Two esports players charged with match-fixing at Valorant tournament
SINGAPORE — Two professional esports players were charged on Friday (5 August) with allegedly being involved in match-fixing during a Valorant tournament in 2020.
Malcolm Chung Wai Kiat, 24, and Ryan Tan Shern, 20, were each handed a corruption charge, after tournament organisers had earlier discovered that they had betted against their own team. The duo also face another charge of unlawful remote gambling.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, which brought the charges against Chung and Tan, said that the duo were at the time members of team Resurgence, which was competing in the first-person shooter video game. Chung went by the player name “Germsg” while Tan went by “Dreamycsgo”.
At the Valorant Ignition Series’s Epulze Royal South East Asia Cup tournament in 2020, Resurgence was set to go against Japanese team Blackbird Ignis on 22 September.
Tan is said to have allegedly given Chung $3,000 to place bets on online gambling site 12Play and promised Chung part of the winnings for fixing the outcome of the match.
Resurgence lost that match 0-2.
Banned by Riot Games
After the match, match-fixing allegations surfaced and Valorant’s developer Riot Games, which runs the Ignition Series tournaments in partnership with other organisers, launched an investigation.
The American game developer subsequently released a statement in June 2021. Chung and Tan were banned from participating in Valorant tournaments for 36 months, while four other teammates received suspensions of between six months and one year.
If convicted of corruption, Tan and Chung could each be fined up to $100,000 and/or jailed up to five years. Any person who gambles remotely on unapproved services in Singapore may be fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed up to six months.
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