How to report bot boosting lobbies in CS:GO

Help Valve get rid of this swarm of bot accounts.

A CS:GO character holding an AK.
Image via Valve

Have you ever tried to play one of CS:GO’s alternative modes and run into a lot of accounts controlled by bots? If so, the odds that you joined a bot boosting lobby are pretty high. But there’s a way to report this issue directly to Valve.

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Malicious users are plaguing CS:GO servers in Retake, Deathmatch, and Flying Scoutman game modes with bots to either farm free cases and skins or to level up the accounts to level two—which is the minimal level cap required to play competitive matches—and sell them to cheaters or smurfs.

After complaints were made, one Valve employee detailed how you can report these CS:GO lobbies and the accounts that are being controlled by bots. Here’s how you do it.

How to report boosting lobbies taken over by bots in CS:GO

To report bot boosting lobbies in CS:GO, you’ll have to send an email to Valve and follow these steps:

  1. Title the email as “boosting report.”
  2. Send screenshots of the scoreboard and links to the Steam profiles involved in boosting.
  3. You also need to send your own profile so Valve can investigate and potentially punish the accounts run by bots.
  4. The email must be sent to “cs2team@valvesoftware.com.”

How to identify a bot boosting lobby in CS:GO

Generally speaking, the Retake, Deathmatch, or Flying Scoutman server will be full of bots running around the map and doing nothing. The bots also usually start voting to kick any real players who join the server. This issue is happening on Asian, Australian, and North American servers.

Related: One region can’t play CS:GO properly because servers have been taken over by bots

If you can’t play these modes in CS:GO because of the boosting lobbies, you can practice your aim if you set up a private server and load up a good aim map. We know this is not ideal, but it might be useful while Valve investigates your report and attempts to fix the servers.

Author
Image of Leonardo Biazzi
Leonardo Biazzi
Staff writer and CS:GO lead. Leonardo has been passionate about games since he was a kid and graduated in Journalism in 2018. Before Leonardo joined Dot Esports in 2019, he worked for Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte. Leonardo also worked for HLTV.org between 2020 and 2021 as a senior writer, until he returned to Dot Esports and became part of the staff team.