A legendary pro gamer reports on a betting scandal in Valorant, in which players earn a lot of money for poor performances.
Who is it about? Former CS:GO pro Sean Gares uncovered a betting scandal in the e-sports of Valorant in a video on YouTube.
- Sean Gares is a legendary figure in the e-sports of Counter-Strike. He played for Complexity Gaming (later Cloud9), TSM, and Misfits Gaming.
- At Cloud9, he played as an in-game leader alongside Michael “shroud” Grzesiek.
- After his time as an active player, Gares worked as a commentator and analyst in the live streams of various tournaments in Counter-Strike.
In the meantime, Gares has transitioned from Counter-Strike to Valorant and is now active as a coach and manager in e-sports. He is currently the “General Manager of Tactical FPS” for the team “Shopify Rebellion Black,” which competes in the Valorant Challengers. Challengers is essentially the tier before the highest league. Only the best teams have the chance to advance to the top leagues of their respective regions.
Why did Gares suspect cheating? On May 24, Sean Gares published a video on his YouTube channel in which he talks about “the dark sides of the e-sports of Valorant.” He stumbled upon them after his team lost to the opponents of Blue Otter. The defeat troubled him, so he watched the match again.
His team was well-prepared and everyone was confident, yet Blue Otter took control of certain areas of the map without using utility. Gares emphasizes that he is not someone who blames opponents for cheating after a loss. He considers that a loser mentality; however, something felt different to him about that match.
However, Gares not only looked at his own match against Blue Otter but also watched the game “Blue Otter vs. Burger Boyz” that had been played a few days earlier. In that match, Blue Otter played significantly worse, made decisions that he found inexplicable, and lost clearly 2:0.
Because the defeat troubled him, Gares conducted further investigations and ultimately came across a possible betting scandal in Valorant, where players are offered a lot of money to intentionally throw matches.
Valorant is now also available for console:
Betting scandal in the e-sports of Valorant?
What did Gares find? Gares shows various chat messages from a person named “Bray” to various Valorant players in his video. This person allegedly sent the player “Practo” X screenshots of 3 bets, each winning over $10,000. The bets were for a game of Practo’s team “Burger Boyz,” which won 2:0 against the opponents of Blue Otter.
According to the screenshots shown in the video, Bray later wrote to the player that he should add him on Discord. “I am always here. I just say, you can be a millionaire at 19.” Gares received these screenshots from Practo, who helped him with the research.
Next, Gares showed screenshots that display chat messages between Bray and the player “Teague,” who plays for the team Landor Esports. Teague also willingly forwarded the messages to him. The conversation between Bray and the player looked like this according to the screenshots:
- Bray: “Yoo Teague, let’s both make 100,000 with your next game, lol lmk.”
[lmk = let me know] - Bray: “What’s your Discord? I got 20,000 for you.”
- Bray: “I pay Challenger players. For example, I send a betting slip. So if you have a close match, like against a good team, I’ll pay you 20k for an underperforming performance, 10k beforehand, 10 afterwards. If the odds are good, I can give you 30 for a game.”
- Teague: “I don’t want to get kicked for playing badly, since I was so bad in the last split. But is there a way to do it and win?”
- Bray: “No lol. But if it’s a close match and you’re playing against a good team, it wouldn’t look weird if you just have an unfortunate game.”
- Teague: “Yes, I understand what you mean, subtle stuff that makes the difference in the round, but not while watching.”
- Bray: “Yeah exactly, you understand what I mean. We can also bet on maps. So you play poorly on just one map […].”
You can watch the whole video here:
Later in the conversation, Teague said he now understands why some teams had such strong fluctuations in their performance this split – they had filled their wallets. Bray replied: “Yeah bro, like Prosperity and Burger Boyz and stuff.”
Bray then shared a betting slip with Practo, where he bet on the outcome of a map in an ongoing match, where one team was already leading 5:3. The bet earned him about $230,000 on a stake of around $134,000. Practo declined according to the screenshots shown in the video, after which Bray asked him to delete the messages.
What is Gares’ accusation? Gares is convinced that there are players who accepted Bray’s offer and intentionally lost or performed poorly. However, he himself does not want to accuse players of being involved in betting fraud without clear evidence. Therefore, he needs the community, people like coaches and analysts, who can recognize and disclose strange behaviors in matches.
What happens next? According to Gares, Riot Games has now initiated its own investigations. A screenshot from Teague’s chat history shows that Bray then moved the communication to Telegram. But Gares believes that besides Bray, there are more people seeking contact with players.
Gares is asking Riot Games for a replay system for Valorant, where you can look back at the matches played from the perspective of each player. This would make it easier to identify unnatural behavior from players. Rainbow Six: Siege and Overwatch 2 have such systems.
In 2021, there was already a betting scandal in the e-sports of Valorant. Two players allegedly bet against their own team. Their teammates knew about it but did not report it, which led to the entire team being punished: 2 Valorant pros bet against their own team – causing everyone to be banned
