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One of the top teams in the U.S., iBUYPOWER, went up against NetCodeGuides.com. Despite iBUYPOWER being the clear favorite to win, they ended up losing 16-4. The Daily Dot reports that there is evidence pointing to that match being rigged. The site says that a day after the competition, an "eSports journalist" provided information and images of a conversation conducted with with Shahzad 'ShahZam' Khan one day prior to the competition. ShahZam provided screenshots to the journalist that seems to indicate that the match was rigged and that iBUYPOWER was going to throw the match.
In addition the match simply being thrown, multiple sources claim that a number of bets were placed right before the match by a "player with 'strong connections' to both teams involved." The bets resulted in winnings of over $10,000 (USD).
On Jan. 5, in a forum thread about an upcoming game featuring Torqued, a team comprised primarily by former iBUYPOWER players, a former girlfriend of one of the players posted a series of incriminating text messages. Sent to her by her former boyfriend, Torqued player Derek “dboorn” Boorn, these texts gave away new details surrounding the iBUYPOWER and Netcodes match and Boorn's apparent involvement in a match-fixing ring.
In the texts, Boorn confirms that the game was fixed and that he had been instructed to bet for the team on alternate accounts. “All that drama about IBP," Boorn says in one message, "they really did throw that match and I bet for them on alternate accounts.”
“They intentionally lost a match this past week,” he adds, before specifically naming Sam “Dazed” Marine, the iBUYPOWER captain at the time. “I even told Dazed while they were playing to make it close and it was too obvious.”
In the texts, Boorn confirms that the game was fixed and that he had been instructed to bet for the team on alternate accounts. “All that drama about IBP," Boorn says in one message, "they really did throw that match and I bet for them on alternate accounts.”
“They intentionally lost a match this past week,” he adds, before specifically naming Sam “Dazed” Marine, the iBUYPOWER captain at the time. “I even told Dazed while they were playing to make it close and it was too obvious.”
The texts, seen below, were released on ESEA and then quickly made their way to Reddit where the users claimed they were faked. The ex-girlfriend, Ashley "Blacklotus" Leboeuf then sent the screencaps to The Daily Dot to bring attention to the issue. Working together, The Daily Dot and Blacklotus confirmed that the texts were legitimate and sent two days after the match.
When questioned about the texts, Boorn said that he had "zero interest in participating in any type of revenge mission she has going." Blacklotus remarked that it has nothing to do with revenge.
“It really pains me to do something like this to someone I care about,” she explained. “But I can’t stand that the community respects these players when they do things like this. Amateur players look up to them, and they just use that to get away with anything they want.”
Back in September, another conversation seems to link Boorn with Duc 'cud' Pham from LunatiK eSports.
“Cud told me about some Chinese team throwing, now I’m a mess," Boorn is reported to have said, "cause I have to cash out items from CSGL, buy stuff on the market to bet etc.”
The Daily Dot notes that Pham had placed several large bets on the game across several accounts at Counter-Strike betting site, CS:GO Lounge. Courtney 'Honey' Timpson from CS:GO Lounge noted that they had already started their own investigation at the time because they were surprised to see so many large winning bets going to Pham or "friends" of Pham. Across his main account and dummy accounts, Pham earned $1,193.14 on each account for each winning bet.
“Some of these accounts were created specifically to bet on this match. At the time I thought it was strange because he wasn’t much of a 'YOLO' better. By that I mean, he would sometimes bet on the underdog but never before this much and never with his smurfs.”
ShahZam notes that he was ready to place a bet on iBUYPOWER when he was contacted by NetCodeGuides.com founder, Casey Foster, who advised against placing that bet. Despite not wanting to get involved, ShahZam did change his bet and advised his friend to do the same. Khan wanted to go public with what he knew but Foster tried to prevent that from happening.
"So I denied everything, I stayed quiet, and at the end of the day I took the heat of the crosshairs when this first surfaced months back through an article very similar to this one. I know I wasn't the only person to have known, but I was definitely in a position to do what was right and come forward with this information and I didn't because I was scared. I'm sorry. I've never been involved with any type of match-fixing and I never will be, neither would any of us at Cloud9."
When asked about his part in all of this, Pham maintains that he is innocent of any wrongdoings. The full statement from Khan can be read below.
“The day of this match I had placed a bet on iBUYPOWER. I brought up the bet while talking to Casey Foster, he then voice-called me on Steam Friends and told me to change my bet. He made it very clear the match was going to be thrown. I didn't want to get involved with any of it but I changed my bet, as I thought would be logical at the time while also sharing this information with a friend whom I assumed to have bet the same.
I was wrong for a few different reasons; however, I regret first and foremost not contacting league officials and telling them what was going to happen. I didn't have all the details and didn't know any specifics as I was not the one engineering any of this. Also, given my past immaturity at the time, I wasn't sure if anyone would believe me.
Once I found out my conversation with my so called friend was sent to Richard Lewis, I was ready to just tell him my entire story but I first consulted Casey Foster, who controlled my earnings for my partnership with Netcode Guides (a joint venture by him and then iBUYPOWER Team Captain, Sam “DaZeD” Marine), about it.
He advised this would be a huge blow to the North American competitive CS:GO scene and cause iBUYPOWER to lose their sponsor, asking me to not say anything at all. The NA scene was fragile at the time, and in my eyes I was between a rock and a very hard place with the partnership I had with Netcode Guides, as it was my sole source of income for playing the game I love.
So I denied everything, I stayed quiet, and at the end of the day I took the heat of the crosshairs when this first surfaced months back through an article very similar to this one. I know I wasn't the only person to have known, but I was definitely in a position to do what was right and come forward with this information and I didn't because I was scared. I'm sorry. I've never been involved with any type of match fixing and I never will be, neither would any of us at Cloud9.”
I was wrong for a few different reasons; however, I regret first and foremost not contacting league officials and telling them what was going to happen. I didn't have all the details and didn't know any specifics as I was not the one engineering any of this. Also, given my past immaturity at the time, I wasn't sure if anyone would believe me.
Once I found out my conversation with my so called friend was sent to Richard Lewis, I was ready to just tell him my entire story but I first consulted Casey Foster, who controlled my earnings for my partnership with Netcode Guides (a joint venture by him and then iBUYPOWER Team Captain, Sam “DaZeD” Marine), about it.
He advised this would be a huge blow to the North American competitive CS:GO scene and cause iBUYPOWER to lose their sponsor, asking me to not say anything at all. The NA scene was fragile at the time, and in my eyes I was between a rock and a very hard place with the partnership I had with Netcode Guides, as it was my sole source of income for playing the game I love.
So I denied everything, I stayed quiet, and at the end of the day I took the heat of the crosshairs when this first surfaced months back through an article very similar to this one. I know I wasn't the only person to have known, but I was definitely in a position to do what was right and come forward with this information and I didn't because I was scared. I'm sorry. I've never been involved with any type of match fixing and I never will be, neither would any of us at Cloud9.”
