Riot Korea is stepping in to combat solo queue match fixing

William Davis Published 14/12/2020

Riot Korea has announced that it has taken action to combat win trading and match-fixing in solo queue games.

The issue was brought to light by former Team Liquid support Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung when he proved that illegal Chinese betting sites are making a profit off of professional players’ solo queue matches. T1 mid laner Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok has especially been affected by these betting sites, as players lose on purpose to affect Faker’s solo queue matches with up to 10 deaths in a single game.

In China , there is illegal betting on pro’s solo Q and abusers who intend to throw games to make money.
I think it should be on Reddit to discuss.
Especially Faker is the biggest victim among streamers.
who knows NA/EU solo Q have the same thing? pic.twitter.com/bgItShHP3X
— Olleh (@Olleh) December 7, 2020

Faker isn’t the only professional player or streamer who has been experiencing these problems in solo queue. In fact, several players from the LCK and LPL have faced recent hardships in attempting to win in solo queue due to these intentional feeders and match fixers.

Riot Korea looks to shut down illegal solo queue betting

According to Riot Korea, they have taken strong countermeasures to solve the issue. More specifically, Riot Korea has inspected around 10,000 accounts from Diamond 2 rank and above. From those inspections, Riot has deactivated all suspicious accounts as of December 8.

Furthermore, Riot has implemented a real-time solution that detects unauthorized third-party programs. The reason for this is to avoid players from overseas playing on the servers with a reduced ping in order to complete win trades. Riot has also established a hotline between Riot Korea and LCK teams, allowing players to report issues directly.

Riot Korea has made clear that it won’t tolerate intentional feeding or illegal gambling through ranked matches.

“Intentional feeding and illegal gambling on ranked matches are unacceptable under any circumstances,” Riot Korea said. “We, at Riot Games, will do everything in our power to fully eradicate such actions from taking place.”

How is match-fixing done?

Match-fixing in this case is done through a third-party website where it’s possible to bet on the outcome of specific professional players’ solo queue games. This allows people to bet money on whether the player wins or loses their next solo queue match. To take advantage of this, players in the same game as the professional player can influence the outcome by intentionally feeding, and in doing so, profit from the result.

Normal match-fixing is done when a team is losing on purpose to gain profit, and in some cases may even include planning the outcome of a game with an opposing team.

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