to when an individual or an entire team deliberately makes poor gameplay decisions with the aim of influencing the match outcome. In practice, this means that, for example, a player bets against themselves or their team before the match and deliberately throws their chances of winning. Sometimes players are influenced from outside, either by threats or promised rewards. As the esports betting markets expanded, options like betting on the number of kills or deaths appeared. In these cases, a player does not have to influence the outcome of the match but only their own performance. Cheating related to this type of bet is the hardest to detect – yet also harder to execute.

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Biggest scandals in esports

Over the many years that progaming has been in the spotlight of bookmakers, several major scandals due to match fixing have occurred. In 2010, the traditional esports scene of the strategy game StarCraft was shaken by revelations of deliberate match manipulation in Korea. The investigation led to two arrests and eleven professional players were immediately banned from competitive play in any esports tournament and were, of course, charged with criminal offenses. In this case, the match fixing was organized by the operators of a bookmaker. A similar incident occurred five years later in the game StarCraft II. There are many reasons why professional players in any sport are paid so well – one of them is to make it harder to influence them and coerce them into match fixing. In earlier times, however, esports organizations did not have such financial resources, and players cheated even for a few hundred dollars. This is exactly what happened in 2013 during a DOTA 2 match in the sixth season of the SLTV Star Ladder tournament. Player Alexey “Solo” Berezin was caught in the act, leading to the suspension of the match against ZRage. Solo bet $100 against his own team and during the game made several obvious decisions that threw away any chance of winning. The profit was only $322. He was expelled from the team and banned from professional gaming for three years. If you ever see the cryptic “322” in the DOTA world, it refers to this incident and match throwing. This popular MOBA game has had more match fixing scandals over the years, but this was the first to be exposed and similar stunts became more difficult to pull off. CS:GO also had its share of match-fixing cases. Perhaps the most famous one occurred in 2015. Six players and the owners of the iBUYPOWER team deliberately threw a match against NetcodeGuides. At the time, iBP was the strongest team on the scene and their loss was suspicious to fans and esports experts alike. Someone close to both teams and esports journalists revealed that they had text message evidence of the match being fixed. One of the players had confessed to his girlfriend. Using multiple alternate accounts on the CS:GO Lounge platform, he bet against himself. The messages also revealed another professional gambler using skins, who was operating multiple profiles to bet and try to influence matches. Moving closer to the present, 2021 saw controversy in the popular FPS game Valorant. The Resurgence team was investigated directly by Riot and eventually banned from participating in any official competition. In the same year, another incident emerged in the Counter Strike scene. The Esports Integrity Commission announced it was investigating 35 players for deliberately influencing match results. Most of these players had already switched from CS to Valorant, but that didn’t stop the commission from continuing its investigation. Professional players from around the world were found to be engaging in match fixing and cheating. They had used a bug that allowed coaches to see parts of the map that were not supposed to be visible. Fortunately for bettors and viewers, no similar scandals have occurred in recent years. Fair play is just as important in esports as in any other sport, and match fixing damages the entire scene. So what’s being done to prevent similar incidents?

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How is match fixing prevented?

As esports grows, more affiliated organizations are emerging. This is making progaming a more structured industry. An example is the establishment of ESIC (Esports Integrity Commission), which closely cooperates with tournament organizers and leads investigations related to match manipulation – especially within the Counter Strike scene. Many players are young, so education in this area is an important form of prevention. Many teams provide ideal conditions and support for their players, ensuring that individuals are aware of the risks involved in match manipulation. Long-term player contracts and high salaries are additional steps toward preventing match fixing. For us, the bettors and viewers, it’s important to know that some smaller and unofficial tournaments are more prone to such incidents, but it is not a regular occurrence. On the other hand, Tier 1 competitions organized by established companies like Riot Games or BLAST ensure a high level of professionalism and offer adequate financial compensation. This means that players will think twice about whether making a bad decision is worth it in the long run. And lastly, from a legal perspective, deliberate match manipulation is a criminal offense. Betting fraud in the Czech Republic is classified as the crime of fraud. While there is no specific law on match fixing, violations of sporting rules are dealt with under other laws – this can mean a fine, a suspended sentence, or even imprisonment.

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