gianDK banned from joinDOTA League for matchfixing

26 March 2018

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Jose GianMarco Durand Cornejo, known in the world of Dota 2 as gianDK, has been banned from all joinDOTA and Freaks 4U Gaming events for two years from March 23rd. 

An investigation went underway by joinDOTA following a match between Thunder Awaken and MORTY on the second day of the joinDOTA League Season 12 America Division 1. The matchfixing suspicion came to life when Ian Smith, Commissioner of ESIC contacted the Dota 2 platform regarding the second game between the teams.

Thunder Awaken

Jose GianMarco Durand Cornejo said the following after the decision was reached: “I did this big mistake, I acted by myself and I am actually very sorry to let down my team mates. No-one else is involved but me, I feel very sorry.”

gianDK admitted to matchfixing, and instead of his whole team being penalized, he confessed to acting on his own. Despite his teammates not being involved in the act, the team has been disqualified from Season 12 and will be moved into the Starter Division next season.

Thunder Awaken also left a statement: “The player “gianDK” is no longer a member of the team because news and messages arrived indicating that this player “matchfixed” in other types of tournaments and competitions. In short, the player gianDK betrayed the integrity and confidence of our organization after participating in a “match-fixing” on February 23 this year against the Morty team. We as an organization were not aware of this act, but until the administrators of jDL contact us to inform us about it. Our organization does not support this type of actions, and we hope that said player receives the corresponding sanction.”

joinDOTA also commented: “joinDOTA strives to provide the community with a platform where fair competition is held in high regard. Accordingly, we have zero tolerance for behaviour that undermines these values. We are disheartened whenever match-fixing allegations are made, but even more so when they turn out to be true. We would like to thank ESIC, who first brought this matter to us and helped us thoroughly investigate it.”

Not only is the player illegible to play in the aforementioned leagues, he’s banned from all ESIC member events for the same time period.

Here’s what ESIC had to say about the incident: “We are grateful to the betting operator members of our suspicious betting alert network for bringing this case to our attention and helping us with our investigation once we had made contact with joinDOTA and F4u. We are also, of course, grateful to the guys at jDL for taking the matter seriously and dealing with professionally.

“Match-fixing in an esports event undermines the credibility of the whole industry and we must continue to strive to maintain integrity so that the community is not short-changed by people like gianDK. In solidarity with jDL and F4U and because the evidence we gathered in the course of this investigation was so compelling, we will be asking all ESIC members to honour the 2 year ban imposed on gianDK.”

Esports Insider says: Hopefully this is makes for another strong message to encourage players across all esports titles that matchfixing should never be a viable option, and that it’ll only be a detriment to your gaming career in the long-term.