For several months now, fraudsters have been exploiting the streams of professionals in the shooter Valorant to manipulate bets with cryptocurrencies. Some professionals have now reached a point where they intentionally lose games to counteract the trend.
Bets are part of the competition for many sports fans. While a few decades ago it was only about who wins, loses, or draws, you can now bet on almost anything – for example, football:
- Will the aggressive midfielder receive a yellow card before the 30th minute?
- How many shots will hit the crossbar in the match?
- Will the next corner kick go to the far or near post?
- Will there be a streaker during the game?
There is a quote for almost every conceivable situation; only imagination and wallet set the limits.
This is a huge market, involving a lot of money. Accordingly, major competitions and sports are being closely monitored – cheating like doping, referee bribery, or intentional losing is prohibited and punishable.
But what if it’s not about such big events that attract a lot of attention? What if you’re only betting on ranked matches of Valorant professionals who are training their skills in solo matchmaking and streaming?
Then cheating is wide open, and that is exactly what is currently happening in the shooter Valorant from developer Riot Games.
Valorant has a competitive focus, like the Riot game League of Legends. The shooter is also trying to engage with music videos:
Betting on one’s own matches or inciting others
What’s going on? In recent months, more and more reports have emerged from professionals whose matches are being influenced by betting fraudsters.
There are websites that specialize in taking bets on ranked matches in Valorant. They actually just want to play a few rounds in solo queue, but you can bet on these matches:
Dealing is done with cryptocurrencies. These can help disguise the payment flows.
As long as everything runs smoothly, this should not be a problem in principle. But because many professionals stream their matches, fraud is just a click away on Twitch.
The betting players try to get into the matches of the professionals and influence the outcome in their favor. It’s enough if you can influence one of the players in the match – you don’t even have to be in the match yourself.
These players then intentionally lose the match. At the ranked level where the professionals are playing, often just one player standing in the corner is enough to ensure that the match is lost with a high degree of certainty.
If you have somehow infiltrated someone into the match, you can make a good amount of money.
“Ranked mode is becoming ridiculous”
What do the professionals say about it? For some professionals, the problem has reached a level that affects their training in the ranked mode of Valorant. The more well-known you are, the harsher the betting effect is likely to be.
TenZ, a player from the US team Sentinels, wrote on Twitter:
Tweet translation: “This ‘intentional losing’ situation in ranked mode is becoming ridiculous”.
Some professionals have already gone further. FNS from the team NRG is now calling for players to take matters into their own hands to intentionally lose matches when they suspect there are “crypto bettors” in their team:
Tweet translation: “If there’s a crypto bettor on the other team, can we agree to intentionally lose the match? I want them to lose every penny and beg me for a sandwich on the street. Thanks”.
For fans of Riot games, this is not a new phenomenon. The MOBA League of Legends has also been struggling with similar issues for a while now. Riot Korea took action against such methods over 2 years ago (via dotesports.com), but professionals are wishing for stronger support from the developer.
Currently, there are unfortunately very few options for players to take action against this – except to stop streaming, which brings other disadvantages.
What do you think about this? How would you tackle it? Leave a comment on the topic.
If you prefer to read about possible crypto fraudsters, check this out: YouTuber explains Logan Paul as a crypto fraudster – He sees himself as a victim and threatens with a lawsuit
