EPT
Starcraft Match Fixing Investigation: Meeting Prosecutor Lee Joon Shik
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The Match Fixing Investigation, as told by the head prosecutor.
The Match Fixing Investigation, as told by the head prosecutor.
Recently there was an E-Sports Match Fixing Scandal that decorated the news headlines of the three major broadcasting companies and talked about around the world. The event caused a lot of shock and disappointment because the match fixing occurred in Starcraft, one of the most popular events amongst young adults, because the players involved were very young (in their 10s and early 20s), and also because a gang member was involved.
Related to this, Gumtori Reporting team has recently had the opportunity to meet the head prosecutor of the E-Sports match fixing case, Lee Joon Shik. There was a lot of interest as the Gumtori Reporting team composed of many college students who were familiar with Starcraft.
The below posting is a summary of the briefing provided by the Prosecutor, and because we changed wordings for convenience, we did not use quotation signs. The posting is composed of reporting related to the investigation and an interview with the head Prosecutor.
Summary of the Case
(1) The investigations began after receiving a report of match fixing, which had ceaseless rumors since the end of 2009.
(2) Authorities have began investigating on April 2010, and have uncovered sixteen people, composing of eleven past and current progamers, three brokers that have instigated them, and two individuals who have used the information to bet on illegal betting sites. Out of these individuals, one broker who was heavily involved was arrested and charged, six current progamers were summary indicted, one individual under military service was transferred to military courts, and one of the brokers who is a gang member related to Suwon South Gate was put on the wanted list.
(3)Brokers P,K,J used their connections with famous progamers W and M to give 2~6.5 million won to progamers to throw their matches. The gamers who have received this money followed instructions and fixed matches in a total of twelve matches, and brokers has used this information to bet on many illegal betting sites to make a large profit.
Characteristic of the Case
The biggest characteristic is that this is the first match fixing case where gamers (T/N: he seems to be implying "players") were directly involved.
There was a matchfixing case in Korea recently where a private school soccer coach bribed a referee to fix a match, and there was a case a few years ago in Italian Professional Soccer involving match fixing which was talked about around the world.
However, the case where the players would directly interfere with the matches to fix the matches happened for the first time in Korea (T/N: It's the first case in Korea, OR Korea is the first place it has happened. It's likely the latter interpretation). Match fixing was also easy because it was a one on one match unlike soccer or other sports. Furthermore, because the games were one on one, there were difficulties confirming conclusive evidence through investigations.
The investigations began concentrating on a few popular progamers that were predicted, but once two ex-Progamers and nine current progamers were found to have made bets, there was a de-facto need to expand the investigations.
As a result, the brokers were confirmed to be gang members, organizers of gamer schools (distinguished by guilds and clans), K-3 league soccer players, and they were found to be looking for profits and bribed gamers and participated in match fixing.
Is there anything different from what was reported in the Media?
Illegal betting sites are still in the early stages of development, and goes as far as 1.1~2.5x for betting odds on Starcraft. There are also cases where the sites choose the dividend as 3 million won, and there were many cases where the site operator ran away after receiving the bets. Due to all of this, the brokers did not make that much of a profit. Furthermore, there was a broker that has blackmailed a progamer saying that he will reveal the progamer's participation in match fixing.
Furthermore, because we have only revealed the initials due to the rights of our citizens to know, there was a lot of misunderstandings and rumors spread about a special person. This player has never received money to fix a match, and had only acted as a broker. This player received an offer to throw a match through special relationships with another match fixing participant, but is said to have rejected the offer upon thinking about it. However, when he discussed the matter with a fellow gamer, it was this gamer that participated in match fixing and thus the player hesitantly acted as a broker. This player, due to his fame, had a high betting rate in betting sites, and is said to have received a lot of offers for match fixing.
On the other hand there is a progamer that participated heavily. This progamer actively suggested to his team members, and in the end had his teammates throw matches in order. This player participated and made bets very often, and he betted very sneakily using an agent so he didn't have to use his real name. Furthermore, he leaked information to ex-progamers and others to get even more money. The investigation team requested an arrest warrant for this player but was rejected by the court, and so this progamer was charged without arrest.
How was the Match Fixing done?
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A scene from a match that was fixed
A scene from a match that was fixed
This is a question most asked by the reporters. Broadly speaking, there are three different ways.
The first method was to play the game normally and purposely misclick in the deciding battle. Even if it's not on the level of the so called "Attack Ttang" method, the players would not control their units, or stop attacking and producing units to create a void in their army. However, after one of the progamers who used this method received a lot of criticism and suspicion on his life and potential as a progamer, other methods began being used.
The second method is to leak the build order. Due to properties of RTS, on certain maps when Zerg takes the natural, if Terran does a forward Barracks or a center Barracks, this creates a "rock paper scissors" situation where the 8 out of 10 times they will not be able to defend. Before a match like this, if the player leaks his build to his opponent before the match, the opponent is able to create a situation where he cannot lose. Furthermore in matches where this method was applied, players also deployed workers to defend their base one or two tempos late.
The third method is to pretend to be ignorant of the opponent's strategy. The biggest example was a Zerg versus Protoss match where the Zerg player continued to produce Mutalisks even after realizing his opponent was massing corsairs. After the game, when a coach pointed this out to the player, the player avoided suspicion by claiming that "I thought he would collect corsairs only for a while and transition into a ground army".
