As if playing ranked VALORANT couldn’t possibly be any worse, some of the game’s biggest streamers and top-ranked players are having their matches ruined by players throwing matches they’ve bet on using crypto.
The issue, which has apparently been known about for months, stems from sites where users can allegedly bet on streamers’ ranked matches using crypto. Those sites have led to players who find themselves in a match with these streamers throwing the match to win a bet they’ve placed (i.e. matchfixing).
Players that queue up for ranked and end up on the same side as a streamer will throw and cash out on a bet for the streamer to lose. Alternatively, a player could end up on the opposite end of a streamer and throw the match while betting on the streamer to win. These players will throw by feeding, ignoring or withholding info callouts, purposefully missing shots, and other toxic behaviors.
Some of the game’s biggest names like tarik, ShahZaM, FNS, TenZ, and others have been getting their ranked experience routinely ruined by players on their team or the opposite team throwing. And for many of these players, they are all too familiar with matchfixing: Both tarik and FNS were on the team that Team iBUYPOWER threw against in the infamous NA CS:GO matchfixing scandal way back in 2014.
But this is different; these aren’t pro players throwing a professional match, these are random ranked players making a quick crypto buck and getting away with it, ruining the viewing experience for streamers and the gameplay for everyone else.
How this issue gets resolved remains undetermined. These crypto-betting sites could relent if there’s enough pushback from some big names, but that seems unlikely. Most likely, Riot will have to step in and take action, similar to how it took on Chinese gambling sites and throwers affecting pro League players back in 2020.
