{"id":99207,"date":"2019-08-27T14:13:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/349471"},"modified":"2019-08-27T14:13:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:13:00","slug":"australian-police-make-arrests-as-part-of-investigation-into-esports-match-fixing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/08\/27\/australian-police-make-arrests-as-part-of-investigation-into-esports-match-fixing\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian police make arrests as part of investigation into esports match fixing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australian police have arrested six men as part of an ongoing investigation into esports match fixing, and&nbsp;warned they plan to take any allegations of criminal activity within the&nbsp;industry very seriously.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation is one of the first of its kind by Victoria police, and&nbsp;began in March 2019 after a betting agency informed the unit&nbsp;about suspicious activity it spotted&nbsp;at a recent&nbsp;<em>Counter-Strike: Global Offensive<\/em> tournament.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The company told the authorities that players had been arranging to throw matches, before subsequently placing bets on those games. It&#8217;s currently believed that at least&nbsp;five matches were affected at the tournament, impacting over 20 bets.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.police.vic.gov.au\/six-people-arrested-re-esports-investigation?fbclid=IwAR0WrS66FB8hkXQ6lA8j2cekWvJOaarcNYSgHwJ4TlFbLJV0QvC-wOxAQBI\">A press release from Victoria police<\/a> explains that all six arrests were made after detectives from the Sporting Integrity Intelligence Unit, along with detectives from the Organised Crime Intelligence Unit, executed warrants at a number of properties.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>All of those arrested were aged between 19 and 22, and have since been released pending further enquiries. Anyone eventually&nbsp;found guilty&nbsp;could face up to 10 years imprisonment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Esports is really an emerging sporting industry and with that will come the demand for betting availability on the outcomes of tournaments and matches,&#8221;&nbsp;commented assistant commissioner, Neil Paterson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important that police and other agencies within the law enforcement, gaming and betting industries continue to work together to target any suspicious activity.&nbsp;These warrants also highlight that police will take any reports of suspicious or criminal activity within esports seriously, and we encourage anyone with information to come forward.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australian police have arrested six men as part of an ongoing investigation into esports match fixing, and&nbsp;warned they plan to take any allegations of criminal activity within the&nbsp;industry very seriously. The investigation is one of the first of its kind by Victoria police, and&nbsp;began in March 2019 after a betting agency informed the unit&nbsp;about suspicious [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}