A report from a company called Sportradar says that cheating in esports is getting better. The company, which watches sports all over the world, said that 34 matches were looked at as suspicious in 2025. This is down from 41 matches the year before. This is a good sign for the world of competitive video games.

Out of 100,000 matches that Sportradar watched last year, only a very small number had problems. The suspicious matches made up just 0.03% of the total. This number is much lower than many other sports. For example, soccer had 0.31% of matches with suspicious activity. Basketball was also higher at 0.29%.

Esports had one of the lowest rates of cheating. Table tennis was the only other sport with the same low rate of 0.03%. In its report, Sportradar noted that the suspected match-fixing rate across all sports decreased slightly. It went from one in every 608 matches in 2024 to one in every 709 matches in 2025. Over 99.5% of all global sporting events stayed free from any suspicion.

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While esports saw a decline in the number of matches flagged, other sports saw increases. Basketball, tennis, table tennis, and cricket all had more problems last year. Sportradar said that this shows how match-fixing is spreading to more different types of competitions and sports. It is not just staying in one place.

There were some big scandals in the NBA and NCAA basketball last year. These led to legal charges against several players, coaches, and people who bet on the games. This shows that even big professional leagues are not safe from these issues.

How Education Helps

Even with the good news about the decline in cheating, Sportradar said that global match-fixing is becoming less centered in one area but more complex. It is getting harder to track in some ways. The company added that better police work and teaching players are helping to lower the number of incidents in established markets. However, new patterns are showing up in emerging markets.

To keep things moving in the right direction, it will require coordinated help from all countries. All sports groups and stakeholders need to work together to watch for problems. Innovation in how we catch cheaters is also very important.

Sportradar has partnered with Riot Games to deliver education programs. The goal is to reduce match-fixing in esports. It also partners with a range of organizations across different sports. It tailors its programs to fit the unique risks of each sport. It also works with the Esports Integrity Commission, also known as ESIC. They work together to investigate any potential match-fixing cases.

ESIC has partnered with several new gambling companies to increase its monitoring of events. This includes crypto casinos like Rollbit and, more recently, Stake. By working with these companies, they can watch betting patterns more closely.

Some Match-Fixing Cases From Last Year

Sportradar said there were 9 recorded sanctions in esports. This matches the number of players listed as sanctioned on the ESIC website. This means that 9 players or teams were punished for breaking the rules.

Three players were given lifetime bans. This means they can never play again. The players were StarCraft II competitors Xue “Firefly” Tao and Jinhui “Jim” Cao. Their match-fixing happened back in 2024. It is said that Jim paid Firefly to lose matches on purpose. This is a serious violation of the rules.

Other incidents from last year include the suspension of the Swedish CS2 team called Northern Lights. ESIC suspended all five members of the team. One player later admitted that the team had engaged in match-fixing. Frank “fraaank” Issal stated, “We used to win or lose depending on what we had decided before the match.” This means they fixed the outcome before they even started playing.

ESIC also suspended a team called Team Senza. They were previously known as Rosy. The suspension was over accusations of betting misconduct. This means they broke the rules regarding how betting should be handled.

Association With Match-Fixing Can Derail Careers

In another case, Riot Games suspended a Valorant player named Seungmin “ban” Oh. He was suspended for engaging with individuals who proposed match manipulation. Even though he did not actually fix a match, he talked to people who wanted him to.

This would not have been flagged in Sportradar’s report because no match was actually fixed. However, Riot said that just talking about match-fixing or entertaining proposals is a breach of its rules. It shows that even being close to the problem can get you in trouble.

In a different case, a Counter-Strike Major finalist named Nicholas “Keoz” Dgus accused his organization. He said the organization, kONO.ECF, made up match-fixing allegations to avoid paying him his salary. This is a very serious accusation.

The team denied that they intentionally withheld payment. However, they did ask the player to take a polygraph test. This happened after the accusations of match-fixing came to light. It shows how messy these situations can get for everyone involved.