Six Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players in Australia have been arrested on suspicions of match fixing. Victoria Police have been investigating the allegations for nearly six months now after a betting company tipped off the department about suspicious activity surrounding a CS:GO tournament.
The six men, aged between 19 to 22 years old, are alleged to have arranged to throw matches in an unnamed CS:GO tournament and place bets on those same matches. At least five matches at the tournament were affected by the alleged match fixing scheme and more than 20 bets were placed by Australians. The police force's Sporting Integrity Intelligence Unity and the Organised Crime Unit have executed warrants and the six players had been arrested and interviewed before being released.
The six players face a potential 10 years in prison for their alleged crimes, Victoria Police said. Assistant Commissioner Neil Paterson said that as esports betting is an "emerging industry," there will be growing numbers of people betting on matches. "These warrants also highlight that police will take any reports of suspicious or criminal activity within esports seriously," said Paterson.
There is huge money in CS:GO betting and in esports as a whole. CS:GO is one of 12 games that offers a prize pot of $1 million or more for an esports tournament. Other parts of the game, such as the sale of weapon skins, are also incredibly lucrative. This leaves the game and its professional scene vulnerable to criminal activity such as the alleged match fixing that has gone on with the six Australian players.
In fact, CS:GO match fixing has been a problem that police forces and players in other regions have been dealing with for years. In 2016, an anonymous CS:GO team said that it was approached by its owner, a CS:GO skin gambling site, and asked to throw a game. While the team quit following the proposal and began to search for a new team, it did suggest that match fixing is endemic at every level of the professional CS:GO industry.
Valve, which developed CS:GO, has yet to release a statement about the CS:GO match fixing scandal and it's unclear if the affected tournament was one run by Valve or a third-party. However, the company will be keen to avoid all allegations of criminal activity as the game has also come under fire for facilitating illegal skin gambling and gambling in the form of loot boxes.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is out now for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Source: Victoria Police