Pinnacle voids Dark vs. San bets due to match manipulation…

On January 22 2015 00:16 Swoopae wrote:
Ok so; first things first. Longtime lurker since SC1 days, have never posted on TL; I confirmed on my twitter this is my account. I'm a huge esports fan, but have no direct involvement in the industry. I've subscribed to all of the streams, bought a TL hoodie, even attended the DRG vs Genius GSL final live in Korea. I bet on games recreationally with an average bet size of $100-200 which puts me somewhere in the middle as a sportsbettor bet sizing wise. I am a winning bettor over a large sample of several thousand bets on professional SC2 games with something like 7-10k profit over a few thousand bets. I play poker for a living so have experience in the gambling industry in general. My bets on San totalled $600, which is about three times my average bet size, but not even in the ten largest bets i've made on Esports. The amount of money is not significant to me, to pinnacle or to the line movement (the first 600 dollars bet on a match may move the line a few points, but had I bet 600 dollars just before the line was suspended it may or may not have moved the line from say 1.20 to 1.21.)

First off i'd like to state I don't know any of the posters in the thread except just_mo. He has nothing to do with Pinnacle Sports as claimed by one poster; he is a poker reporter who sportsbets fairly successfully on a variety of sports. His opinions are his own and so are everyone else's.

In any case, this isn't about me personally. This is about Kespa, Pinnacle and San. I'm some random guy who should have no role in this from here on out.

Anyway, time to say what I came here to say.

First i'd like to state I have no reason to believe if anything happened that Dark would be involved in any way as there would be no reason for him to be and the people suggesting that earlier in the thread are idiots. If anything improper happened, it happened on the end of San or someone he knows. We know match fixing offers happen; Solar reported an offer to throw a nothing game where betting limits were WAY smaller. I hope match fixing or insider info betting didn't happen here but objectively it is a strong possibility.

I'm just going to post all of the information I have, a rough timeline, my opinion and then it's up to the proper people who have access to all of the information to make fully informed conclusions (in this case, Pinnacle and Kespa).

First off; i'd like to clarify that I am in no way directly accusing San of throwing the game I am just stating that it is a reasonable possibility, along with the possibility that San or someone close to him leaked confidential information (build, injury etc) to bettors but didn't directly throw the game, and finally the possibility that nothing out of the ordinary happened and this is an extremely unlikely series of coincidences, which is the least likely of the three. If a thorough investigation clears San of all wrongdoing I will personally apologies for any role I played in these allegations coming to light (although it would have happened with or without me when Pinnacle released their statement). If it turns out something did happen, I fully expect an apology from anyone who attacked me personally in the thread.

I spoke too quickly directly stating San threw the game after Pinnacle refunded bets but before Pinnacle made their statement as I wanted an investigation to occur and until Pinnacle's statement that did not seem like it was going to happen. Let me be clear, I still do think it is very possible than San threw the game or he or someone close to him leaked inside information that he was going to almost certainly lose. This is apparently from the unprecedented anomalies in the betting market that one or more bettors with deep pockets knew San was going to lose substantially more than 80% of the time which is unheard of in a theoretically competitive proleague match. I can't say anything conclusively, this is just my opinion as a random guy. Pinnacle Sports and Kespa are the authorities on what happened here as they have the necessary information between them

I did message the kespa twitter account prior to the public messages to the casters on twitter and got no reply so I messaged the english casters who I have great respect for. I am certain that they would want to protect the integrity of esports and they are highly visible figures. It's not their job to comment on this at all, but I wanted to get it out there. I probably didn't handle it in the best possible way and for that i'm sorry, but i'm not sorry that this was brought to the attention of the esports community because the situation is objectively suspicious and as the community we need to ensure there is no corruption going on that affects the integrity of proleague matches. After all, if there is, then what's the point. I probably shouldn't have named San publicly in my twitter post, but Pinnacle did that regardless of my input and nothing I did personally affected the outcome of this in any way.

So let's move on to a few things

Esports Betting

Esports betting is on the rise as the esports scene grows bigger. It will only continue to do so as is the case with any sport that becomes popular. Pinnacle Sports is the main sportsbook that take bets on E-sports. They were the first book to do so and have the highest limits. Opening lines are typically $100 then as the lines sharpen (sharp bettors betting on inaccurate lines) they settle at a point where similar amounts of money come in on each side, and gradually get raised. For this particular match, the limit was $100 when it opened and $1k when Pinnacle took the line down after I sent them an email stating I was concerned by line movement that I believed was statistically and mathematically impossible. Note, I have bet on thousands of esports matches including games where +128 favourtes were bet in to -180 etc and nothing was suspicious about those games because the line movement was logical and not obviously coming from one or very few sources as was the case this time.

