Have you heard of Pro Gamers? Not some sweaty guy in a basement playing World of Warcraft, a real life – lights, camera, ownage – Korean Starcraft Pro! Well they exist, and around the world professional gaming or eSports has boomed into a series international super sports. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are up for grabs along with fame and yes, babes. Though like any sport, eSports has been faced with its biggest max fixing scandal ever.
Korean Starcraft players earn big dosh, some win prizes support sponsorship up to half a million USD dollars a year. Over in Korea, the AFL is KeSPA (Korean eSport Players Association) and it's a big business! And also like any sport, the public is placing a punt on who they think is going to win, and yes, you guessed it, a bunch of pro's have now been caught match fixing taking bribes and you know its serious when the police get involved.
According to sources, Illegal Starcraft betting has been underground for years and when there are dollars on the table.. Who wouldn't throw a game here or there to get a kick back off the winnings, its only video games right? Well wrong, news recently surfaced that over 16 of the countries best players have been blacklisted and considering the KeSPA only has a few dozen certified professional gamers, this is huge setback for a country so far developed.
In Australia we have never seen anything like this before, maybe that's because our competitions are so few and far between that there is no real point to throw matches though with the huge anticipation of Starcraft 2 around the corner, this recent match fixing scandal has cast a huge shadow on the legitimacy of eSports around the world.
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Posted: April 29th, 11:27pm #1 | |||
it's spelt jaedong and the high profile player tasked with taking most of the bribes is savior, who won everything under the sun between 2006 and 2007 (then went on a massive 'slump'). incidentally, no charges have been laid yet although the korean DA is investigating (reportedly - korea keeps this all hush-hush). |
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Posted: April 29th, 1:18pm #2 | |||
i doubt jeadong cares, with the millions he has made to be honest. |
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Posted: April 28th, 5:45pm #3 | |||
Anx@worst@sc |
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Posted: April 28th, 12:20am #4 | |||
"this recent match fixing scandal has cast a huge shadow on the legitimacy of eSports around the world." I think that's a little over the top, whenever you mix sports and gambling, there is inevitably match fixing. It's happened in almost every sport on the planet. |
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Posted: April 27th, 7:20pm #5 | |||
wow.... i thoght i took gaming to srs |
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Posted: April 27th, 4:44pm #6 | |||
starcraft is my thing |
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Posted: April 27th, 12:45pm #7 | |||
Should make a pro 2v2 Starcraft team mo! |
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Posted: April 27th, 10:37am #8 | |||
crazy |
