We take a closer look at the latest Match-Fixing Scandal occuring in Eastern Europe.
Match-fixing is a huge problem in esports and this is especially true in Dota 2. After the Chinese ban wave from a few months ago, we are on the verge of another one, but this time, it affects players in Eastern Europe.
Morf, one of the most famous Russian Dota 2 YouTubers, exposed that some of HYDRA’s players were in a match-fixing scandal. In case you don’t know, HYDRA is one of the teams that’s in Division I after they earned their place there from Division II.
In fact, it was among the hottest squads in the region, but it seems to be involved in some controversy.
The response
Unsurprisingly, when a Dota 2 team is accused of something as serious as match-fixing it has to respond to the accusations. We had to wait for a couple of days, but today, the CIS organization said they’ve begun an internal investigation and will also contact the popular sites for Dota 2 betting in order to gain more information.
Feel free to read the full response, but to make a long story short, the organization is willing to cooperate to punish those who were a part of match-fixing. Sadly, the company’s requests to learn more information about those who were a part of this illegal activity were declined.
What’s interesting is that HYDRA had already gone through a similar controversy in January this year, when the organization caught Anatoliy ‘Lefitan’ Krupnov using OverPlus. The latter is a popular tool in Dota 2, but many people consider it illegal because it gives players access to specific information that is otherwise not available. As you can probably guess, HYDRA removed Lefitan from their roster when the squad found out he was using this tool.
The match-fixing allegations around HYDRA shouldn’t be taken lightly because this is one of the Eastern European 2023 DPC Division I teams. Some people say that Tier 2 and 3 Dota 2 players take part in match-fixing because they do not earn enough money to sustain themselves. Even if this is true, taking part in something illegal is not the way to go, so we hope that those who were a part of it receive adequate punishment.
We’ll continue to follow the story here at BLIX.GG, so make sure to give us a follow. Also, don’t miss out on DreamLeague Season 19 because Dota 2’s hottest non-DPC event this April has tons of epic matches.
Feature Image Credit: HYDRA
