StarCraft II Match Fixing Leads to Multiple Arrests in South Korea

South Korean authorities have arrested 12 people in a match-fixing case at professional StarCraft II tournaments. Among the arrests are the coach and two players of South Korean professional StarCraft II team Prime.

The Korean Esports Association revealed the news on its website on October 18. The arrests are said to have been made in September. Prime’s three men have not yet been convicted of anything by the Korean judge, but they have already been permanently expelled from the organization. Depending on the outcome of the lawsuit, the organization also wants to sue the three for financial damage suffered.

Among the other detainees are the mediators and financiers, including an e-sports journalist and two ex-members of criminal organizations. TeamLiquid writes this on its website based on translated news items and statements. The page also contains a list of recordings of the matches in question.

Research would have shown that at least 5 professional StarCraft II matches would have been crossed. The coach and players would have received between $5,000 and $17,000 for each game they intentionally lost. The practices yielded a total of between $26,000 and $35,000 for the gamblers and brokers involved.

It’s not the first case of an esports organization dealing with issues better known from conventional sports. For example, in July this year it was announced that the German Electronic Sports League will take it upon itself to regularly test its participants for doping. This was because it was revealed that a team that took home 230,000 euros in prize money in 2014 had taken the ADHD drug Adderall to improve its performance.