Match-fixing in esports seems to know no end as another such incident has recently surfaced in WePlay! Pushka League for Dota 2.
A match between two teams Cyber Legacy and CyberTRAKTOR was held in the league on April 26th. Three days later on April 29, WePlay! has officially released a statement through their website saying that the match might not have been played fair and square.
The BO3 series between the two teams saw Cyber Legacy win it 2-0. However, when WePlay! decided to investigate the games, they came to a conclusion that members of CyberTRAKTOR might have been involved in betting on the match to make some easy money.
They said in the post, “Our esports department and the analysts of WePlay! Pushka League carefully examined the matches and came to the conclusion that Cyber TRAKTOR, with a high degree of probability, made bets on some intermediate results of their matches. At this time, we are gathering evidence and investigating the situation.”
They came to a decision that CyberTRAKTOR will be prohibited in participating in further games till clarification of the circumstances.
They further added, “We encourage Cyber TRAKTOR also to conduct an internal investigation and publicly share its results if the information about trying to earn on intermediate results is confirmed.”
The blog post also included a statement from Vitaliy “Nexius” Bozhko – WePlay! Esports Lead Esports Manager.
The statement said, “One of the main reasons for the existence of Division 2 in WePlay! Pushka League is the support of talented players who have not yet been discovered. For the participants, even if they are not yet ready to take the big stage, the official matches serve as an incentive to improve and work on themselves. Unfortunately, no one is safe from the fact that a player or an entire team uses this opportunity to try and earn easy money. We will announce punishments for the perpetrators when we fully understand the situation.”
It goes without saying that this isn’t the first case of match fixing in esports, or even Dota 2. Match fixing is a punishable offense regardless and players involved with it in the past have not only been permanently banned from the game, but have been arrested too on rare occasions.
