Esports Integrity Coalition’s suspicious betting alert network works. The system recently identified an irregular betting pattern in a DOTA2 match that has led to a suspension for a player who admitted betting on his team to lose.
While I was waiting for my mate to brush his teeth, I would put take a pound note from the mantlepiece and stuff it into my schoolbag. I once walked into WHSmiths, ripped open a new set of headphones, plugged them into my Walkman and calmly walked out, and I have asked professional poker players for advice when I have run deep in online poker tournaments.
I once confessed to being the single perp after someone handed a playing card showing a woman manhandling a horse’s cock to the headmistress. They weren’t my playing cards, but I took the blame. I once stood up in the middle of a business meeting and spoke out on behalf of my lower-level managers and received no support.
When it comes to my integrity, there are times when I had felt like Spartacus and other times when the thought of financial gain suffocated my screams.
So, when I hear that an investigation spearheaded by the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) has found Jose Gianmarco ‘gianDK’ Durand Cornejo guilty of match-fixing, I’m not so quick to turn my finger and thumb into a shotgun.
ESIC and JoinDOTA Find gianDK Guilty of Match-Fixing
gianDK is a professional esports athlete who competes in DOTA 2 matches for Thunder Awaken. During a JoinDOTA League Season 12 Americas Division 1 match between Thunder Awaken and MORTY, an ESIC betting partner contacted ESIC with evidence of ‘unusual’ betting patterns in the game.
ESIC immediately contacted the league organisers JoinDOTA, and after a quick glance at the data, suspended Thunder Awaken so a thorough investigation could take place. This happened on February 23.
In the midst of a thorough investigation by all parties, gianDK not only confessed to the crime of betting on himself to lose but that he acted independently of his teammates.
“I did this big mistake, I acted by myself, and I am actually very sorry to let down my team mates. No one else is involved but me, I feel very sorry,” gianDK wrote in a press release.
gianDK may have been the lone gunmen, but the shrapnel hit his teammates hard. JoinDOTA disqualified Thunder Awaken from the Season 12 competition and relegated then to the Starter Division. The 22-year-old received a two-year ban from joinDOTA and Freaks 4U Gaming events. ESIC also banned him from member events. He is also unemployed after Thunder Awaken sacked him.
Speaking to Ian Smith, Integrity Commissioner, for ESIC, I learned that gianDK used a betting account to bet against his team to lose Map 2 in the match in question. There is no evidence that anyone else is involved or may have coerced gianDK to make a move. A member of ESIC’s suspicious betting alert network discovered the potential cheat and immediately informed ESIC.
But does it end here?
I hope not.
There are many complicated reasons why I have behaved and continued to act the way I do when it comes to my levels of integrity, and I am sure Jose Gianmarco ‘gianDK’ Durand Cornejo is no different. If ESIC is going to be effective in reducing these incidents and helping the esports industry to be a safer more trustworthy place, then we need to get to the root cause of why a man in his early twenties felt the need to cheat, and not just throw him and the valuable lesson he can serve up under the bus.
