A Third Year of Silence: ESIC has abandoned the NA Matchfixing Investigation

Last year, Dust2.us published an article detailing the history of the Esports Integrity Commission's (ESIC's) multi-year investigation into matchfixing in the North American Mountain Dew League (MDL), the predecessor to today's ESL Challenger League. The article itself was highly critical of ESIC's apparent lack of progress, lack of focus, and lack of communication on the issue as at the time of publication it had been two years since ESIC's last update on the matter and 16 months since they had sanctioned anyone despite 34 individuals supposedly being on their radar.

After 54 months of investigation, it was clear at the time that ESIC had failed in its duty to protect the integrity of the Counter-Strike scene, with 15 investigations being pushed to the backburner and never mentioned again. Another year is in the books, meaning ESIC's investigation started a staggering 66 months ago, so what has changed in a year?

Not a damn thing.

It is clear that as the investigation enters its third year of silence and neglect, the NA matchfixing investigation continues to be a non-priority for ESIC. There was, of course, little expectation that ESIC would make progress on these now-ancient integrity breaches, however this just serves as further evidence of behind the scenes murmurs that ESIC had thrown in the towel, finding the problem too broad, too complicated, and too difficult to tackle on their own.

The effect of this inability to wrangle and manage matchfixing means that after 66 months matchfixers have been able to enjoy entire careers in Counter-Strike and VALORANT thanks to ESIC"s inability to finish their promised omnibus ban wave that was supposed to "drain the swamp" in one fell swoop.

While it is possible to wax lyrical for hours about why ESIC's approach to their investigation was doomed to fail, it's not worth getting into as everything that could be said has been said in the past three years. At this time the only reasonable move ESIC can, and should, make is to admit they failed, and that the region's matchfixers have won.

Without any semblance of shame or contrition for how severely they have dropped the ball on protecting the integrity of the NA Counter-Strike scene, ESIC are set to host their ESIC Global Esports Summit 2024 in Atlanta on October 3rd while ESL Challenger Atlanta runs in the background.

Despite this conference supposedly "underscor[ing] the growing importance of the North American market in the global esports ecosystem," to ESIC and its partners, its conduct over the past five years suggests otherwise.

Dust2.us reached out to ESIC for comment ahead of the publication of this article, with the body not responding to our request for a second year in a row.