eSports has become an arena of gambling and betting and it’s no doubt a headache to the younger gaming generation. The eSports integrity coalition gave their views about the cheating and match fixing going on in the domain of eSports. The main agenda of the eSports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) is to secure the field of eSports from cheating.
No doubt eSports have gained a huge ascendancy these days, being the future of a multi-billion-dollar industry, the rules in eSports need to be regulated from the unregulated markets of betting which is the cause of match-fixing and corruption, and this can lead to in future as well.
The Guardian reflects on the comment of a UK based lawyer – Smith who gave his opinion on the eSports market calling match-fixing and fraud betting as the biggest threat to the integrity in the world of eSports which is a competitive video gaming world. The amount bet on the matches was $2 billion in 2016.
Causes Of Match Fixing
Match fixing is not a myth but a reality and here are the causes of match-fixing that can lead to a lot of issues:
- Life sentence – The rise of eSports has been unstoppable and has attracted gambling syndicates, players, teams and are willing to manipulate the matches that build backing financially. At lower tiers the suspicious activity is less.
- Due to low prize money offered to athletes in major sports relatively, eSports have become a vulnerable domain of match-fixing.
- The pay-outs in esports are heavy, which compels the players to do match-fixing by the betting syndicates in order to diminish risk.
- Match-fixing and gambling in esports earlier have been dealt with by the arrest of a world champion.
- One may end up to 18 months sentence in prison, other things that can happen if there is match-fixing or betting is suspension for three days and the stripping of the titles.
- Fractured markets are another reason for betting, gambling and match fixing. In unregulated markets, there are hardly any checks and balances and thereby it gets difficult to understand the pattern of the monitor.
- eSports have a fractured market and a lack of governing body that has made it difficult to provide a stand against corruption, however change is observed a bit, hence esports might feel the change of being a corrupt free area.
- Eloping is also happening in eSports, this is generally done to hack the software and get involved in the game to get an advantage over the system.
- Well, you can consider the performance enhancing drug used by eSports players also a breach of law and is a part of cheating as well.
Cheating in eSports is a Myth
A true player will hate to cheat and win the game. Cheating is seen in an abominable way by the eSports players and supporters. Gamers usually hate cheating. However, cheating is not possible in every game in eSports as there are bans also imposed so cheating is also a myth.
There are various strict rules put forward before the eSports thing. Publishers and leagues also take necessary action by banning. The great feature of maintaining the decorum in the world of eSports gaming is the nature of detection.
When cheating is detected by the admins of the games or the referees, they take the instant step of banning the person from the game platform. The rule is two years to life in certain cases if detected of cheating in the game or the breach of rules of gaming.
The rules are sometimes enforced by the game publisher or platform providers like ESL. Hence cheating becomes a very rare situation to happen in eSports, therefore cheating can be a myth in the domain of eSports.
To conclude, match-fixing and betting is both a myth and reality in the domain of esports. To make the domain of eSports a good place and a neat game, the eSports board always takes necessary steps and action to make the universe of eSports a good place. Hence, the arena of eSports needs proper governance, scrutiny and care to make it a corruption free area.
Along with this proper scrutiny and advance level setup should be ensured for a neat game free from any sort of corruption, gambling or cheating.
“Get more sports news, cricket news, and football updates, log on to sportsdigest.in. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter and Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.”
