ESIC launch online esports specific online anti-corruption tutorial

23 October 2017

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The Esports Integrity Coalition (“ESIC”) has today launched its esports specific online anti-corruption education tutorial.

The tutorial, launched online, will take around 30 minutes for players and stakeholders in the esports industry so a “foundation” level of awareness on several pertinent integrity topics can be covered. Those who undertake it will learn: the rules governing betting on esports, implications of the growth of gambling alongside esports, the threat to sporting integrity of the industry and how to recognise a match-fixing approach (& what action to take).

It’s most definitely not ESIC’s first output around anti-corruption, as the coalition has provided live, face-to-face workshops to more than 400 professional players across Counter-Strike, Dota 2, League of Legends and Starcraft 2 in the last 18 months. Understandably, the move to create an online portal for foundation level education makes sense. Reaching all esports players can prove expensive, time-consuming and simply put, those that do not qualify for major LAN events will not receive workshop training. Thus it’s vitally important for those below the top tier, who are arguably more susceptible to match fixing and corruption, that they have access to informative resources.

The tutorial can be reached here.

The release states a special thanks to ESIC’s members in having the tutorial developed and making it widely available. Special mentions are for Sportradar, GameCo and the betting operator members of ESIC who have contributed ESIC member subscriptions specifically to the education fund to have the tool made.

Ian Smith, ESIC Integrity Commissioner, commented: “The availability of this tutorial is a big step forward in protecting esports from potential corrupting influences. Education is the best deterrent to corrupt behavior. Unfortunately, most esports players are not familiar with sporting regulations having not been part of an organised professional sports environment in the same way as their peers in traditional sports, which makes this tutorial doubly important as esports matures and the temptations of our ever growing betting markets become more and more apparent.”

He continued: “ESIC’s ambition is to have every esports player participating in matches on which betting markets are offered completing this tutorial. We will work with our tournament organiser and publisher members to ultimately make it mandatory to have done this tutorial before competing in prize money events. We also aim to add an anti-doping element in due course and to provide the tutorial in multiple languages. ESIC is committed to helping the entire esports ecosystem deal with threats to its integrity and we believe this tutorial to be a seminal development in our efforts.”

Esports Insider says: Great stuff from ESIC as always. As always, education is arguably the key component in stamping out potential corruption. With those lower than the top tier arguably under greater threat, this is wholly positive to see from ESIC and hopefully