Pinnacle Sports

Pinnacle Sports is the world's largest and most reputable sports book. They would not stake their reputation on making a statement that they believe that San vs Dark was not a fair match and that the market was manipulated unless they were certain this is the case. I am not affiliated with Pinnacle and do not have access to their fraud department's methodology so me speculating is pointless.

They do not stand to benefit in any way from cancelled bets. Pinnacle is a book that welcomes winning sportsbettors; and make their profit from charging a 'vig' on both sides of a bet, meaning for an even money bet both players pay 1.92. The line will usually naturally settle on a final 'closing' line which is considered to be around the true price in bettors opinions on a match where it is equally attractive to bet money on either player. They do this by moving the bettine line when money comes in on one player. For example, if two players are 1.92 and a large bet comes in on Player A, Player A's new price is 1.90 and Player B's price is 1.94. This continues until the match begins and a 'true' line is found at the halfway point between A and B's closing betting prices when the game begins. Opening lines can be inaccurate, but money on the 'sharp' side should eventually correct the betting line most of the time. Closing lines should in theory never be HUGELY inaccurate as was the case here. It was further outside the margin of error than any esports line I have ever seen and I monitor lines daily and have done for two years.

Line movement history - it is posted in post 199 of this thread http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/40/sports-betting/esport-betting-1497866/index14.html. I am not the poster of the information but I assume it is accurate. If it is not, someone can correct me but it seems to match my realtime observations.

Someone has linked Aligulac already and there has been plenty of discussion. Needless to say Dark at 1.20 will not yield a positive expectation over time even if San is playing poorly. Dark at 1.50 will not yield a positive expectation over time in bo1 series. This is like Innovation being an underdog to Terror, Prime being 1.50 favourites against a full strength Jin Air or as posted earlier ITT Taeja vs some below average foreigner no one has heard of being at even money. It is outside the statistical margin for error with maximum bets being this large. The max bet was 1k when San was still in 1.50 to 1.60 territory from memory and only moves a couple points with each max bet. Additionally, money was coming in on San on the other side. To move the line to 1.20ish, an absolute minimum of decent five figures would have to have come in on Dark and potentially six figures. While this money is inconsequential to Pinnacle Sports, it is a lot of money to the average person.

Here is the first email I sent to Pinnacle; sometime during the Dream vs Leenock game I believe or maybe just before it started.

Anything inside [brackets] like this is an addition to the original emails.

Hi my account is [x]

In all of my time betting esports ive never seen anything like the San vs Dark line movement. It would appear the game might be fixed in favour of Dark, i'm sure you've noticed this. I'm sure you've noticed i'm pretty sharp on esports, I post my picks here http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/40/sports-betting/esport-betting-1497866/index12.html#post45893445 and the entire thread is worried about this.

San was already a +EV bet at +145 [edit - this is debatable but at +200 or higher it would not be debatable and the line got to somthing like +400 at which point some of the worst foreigners would be an easy bet in a best of 1 against the best players in proleague], the line movement out north of +300 is nuts. Every time it just gets hammered over and over for 1k. The game hasn't happened yet but if San's build order is a throw i'd like some sort of investigation here, I might contact Kespa as well, the organisation that runs proleague.

As i have bets on San this really concerns me. This is literally the first time i've ever thought an esports match might be fixed and the game hasn't even happened yet - San is objectively in the 40-60% range to win depending what you value when handicapping (I have him at +100 to -105 personally) and it is literally impossible for the line to move in this manner without some sort of manipulation. I'm sure you noticed this as you reduced the limits back from 1k to 100. [Pinnacle reduced the betting limits back to the starting range of $100 after accepting what I believe is over a hundred thousand in bets on the game at 1k a bet, almost all of which was on Dark so clearly they had noticed a suspicious pattern in the bets prior to me even contacting them or posting anything outside of the twoplustwo esports discussion thread]

As the game happens shortly i'm pretty worried about the spot. Please look into it asap and advice me of how we proceed from here

--------------------
End email

I then receive three emails back to back from Pinnacle's customer support department

Dear Client,

We have forwarded your e-mail to the appropriate department.

As soon as we have any information regards to this matter, we will contact you as soon as possible.

Kind Regards,
Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports

Dear Client,

We already informed our Trading Department about it.
Thank you for bring it to our attention.
Have a nice day.

Kind Regards,
Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports

Dear Client,

For now this game has been taken offline to find out what is going on in this match.

Kind Regards,
Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports

The match then occurs. San plays horrendously, losing a probe in a dumb spot a diamond player can avoid, losing a mothership core in a spot a gold player can avoid, then doing an immortal build but never attacking; then taking the gold; then never building AOE vs roach hydra, then blinking stalkers on top of roach hydra in a terrible trade. This obviously proves nothing other than he played poorly but when combined with the unusual betting patterns, it is suspicious. Not conclusive, but suspicious.

