In Australia, 5 men between the ages of 20 and 27 are charged with match-fixing. They allegedly placed bets on a CS:GO tournament in which they participated and intentionally lost.
This is the background: In August 2019, the Australian police arrested six CS:GO players who were suspected of intentionally losing matches on which they had previously placed bets.
At that time, it was reported that the players had made 30,000 Australian dollars from the bets, which is about 18,000€.
This incident has now been investigated, and the initial suspicion has apparently been confirmed, at least for 5 of the 6 players who were suspected.
These are the charges: Five Australians are charged, four of whom are 20 years old, and one is 27 years old.
All five are charged with “the use of corrupt information for the purpose of betting.”
One is also accused of possessing cannabis and being “involved in actions that affected or could have affected the betting outcome of an event.”
The 5 defendants are set to appear in court on September 15.
What is this exactly about? It seems that the allegations are related to at least 5 matches in a CS:GO tournament.
Apparently, the investigation was initiated by an Australian betting company, and the authorities then launched their own investigation.
What is the worst-case scenario for the defendants? The maximum penalty for the charges amounts to 10 years in prison.
CS:GO and the Betting
What is this with betting and CS:GO? There have been several incidents related to betting in CS:GO. Normally, it’s not about money bets, but players bet with skins that they can buy and sell for money.
In CS:GO, there are some weapon skins and a lively trade in these on the Steam marketplace. Skins in CS:GO can be extremely valuable: One skin sold for 60,000$.
Over the years, a gray market has arisen against which Valve has repeatedly taken action. The well-known Twitch streamer Phantoml0rd lost his Twitch account in 2016 because he was involved in a betting scandal related to CS:GO.
The 5 Australians could now face even more severe penalties.
