Two pro North American Counter-Strike teams embroiled in match-fixing scandal
A Counter-Strike match that took place last August between teams iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides.com has now been confirmed to have been fixed.
iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides.com are two teams that play at the highest level of the North American eSports scene for Counter-Strike. Back in August 2014, iBUYPOWER played a match against NetcodeGuides.com, as part of the CEVO Professional Season 5. The match ended in iBUYPOWER losing 4-16, despite it being the much stronger team.
The match itself had iBUYPOWER using strange antics for a team of its calibre. Team members were going for knife kills as they were behind, laughing as they lost and so on. Something which made fans consider the possibility that the match was fixed. Allegations were flying at the time but were chalked off to hangover from their time in Cologne for the ESL One major prior, in addition to no practice on the map, according to The Daily Dot.
However, The Daily Dot has now received information from "multiple sources" that corroborates earlier reports the site had received just a day after the match went down. The new details come in the form of text messages that were posted by a former girlfriend of Torqued player Derek "dboorn" Boorn that show him explaining that the match was fixed and confirming his involvement.
The text messages above reveal a lot of other details, like how Duc "cud" Pham, a known member of the Counter-Strike community had created multiple accounts and placed bets for each of them, making him about $1,200 per account, according to CSGO Lounge. The Daily Dot later confirmed that it has verified the authenticity of those text.
To make matters worse, Shahzeb "ShahZam" Khan, who plays for team Cloud9, admitted that he bet against iBUYPOWER in August. Initially, he was planning to bet on iBUYPOWER, before Netcode Guides founder Casey Foster advised him not to.
Khan even provided a full statement on the matter which pretty much confirms the whole thing.
There's a bit more details into how the site confirmed the tip initially along with ShahZam's statement in full on The Daily Dot.