The number of fake matches in Esports has grown several times during the pandemic
For more than a year, the world has been suffering the pandemic consequences. In the first half of 2020, while professional sports stopped and remained in limbo, Esports continued to operate. The dark side of the sports industry which organizes fake matches has turned its attention on it.
There are analytical agencies whose activities are aimed at identifying suspicious activities in matches. So, Sportradar provided information that in 2020 they found 39 matches in the Esports industry that could be categorized as fake. For comparison, they counted only 3 such cases in 2019.
Dota 2 is no exception. Over the past year, more and more information has emerged from players, and sometimes from organizations' management, about offers to make 322 for money reward. There were two such cases this week. Gleb "Funn1k" Lipatnikov from XactJlepbI said that someone offered his team to lose for money. After that, the manager of Tequila (ex-Imperial Gaming) also said that one person personally contacted him and offered a large amount for the defeat.
The head of Virtus.pro, Sergey Glamazda, said that in mid-2020, even before a significant reshuffle in the organization, a Chinese investor wanted to buy VP.Prodigy. But not for the development of Esports, but the team's participation in fake matches.
I remembered a story like in due time when there were still old VP.P. an investor from China wrote to me at WeChat and said he would buy a team, and we would share the money from 322. Approximately $100k per match. At the same time, he was sincerely surprised that I didn't consider such an option and stated that I didn't understand how Esports works
Although many players refuse such offers, some agree. Banning and rejection of the professional Dota 2 scene don't stop them. Players who agree to this don't believe they will earn such much money by playing fair. Also, there are very few legal precedents with the arrest of players. Over the past year, we have seen at least two cases where a team has received a lifetime ban. These were Newbee and Avengerls.
A similar case is being checked right now: the Meta4Pro organization withdrew from the DPC: EU, suspecting its players of involvement in 322.