Published on: 09/01/2023

VALORANT players throwing off matches to win crypto bets

Crypto-betting sites have been causing some VALORANT players to throw off ranked matches to win bets.

These sites allow players to bet on the outcome of competitive matches using cryptocurrency. For example, they can bet on a streamer to lose a game when they are on the same team, which is why they intentionally throw off matches. They can also bet on an enemy team to win. In this scenario, they intentionally cause their team to lose.

This activity ruins the experience of other players, making them lose their ranking. It can also cause long-term consequences for the players involved in this activity, such as being banned from the game.

VALORANT’s developer, Riot Games, has plans to implement preventive measures against this behavior. It will include stricter punishments for players caught intentionally throwing off matches.

Unfortunately, the rise of crypto-betting makes it hard to prevent and monitor constantly. As of now, the developer has yet to comment on this issue.

Pro VALORANT players voice concerns, suggest countermeasures

Several professional VALORANT players have voiced their concerns about the growing issue of crypto-betting in the game. Sentinels player Tyson “TenZ” Ngo said the rising number of players throwing off ranked matches was “ridiculous.”

Former professional Counter-Strike player Tarik “Tarik” Celik addressed this problem more seriously, proposing to establish his own pro league to create a suitable environment for VALORANT’s best and most professional players.

Tarik did not provide detailed information about how it would operate, but he had an idea about who to invite into the very closed circuit.

“I’m brainstorming it all. But, basically, how I see it going is that if you are a franchised player, if you’re a player on a franchise team, you can join directly,” Tarik said in a live stream.

“And then, if you’re a contracted player for VALORANT on a tier-1 org, then you can join right away.”

Tarik got his idea after watching VALORANT player Travis “tdawgg” Regan expose multiple people who intentionally threw off their games.

Tarik said he planned to recruit 100-120 players with a set of strict requirements. This would allow players from higher ranks to participate in matches where game-throwing for cryptocurrencies would not be a problem. He also suggested forming a council to assess which players would be allowed to join the league.

Tarik’s pro league would include players who are in the top 50. These players would have to play under contract on a professional team for more than six months within the last two years. The players who can get a direct invite to the league would have to be or have been on franchised teams in North America.

They can also get invitations if they are players on certain teams like The Guard, G2 and other tier-1 organizations that have been in the VALORANT competitive scene for a long time.

Regardless of his pitch, Tarik said he hoped Riot Games would find a way to deal with the issue.

“It all comes down to Riot hopefully putting together a plan for how they wanna approach this,” Tarik said.