For several months, fraudsters have been using the streams of professionals in the shooter Valorant to manipulate bets with cryptocurrencies. Some pros are now at the point where they are losing games on purpose to buck the trend.
Betting is part of the competition for many sports fans. While a few decades ago it was all about who wins, loses or draws, you can now bet on almost anything – example football:
There is a quota for almost every conceivable situation, the only limits are your imagination and your wallet.
It’s a huge market, and there’s a lot of money at stake. Accordingly, the major competitions and sports are closely monitored – cheating such as doping, bribing referees or intentionally losing are prohibited and punishable.
But what if it’s not about such big events with a lot of attention? What if you only bet on ranked matches of Valorant pros who train their skill in solo matchmaking and stream to it?
Then the door is open to fraud 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 also tries its hand at music videos:
Valorant celebrates the shooter’s most important tournament with an anthem – fans praise the crazy music video
Bet on your own matches or encourage others to do so
What’s going on there? In recent months, more and more reports have emerged from professionals whose matches are being influenced by betting scammers.
There are websites that specialize in taking bets on ranked matches in Valorant. They really only want to do a few rounds in the solo queue, but you can bet even on these matches:
Cryptocurrencies are traded. They can help to disguise the cash flows.
As long as everything runs smoothly, this shouldn’t be a problem. But because many pros stream their matches, a scam is just a click away on Twitch.
The bettors try to get into the matches of the pros and sway the outcome in their favor. It’s also enough if you can influence one of the players in the match – you don’t have to be in the match yourself.
These players then intentionally lose the match. At the ranked level that the pros are at, one player standing in the corner is often enough and the match is almost certainly lost.
So if you somehow smuggled someone into the match, you can really make money.
Professional (20) admits to having manipulated Valorant matches – now there is a risk of up to 5 years in prison
“Ranked mode is getting ridiculous”
What do the pros say about this? For some pros, the problem has reached a level that is affecting them when training in Valorant’s ranked mode. The better known you are, the harder the betting effect is likely to be.
TenZ, a player from US team Sentinels, wrote on Twitter:
Tweet translation: “This ‘losing on purpose’ situation in ranked mode is getting ridiculous.”
Many a professional is already further. FNS from Team NRG meanwhile demands that if you realize that there is “crypto weather” in the team, you should make sure to lose the matches yourself:
Tweet translation: “If there is a crypto bettor on the other team, can we agree on losing the match on purpose? I want them to lose every penny begging me for a sandwich on the street. Thanks”.
This isn’t a new phenomenon for fans of the Riot games. The MOBA League of Legends has been struggling with similar problems for a long time. Riot Korea took action against such methods more than 2 years ago (via dotesports.com), but the pros want more support from the developer.
Unfortunately, there are currently hardly any options for players to counteract this – apart from ending the streaming, which has other disadvantages.
What do you think about it, how would you deal with it? Leave a comment on the topic.
If you would rather read about possible crypto fraudsters, then have a look here: YouTuber declares Logan Paul a crypto fraudster – he sees himself as a victim and threatens to sue