The Investigation Process
As implied earlier, there was some difficulties obtaining objective evidence because it was a one on one match. But because we were able to capture the brokers, and because the progamers were young, we were able to use their accounts or on some cases, their family accounts to easily recognize the flow of money to deduct a conclusion to the investigation.
During the process, there were progamers who acknowledged their crimes from the beginning, but there were progamers who played down their crimes, and players who completely denied the charges, saying "what do you think of me to think that?"
To the question "Are there more cases of match fixing", we can answer "there are none as far as we have investigated so far". This is because illegal betting in Starcraft began in August~September of 2009.
Currently, there are investigations going on regarding the illegal betting sites, and the large majority of the betting sites used by the brokers were taken down during the investigations of this case.
The above was a summary of the briefing by Prosecutor Lee Joon Shik. The following is an Question and Answer interview between the blog reporters and the prosecutors. We have tried our best to remain faithful to what was said
Question 1: "Thank you for your briefing. We know that you are from an older generation, and so we were wondering if there were any difficulties in understanding the characteristics of E-Sports and Professional Starcraft.
"There weren't anything especially difficult. I know how to play this game, after all. There were times where I played this game all night when I was preparing for my judicial exams. Actually, because the head of the department was from an even older generation not familiar with e-Sports, we were able to report the progress and conclusions of the investigations a lot easier."
Question 2: "Because this case was a big issue amongst E-Sports fans and the younger generations, the case has attracted a lot of attentions. In fact, when the investigation process leaked the identities of the suspects, this lead to other damages. Furthermore, because a lot of progamers are public figures that are recognized, we also believe that they will have difficulties in society due to this. There are people who wonder if the investigation didn't care about releasing facts related to the suspects. What do you think of this?"
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The homepage of a school attended by one of the progamers involved was terrorized, Money Today, 2010-05-24
Actually, Investigators put a lot of special attention and special care regarding releasing identities of the suspects. However, in this case, we released the the initials and dates because the case was a little different from when normal citizens are involved, and thus we found the need to release some information.
If we didn't release any information, we believe that this causes problems regarding rights. We believed that respecting the right for curious reporters and citizens to know the truth, even at the cost of revealing sensitive information of the suspects, was for the greater good, because it was an investigation regarding progamers, who are public figures, and just in case there were problems regarding credibility of the investigations and other violations. Therefore, we released information restricted to initials and dates for this case. However, it is certain that investigators put a lot of care protecting the identities of the suspect."
Question 3: "The majority of E-Sports players have only played games from middle and highschool, and thus may be unaware of the gravity of their crimes because they haven't lived in society. We also believe that the original cause are illegal betting sites, and if you look at comments or chat rooms in online games, ads for these adult sites and illegal betting sites are overflowing. However we noticed that these advertisements hasn't slowed down at all and so we are wondering what kind of response investigators are preparing."
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Failure to arrest the operators of illegal betting site, Fomos, 2010-05-17.
"Illegal betting sties often involve foreign countries, meaning that they use foreign servers, and in the past these servers were in China 80% of the time, Japan 20% of the time. Recently, however, many betting sites are operating from Eastern European countries, where investigations are difficult, and in some cases, they even come from Guatemala. While tracking foreign IPs isn't impossible, it is not easy. You also mentioned that the advertisements haven't slowed down, but dispatching police or investigators real time is difficult, and there are more difficulties getting evidence. Furthermore, illegal betting sites spring up everywhere, so it may look like they're not being stopped. However, investigators and the police are doing their best to stop illegal betting sites, and there are still investigations regarding illegal betting sites related to this case."
Question 4: "As you are from an older generation, you may have gotten a bad impression of E-Sports while investigating this case. I'm wondering what you would do if your kids told you they wanted to become a Progamer."
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I want to become a progamer instead of a doctor.... The life and dreams of a progamer practice partner, Cookie News, 2006-11-17.
"In the current system, I would want to prevent them from becoming progamers. It's something I also felt while investigating, but I also think it's not correct for these young individuals to sacrifice a normal education and chances to grow as a person to live as a progamer. You can see this case as a result of progamers who weren't properly educated and didn't know how serious their crimes were. Furthermore, even workaholics rest on weekends like Saturday and Sunday, and on Holidays, so I feel really sorry for these kids who have to practice, play, practice, player, without rest. Another reason is that I don't want my children to have unorganized habits, and I know that most progamers have a nocturnal life style. Finally, from what I know, individuals who were involved in E-Sports the longest were people like commentator Lim Song Choon or player Lim Yo Han, most progamers have a much shorter career, and even if they succeed greatly, their road is limited to being a gamer or a commentator, so if my child really wants to become a progamer, I would think about it, but it's true that I would not want them to become a progamer."
Lee Joon Shik, as met by Gumtori is....
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I was very interested in E-Sports so listening to the head prosecutor directly was a very special and informative time. Furthermore, i was surprised that he was able to play Starcraft, and know names of the units, strategies, and names of gamers very well. His sincerity allowed me to slightly break the stereotype I had of prosecutors.
My impression of him was that he was a bit strict and hard, but he also had a sharp mind and a passion for justice, so I thought he was really cool. Furthermore, he was humorous and sincere on his responses to Gumtori, so he felt more like a social science teacher in highschool more so than a Prosecutor.
-The 4th Gumtori Blog Reporter Team, Kim Taeyong, Lee Jungmin.
Source: http://blog.naver.com/NBlogMain.nhn?blogId=spogood&Redirect=Dlog&Qs=/spogood/90088282893
Thanks to rotinegg for ripping the images and corrections!
