ESIC Receive Akuma CSGO Matchfixing Evidence, But Can’t Act On It
Esports roster Akuma was accused of CSGO cheating, and the ESIC has now received matchfixing evidence. We discussed the situation recently, where 14 of the 16 RMR teams want them investigated for cheating. As of this morning, the ESIC (Esports Integrity Commission) discussed it this morning in a post on Twitter. However, there’s one downside to this situation. While the ESIC would love to investigate, EPIC is not a member of the ESIC, so they can’t investigate the CIS RMR event that has got the CSGO community talking. As such, the ESIC has not taken any steps, but they have done the next best thing: they made a referral to Valve.
What Are The Accusations, What Can Be Done?
This was such an important event, as it gave teams in the CIS region a shot at the Stockholm Major. It’s huge for CSGO teams in general. We’re not going to deny a team coming out of nowhere, and demolishing the competition. But in this case, there are so many shady things going down. Allegations of cheating are serious business, especially when so many teams are seeing it.
The ESIC wouldn’t recommend an investigation on just any CSGO matchfixing, not without evidence. According to the initial letter, ESIC has seen “substantial evidence indicating the existence of potential betting fraud perpetrated by individuals participating or associated with those who were participating in the CIS RMR event run by EPIC.”
ESIC refers evidence indicating potential match-fixing and betting fraud in RMR event to Valve.
— ESIC (@ESIC_Official) June 9, 2021
ESIC has made a referral to Valve including substantial evidence indicating the existence of potential betting fraud in the CIS RMR event run by EPIC.
Read: https://t.co/P90BBzeGkX pic.twitter.com/i34AkHvEzH
This comes from ESIC’s Suspicious Betting Alert Network (SBAN). Project X’s CEO (the organization that fielded Akuma) has an active CSGo betting account. It sounds like he’s got a history of betting on important, key matches when they were known as Project X, and again during the RMR CIS event. There were suspiciously accurate pre-match bets on the Virtus.Pro vs. Akuma match as well. Conveniently, this is the match where the cheating allegations came from.
Ian Smith, the Commissioner of ESIC, explains:
“While ESIC has not undertaken a full investigation into the detail, extent, and validity of any particular instances of match-fixing behaviour and the perpetrators of such behaviour – information on hand would indicate that this is a matter worth investigating further; certainly, if ESIC did have jurisdiction, we would have opened a full investigation based on what we already know. ESIC has therefore referred the evidence available to us to Valve for further consideration.”
Now, this is potential evidence and not hard proof of wrongdoing. ESIC cannot and has not made any move to put an investigation in or accrue personal evidence. The best they can do is forward it to Valve, and hope they investigate. Sure, Oleksandr Shyshko (CEO of Project X) could easily have gotten lucky, that’s no crime. But this is one of the lower-ranked teams coming out on top against one of the best teams in the world in Virtus.Pro.
A Serious Moment for CSGO Esports
ESIC has reportedly identified the following through SBAN:
- Betting and client information
- Match and player behavior analysis data
- Prior behavior data
- Other relevant information
It all comes across as incredibly suspicious. Not that we’re discounting Akuma, but the odds of the newcomer team demolishing Virtus.pro 2-0 are incredibly low. Somehow, this happened, and in peculiar circumstances, according to the teams at the event. ESIC also recommends that entries from Akuma (or teams with more than three current Akuma members) should not be accepted, until an investigation happens, or Valve makes a decision one way or another.
This is a moment in time that should be taken seriously. It’s unfortunate that ESIC cannot investigate this CSGO matchfixing evidence. They have no concrete evidence, but it’s still a circumstance that warrants looking into. As of right now, Valve has not made a comment as of this moment. As this story develops, we’ll come back to bring you the latest.
We have reached out to Valve for a comment and will update you with whatever we hear.
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