Huge Scandal in Cybersports: NAVI Exposed to Betting Scams
Before the start of IEM Katowice, CS:GO streamer known as CMARTy posted a twit of a $20 wager at 501 odds in his T. He claimed that NAVI would purchase an M249, the most expensive and the most useless weapon. He also offered his followers to get a tattoo of the event with the names of five players.
The post went viral in the CS:GO community by slowly turning into a serious scandal.
The players of NAVI knew what was going on. The confirmation came during the match against Furia when M249 was purchased and then thrown away.
And you know what? The best turned out to be successful. The size of reward was estimated at 765,000RUB. Was it a miss-click? No.
The team players already had АК-47 and other kinds of weapon.
İn the Western community, NAVI was widely criticized for overcoming the principles of fair play. Of course, there are some gaming fans who support CMARTy.
CIS:Gone, a famous blogger in the eSports community, made a statement in which he described the chronology of events and addressed the importance of fair game. He said: “NAVI overcame the principles of fair play. Perfecto dropped M249 in a second, although he hadn’t used it for a single shot throughout his entire career. CMARTy wagered on GG.BET NAVI’s sponsor was the bookie whose banner was published under CMARTy’s streaming.”
Leniniw doesn’t see any problem. He takes it as a smart marketing case from GG.BET. He says: “The use of M249 doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think that the team of NAVI bought it for the next 1,000 games. But as long as CMARTy’s comment was published, Ilya decided to buy that weapon for fun. It’s not restricted by the game rules.”
The representatives of Na’Vi refused to give any comments. But the situation has been discussed by Dmıtriy Voshkarin, GG.Bet CEO. Here are some of his comments:
– “We were getting ready for IEM KATOWICE 2022 by working on our starter-package. It includes a great selection of interesting and extraordinary markets. We promoted this starter-package through influencers like CMARTy.”
– “The player placed a bet and shared this information with his online audience. The very fact that he tagged his favorite team under his post is not something extraordinary. Every bettor does his best to support his favorite team. CMARTy doesn’t make an exception here. He shared a post without having some hidden goals.”
– “We created the «Would a player buy Natus Vincere M249?» market as a potentially attractive for players. And you know what? We were right. We could focus on the common totals and bets. But users are expecting something more from us.”
– “We are happy to get such a big resonance on the market. We are currently working on some improvements to keep surprising our users.”
– “The purchase of M249 wasn’t a strategic plan. We don’t even communicate with players not to distract them from the tournament.”
– “Did NAVI break the rules of fair play? This accusation makes no sense.”
Did Perfecto see that twit? We can only guess. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously. Or maybe it was the rival’s attempt to show NAVI from the wrong side. Anyway, we had great fun keeping track of the situation.