The professional Counter Strike scene has been dealt another major blow, as just weeks after other cases of cheating took place before and during Dream Hack 2014, it turns out that the iBUYPOWER team threw one of their recent matches against an underdog, in order to collect a payday on skewed betting odds.
There was some confusion during the August 2014 matchup, about why iBUYPOWER, very highly ranked team, would struggle against much less experienced and lauded players like NetcodeGuides. As Daily Dot explains, they went for flashy kills and ultimately ended up losing 16-4; though they didn't seem too broken up about it at the time.
Several pieces of evidence have come to light since then though, including text messages from an ex-girlfriend of Derek "dboorn" Boorn, who was involved in the transferring of winnings - which were distributed via skins and in-game items - and screenshots that show Duc "cud" Pham, a member of the CS:GO scene though not a professional player, that made bets on behalf of iBUYPOWER.
It all came to a head however when Cloud9 player Shahzeb "ShahZam" Khan confessed to betting against iBUYPOWER, only to turn his bet around after he received advice that the match would be thrown.
The match fixing is being suggested as a major reason as to why iBUYPOWER disbanded at the end of 2014, though it doesn't shine a pretty light on the players who are currently looking for new teams.
The real question though, is how this will affect the CS:GO competitive scene. Instances like this really erode people's support for such a platform.
