What is match fixing, exactly?
Well it’s cheating, for a start, usually motivated by gambling. Match fixing occurs when a match is played to a pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and usually the law along with it. It happens in many sports, and e-sports are no exception. While still gaining popularity in the West, this genre of professional gaming is already incredibly popular in Asia, specifically in South Korea. In 2015, nine people were arrested, including two professionals, for fixing Starcraft 2 matches. It’s no surprise that with Overwatch’s swift rise to the top in the e-sports world that match fixing would start to be a problem.
So who was it?
The coach and manager of Korean Overwatch team Luminous Solar have both been charged with fixing the wildcard qualifier match for APEX Challengers Season 3. Manager Jin Seok-hoon and coach Baek Min-jeh were booked without detention by police after tournament organizer OGN exposed a large amount of circumstantial evidence of match fixing. Both men had already received lifetime bans from OGN in February alongside Luminous Solar, but the criminal charge is specified as “interference with business.”
It isn’t the first time that match-fixing is occurred and it’s unlikely to be the last, but hopefully a hefty response by OGN and Blizzard will help deter any future incidents. A lifetime ban is one thing, but criminal charges are something completely different, and far more serious.