I email Pinnacle back with the gist of the email being 'well, that was suspicious'.

After Life loses to Classic and the match is concluded I get the following email from Pinnacle

Dear Client,

We appreciate your kind comments.

Pinnacle Sports has always been very clear that we will take an aggressive stance against any perceived match-fixing or corruption in any sports that we offer betting for.

As the world’s leading eSports bookmaker we are therefore especially committed to preventing corruption and match-manipulation in eSports.

The match has been identified by our fraud prevention team as being manipulated. The bet placement pattern clearly indicates that the match was not played on a fair basis.

As a result all bets on this match have been voided. We apologize for the inconvenience this causes for anyone betting on this match in good faith, but I am sure you will appreciate that protecting the integrity of eSports is of paramount importance.


Kind Regards,
Customer Service Department / Pinnacle Sports

That's when I take to twitter; then shortly after I post (trying to draw attention to what just happened as I have no idea Pinnacle is about to make a statement) Pinnacle makes a statement linked from their twitter which can be read here

http://www.pinnaclesports.com/en/notice/esports-statement?ito=twitter

If you've made it this far and haven't seen it yet please take the time to read it.

Meanwhile; some other bettors and I are speculating in the twoplustwo esports thread which I linked earlier. Posts are timestamped. General consensus opinion there is that San threw the game; again that's just opinion including my own at the time.

Then this thread happens after the Pinnacle notice that they believe the game was manipulated/not conducted fairly (would have happened regardless of whether I emailed Pinnacle about my suspicions or not as they had already drastically reduced max bet size and then shortly after my first email removed the betting line)

Pinnacle regularly takes millions of dollars in action, always pays customers immediately and i've wagered a total six figures there with no hassles over several years including withdrawing about 10k net profit. They are literally the most trustworthy and professional sportsbook in the industry and I would trust them over most non gambling related businesses.

So where do we stand now? Well, I believe there are a few possibilities. These are all my personal opinions based on the circumstantion evidence available.

San - May or may not have thrown the game deliberately; either for payment or for some other reason. Kespa should and I assume will investigate. There is clearly enough circumstantion evidence to warrant an investigation. Ideally this would have occurred before this info was made public by Pinnacle (or by me if you want to say that, but without Pinnacle's statement nothing ever happens here). San will either be exonerated, or evidence will come to light proving the allegations. He or someone close to him may or may not have leaked confidential information about his health, build, practice, etc. he's innocent until proven guilty, but one of the two situations is overwhelmingly likely to have occurred given the impossible line movement and how the match actually played out. The third possibility is that through some fairly mathematically impossible coincidences everything was above board. I stated on Twitter I will apologise to San if it turns out that there was no wrongdoing by any parties for any role I played in the situation; however Pinnacle and Kespa are the main parties involved here, i'm just some guy who bets on esports and noticed the same suspicious line moment that Pinnacle noticed, watched the game, then talked about my observations publicly.

Pinnacle/Kespa - I hope Pinnacle will assist Kespa in investigating once Pinnacle's own investigation is complete. This info won't be made public about how their algorithms detect fraud as it is a trade secret and releasing it will help both their competitors as well as match fixing syndicates in esports (if they exist) and elewhere get around their anti-fraud protections. I would like to think they would be willing to work with Kespa privately to confirm the account/s the massive money on Dark came from and the real identities those accounts are linked to if it will assist Kespa in their investigation. I have no idea if this will occur or not, I have no affiliation with either organisation beyond watching Kespa's product and betting using Pinnacle's product. I assume Startale-Yoe will rest San next week regardless between this and his health issues, in the event that he is played I would expect Pinnacle and all betting organisation not to offer lines on San or Startale-Yoe's games until this is resolved.

I hope i'm wrong, Pinnacle is wrong and San is entirely innocent and just played badly. Startale-Yoe is one of my favourite teams and it would suck for them to lose San and it would suck for Esports to have another match fixing scandal or even an inside information betting scandal. Numbers don't lie though and it's objectively unlikely that everything was above board and it is my personal opinion to agree with Pinnacle's statement on the situation that the market was manipulated and something happened. Determining whether San did anything wrong or not is a separate matter that I have nothing to do with. I have suspicions but those are opinion and I don't have access to the information I would need to determine anything conclusive.

It's not up to me to determine what if anything happened, it's up to Pinnacle and Kespa. I'm just a guy who loves esports, likes to bet on esports and wants to keep esports clean and fair. I hope everything here was clean and fair, but the numbers say something happened they just don't say what. It's not up to me to speculate further at this point and i'll do my best to refrain from commenting further on the matter unless additional information is released by Kespa or Pinnacle.