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51406 Posts
... or rather, 'ex-iBP' and 'ex-NCG'.
On Aug. 21 last year, one of America’s top teams, iBUYPOWER, played what should have been an easy match against NetcodeGuides.com. But rather than stomping past the competition, they were trounced 16-4. The game, part of the CEVO Professional Season 5, was typified by lackadaisical play and strange behavior on iBUYPOWER’s part: going for knife kills in strange situations, laughing as they lost.
They attributed this to a combination of factors, including a timezone hangover from their time in Cologne for the ESL One Counter-Strike major, as well as a lack of practice on the map.
The next day, however, a young esports journalist provided the Daily Dot with screengrabs of a conversation he had with professional player Shahzeb “ShahZam” Khan before the game. In the messages, Khan declares the match was fixed and iBUYPOWER were going to deliberately lose. When confronted, Khan initially said he'd reveal who was involved in the match-fixing, even as he declared his own innocence. He then changed his mind, offering only a “no comment." While several other players confirmed they had been approached to throw games in the CEVO league, any mention about the specific match dried up.
Now, the Daily Dot has been provided with new corroborating details from multiple sources that strongly indicate the game was fixed and that multiple, unusual bets were placed just prior to the match by a player with strong connections to the players on both sides—wagers that garnered more than $10,000 in earnings. The revelations come amid a terrible winter for professional Counter-Strike, after a number of top players and teams have been implicated in match-fixing and cheating scandals.
http://www.dailydot.com/esports/match-fixing-counter-strike-ibuypower-netcode-guides/
Credits to Richard Lewis for the investigating. It's a huge shame how skins turn people into greedy motherfuckers.
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Well, there goes that EG sponsorship.
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Hope those who did the match fixing banned for life.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
not too surprised
I hate the skin betting culture surrounding cs. I know skins are what made this version of cs popular but I get annoyed with what those skins brought to the game; from skin giveaways for promotion gimmicks for twitch streamers to just introducing betting to young teenagers.
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There's no actual proof given in the article. Screenshots of text messages are the only evidence, which could easily be faked.
nvm, I was wrong.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On January 17 2015 09:51 Sero wrote:
There's no actual proof given in the article. Screenshots of text messages are the only evidence, which could easily be faked.
how about the statement from shazam?
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On January 17 2015 09:54 illsick wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2015 09:51 Sero wrote:
There's no actual proof given in the article. Screenshots of text messages are the only evidence, which could easily be faked. how about the statement from shazam?
"When confronted, Khan initially said he'd reveal who was involved in the match-fixing, even as he declared his own innocence. He then changed his mind, offering only a 'no comment.'"
There's nothing showing that Shazam really said that.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On January 17 2015 10:09 Sero wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2015 09:54 illsick wrote:On January 17 2015 09:51 Sero wrote:
There's no actual proof given in the article. Screenshots of text messages are the only evidence, which could easily be faked. how about the statement from shazam? "When confronted, Khan initially said he'd reveal who was involved in the match-fixing, even as he declared his own innocence. He then changed his mind, offering only a 'no comment.'" There's nothing showing that Shazam really said that.
I guess you didn't read the whole article. You do know the match that was referenced was played 5 months ago? The part you quoted was when shazam originally wanted to come forth but decided not to at the time 5 months ago.
here is his most recent statement:
"The day of this match I had placed a bet on iBUYPOWER. I brought up the bet while talking to Casey Foster, he then voice-called me on Steam Friends and told me to change my bet. He made it very clear the match was going to be thrown. I didn't want to get involved with any of it but I changed my bet, as I thought would be logical at the time while also sharing this information with a friend whom I assumed to have bet the same."
(that was just the first part of his statement, but that should be enough)
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I agree with GTR on how shameful it is that skins can turn people into greedy motherfuckers. But at the same time, I don't mind them since they helped build csgo into what it is today. Sure it has some bad sides to it, but so far I couldn't really be happier because I didn't even pay for csgo (the game paid for itself), I got around 30$ worth of skins and I was able to buy for like 40$ worth of games by just playing/watching tournaments and without betting.
I keep in mind that csgo is still pretty new into esport and I have a good feeling that, over time, stuff like that won't happen again, just like the hackusations. At least I hope so.
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On January 17 2015 10:17 illsick wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2015 10:09 Sero wrote:On January 17 2015 09:54 illsick wrote:On January 17 2015 09:51 Sero wrote:
There's no actual proof given in the article. Screenshots of text messages are the only evidence, which could easily be faked. how about the statement from shazam? "When confronted, Khan initially said he'd reveal who was involved in the match-fixing, even as he declared his own innocence. He then changed his mind, offering only a 'no comment.'" There's nothing showing that Shazam really said that. I guess you didn't read the whole article. You do know the match that was referenced was played 5 months ago? The part you quoted was when shazam originally wanted to come forth but decided not to at the time 5 months ago. here is his most recent statement: "The day of this match I had placed a bet on iBUYPOWER. I brought up the bet while talking to Casey Foster, he then voice-called me on Steam Friends and told me to change my bet. He made it very clear the match was going to be thrown. I didn't want to get involved with any of it but I changed my bet, as I thought would be logical at the time while also sharing this information with a friend whom I assumed to have bet the same." (that was just the first part of his statement, but that should be enough)
Oh, my bad. Thanks for pointing that out.
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Yea I remember when this popped up some months ago and the consensus on reddit seemed to be that there was not enough proofs etc.
Looks like Shazam finally decided it was time to tell the truth.
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This is great work by Richard really. So important.
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Canada13387 Posts
People who claim the Dot don't have good evidence are ridiculous. The Daily Dot isn't some backwater website, it covers more than just Esports. Granted a bunch of it can be clickbaity, but they still have a requirement to you know have journalistic integrity.
If there is one thing richard lewis does have its his integrity as a journalist and he legitimately tries his damnedest to not post gossip. If the dot says they can prove the screenshots are real etc then I am inclined to believe them.
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This is ridiculous. Fullest punishment possible, please. (I have no idea what it would be besides different tournaments banning players.)
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i always wished the match fixing rumours were false just for the sake of the NA scene
but if this is the true state of things then thats just sad, because you can read between the lines that seemingly quite a lot of the people in the "inner circle" of top NA scene knew of these match fixes but never did anything about it. that makes the whole scene look very shady and corrupt.
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United States31 Posts
It's an absolute shame that Richard Lewis gets so much flak for his work in the CS:GO community, and especially so for the work he's done around this scandal. Glad there is someone there to do this work and I hope the players involved are punished severely, even if it may hurt the NA scene right now.
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On January 17 2015 10:46 Liquid`Nazgul wrote:
This is great work by Richard really. So important.
Agreed. Really good journalism and they did it the right way. Props to the entire team over at Daily Dot for not only uncovering it, but making sure that they did it the right way.
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Props to Richard Lewis and DailyDot for taking a fine, very journalistic approach and uncovering this in a very appropriate way. Real shame for the CS:GO scene, this shit is toxic and I really hope we see it punished accordingly.
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Love Richard, but he did fuck up with his responses after his first article on the issue.
He did however own up to it, with this article and the Daily Dot show he did an hour ago.
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EPT
