Corruption in e-sports looms

MELBOURNE • Australia's newly-appointed sports integrity boss has said he will work with the nation's e-sports industry in the fight against betting-related corruption after police revealed they had charged five men with match-fixing in online gaming.

Detectives from the Sporting Integrity Intelligence Unit filed the charges on Sunday night, alleging that players in Melbourne and other towns in the state of Victoria threw matches they had bet on during a gaming tournament last year.

This is understood to be the first criminal probe involving e-sports Down Under, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Some A$30,000 (S$27,300) was said to have been won as a result of betting on fixed games - and the accused are unknown players playing first-person shooter game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the semi-professional ESEA-Mountain Dew League.

It is a growing concern, not only for Australian police, but police worldwide that graft has seeped into the industry given e-sports' popularity.

In 2017, market research firm Newzoo estimated industry revenues to be around US$696 million (S$986 million), attracting a viewership of over 385 million people.

This year, Newzoo has projected revenues to be US$1.1 billion.

E-sports is widely considered to be the fastest-growing sport in the world and with the money flowing into the industry, there will be an increasing number of gamers who will be susceptible to temptations.

That has been exacerbated by the lack of traditional live sports, with all major competitions and leagues on hold owing to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in not only soaring audience numbers, but also punters channelling huge sums into the nascent e-sports industry.

David Sharpe, who this summer will head Sport Integrity Australia, a new government agency merging anti-corruption and anti-doping bodies, revealed he was well aware of the potential threat organised crime and illegal betting syndicates posed to e-sports given the interest from bookmakers.

"I had early discussions with a former chief executive officer around integrity within their sport and I am looking forward to engaging with them in my new role to work around the potential risks and threats," he told The Australian newspaper. "There will be discussions to do that, particularly given our access to global intelligence."

While match-fixing in e-sports is still somewhat uncommon, Asia appears to be particularly vulnerable as the sport is popular there.

South Korean Lee "Life" Seung-hyun, along with fellow top StarCraft II player Bung "Bbyong" Woo-yong were in 2016 accused of throwing games after receiving US$60,000 and US$26,000 respectively from a gambling ring.

The former was slapped with a 70,000,000 won (S$81,000) fine and a suspended jail term and was banned from taking part in Korean e-sports for life, casino.org reported.

Highlighting the likelihood that Asian gamers are being targeted by match-fixers, Ian Smith, the integrity commissioner at the E-sports Integrity Coalition (Esic), told The Guardian: "The epicentres of e-sports are South-east Asia, China and South Korea.

"All the evidence I get through from suspicious bet alerts indicates that fixing in China is rife."

But given that e-sports operates in a virtual world with no borders, digital corruption is much harder to trace. Admitting there is no way to fully eliminate the menace, Stephen Hanna, a director at Esic, told Bloomberg that his organisation hopes to "limit its position in the market to the greatest extent possible".

REUTERS