No one likes playing with cheaters, especially within a PvP environment. Those using unauthorized programs and hacks in games are at serious risk of seeing their access restricted, or worse, permanently banned. However, a group of CS:GO players in the NA pro-scene have raised the bar of cheating activity to an absurd criminal level. As a result, the FBI is now officially involved in Esports.
In an interview with YouTuber slash32, Ian Smith, the commissioner of Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC), states that the ESIC partnered with the FBI to investigate organized “match fixing” within the North American MDL. The MDL provides a unique opportunity for aspiring professional Counter-Strike gamers to qualify for the ESL Pro League. Consequently, trying to enter the global competition illicitly is a serious offense.
According to Ian, there are two distinct elements of this investigation:
First, ESIC has been able to cross-reference evidence from in-game chat history, Discord logs, and other corroborating material to build their case. “The first part we’ll deal with quite quickly because we’re dealing with idiots, basically,” Smith said. These CS:GO players will likely be banned for “a very, very long time.”
Secondly, the FBI is still relatively inexperienced regarding Esports because this sort of betting has never been a significant issue in the States until recently. Many Americans gamble on Esports, but most are likely not betting legally. Smith says the major complication is that creating a decent, legal betting framework for Esports in America will take around five years to establish. The reason is that the regulation of sports betting in the US is too chaotic.
“There has been amongst a relatively small but significant group of players over a long period of time organized match fixing in in North American MDL…It’s players being bribed by outside betting syndicates in order to fix matches rather than players just kind of doing it off their own back opportunistically.”
The legal betting scene for esports has been considerably slow because most people are more interested in betting in traditional sports like the NFL or the NBA. Gambling activities for regular sports have been up and running for years, thanks to legalization in the past. However, the esports industry is still young and, for the most part, unregulated, leaving lots of room for fraudulent activity within the professional scene. Nevertheless, it’s undoubtedly quite the sight to now see the FBI getting involved in this CS:GO match-fixing matter.
Watch the full interview:
What are your thoughts on this match-fixing investigation? Let us know in the comments!