ESIC bares its teeth

The Esport Integrity Coalition (ESIC), in collaboration with Sportradar and the Uprise Champions Cup (UCC), have slapped a two year ban on eSports Dota 2 team members Leonid “Sonic” Kuzmenkov and Dmitri “Ax.Mo” following an investigation into a recent match against team Yellow Submarine.

The investigation, undertaken by Sportradar Integrity Services, was initiated after rumors swirled around the Dota 2 match played in the World Cyber Arena European Qualifiers for the CIS region in September 2017.

ESIC Commissioner Ian Smith commenting on the action, said:

“It is always depressing to see young esports athletes succumb to the temptations that matchfixing presents. But I remain hopeful that this decision will send a powerful deterrent message to esports athletes across the various titles and tournaments – that ESIC are more than happy to follow up questions and concerns around matches, even when those matches do not fall under our existing coverage partnerships.

“Sportradar’s fully tailored Fraud Detection System was on hand to help us get to the bottom of the betting patterns globally and off the back of that, we have been able to underline our commitment to clean and credible esports”.

James Watson, Head of esports at Sportradar added: “As a keen and committed member of the esports community, I am grateful that, together with my team at Sportradar and with ESIC, we can work with UCC to send a clear message to fixers and the wider community about how seriously we all take this issue”.

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