League of Legends pro, Cheon ‘Promise’ Min-Ki is recovering from a coma after leaping from a 12-storey building in an attempt to take his own life after revealing match-fixing details in League of Legends tournaments.
Just when you think you have seen it all, along comes another gambling corruption story to re-write fraud and corruption history.
A professional League of Legends player, Cheon “Promise” Min-Ki is recovering from a coma after leaping from a 12-storey building in an attempted suicide
Min-Ki was part of the South Koreas AHQ eSports team but wrote on the Inven forum that the whole thing was a sham, created by the manager in order to earn money by throwing matches.
In his post the young South Korean told the world that his coach Noh Dae Cho threatened him if he won matches, and by default did what he could to lose on purpose.
Min-Ki wrote: “When we first made the team, we were told that AHQ sponsored us with cash and computers. We didn’t know they only gave us gaming gear for rights to the team name. Our manager Noh had lied to us, and took out a loan to pay for our housing, living expenses, computers, and even our salaries. He was planning on placing illegal bets on eSports games and fixing them to win back the borrowed money and make a profit.”
The post went on to say that the coach had also sold their practice computers and failed to pay their wages after getting himself embroiled in debt. The post rather tragically ended with Min-Ki stating.
“I’m not in this world after 5 minutes, AHQ Korea was a team made by Noh to profit off illegal gambling, teammates didn’t know and we had to fix games because of this. AHQ Taiwan never sponsored our team, it was a lie. I am sorry for all of this, and I can’t tell you everything, but I’m leaving now as I can’t deal with this anymore.”
Min-Ki’s attempt to take his own life ended when he landed on the roof of a recycling center after leaping out of a 12 story window. He is currently recovering in hospital and is off the critical list.
League of Legends is the most popular eSport in South Korea, where professionals play for prize pools entering seven figure scores, and the Korean branch of Riot (League of Legends developer) has promised to look into these match-fixing allegations.
On July 11, 2013 the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service recognized League of Legends pro-players as professional athletes, meaning they can apply for work visas to remain in the US for up to five years.
So beating the crap out of a lot of digital monsters is considered a sport, but poker is not.
Only in America.
