I think with something so serious as this a little bit of education on how such an allegation is investigated is useful. How is a match determined as likely fixed? How do you catch people, how can you be sure? Not sure a Twitter thread will do this justice, but here goes: https://twitter.com/HLTVorg/status/1301438917292498944

Before i start, prior to Code Red i spent years working in esports betting integrity (heading up CSGO) for the largest data/integrity firm in the world until 2018. I've written the reports i'm about to talk about and seen people convicted for their actions across multiple sports.

An alert as to a potentially fixed match comes in two forms:

1) A bookmaker shares information on suspicious bets & suspicious betting patterns. They typically alert other bookmakers as to a potentially fixed match and then share intel with one another

They do not share personal information & will be vague.

Bookmaker A: "We've just had 15 accounts all place a bet at the same time on team X at 2.5, all from Vietnam"

Bookmaker B: "We've had a couple of bets from Vietnam too. We will monitor it, cheers"

Just a headsup really

2) If a bookmaker receives suspicious bets this is automatically flagged at a sports betting integrity company such as Sportradar . They monitor EVERY game that has betting on it, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Bookmakers would alert us to suspicious activity too.

Random example of an alert: Here's a game that took place today. I'd of got an alert to investigate why BlesseD went from 11/8 to 8/15 close to the start of the game. There are plenty of potential reasons why this happened that would rule out foul play:

1) It was announced ex-Incept were using a stand-in. A coach.

2) It was announced ex-Incept were on LAN had ping issues (250+ms)

3) The original price (11/8, 2.45 ish) was wrong and the market corrected itself. This happens. Someone has to compile the odds in the first place.

If 1) 2) or 3) are ruled out with some research you then start an investigation. I probably did at least 1-2 investigations every 2-3 days. These are time consuming and require watching POV of every player on the team you were suspicious about. Looking at social comments, forums.

Astralis vs VP, Astralis at ELEAGUE had to play with Zonic. The system was going haywire, it couldn't work out why VP were contracting so much in the betting. It was easily explained in the end. That's an example of the alerts i'd get. Everything was fine. Occasionally it's not.

When you watch a POV you're looking for tells, like in a poker game. Why did this person suddenly make noise in a tense 1v1 situation? Why did he drop his gun, giving away his position?What was going through the players mind in every round, what purchases they made, and why etc

You would document what every player did in every round and then highlight abnormalities. This was incredibly time consuming, but it was critical for building a definitive case that would hold up in a court of law. The more detail the better.

The easiest bet to fix handicap betting. You bet on team X with a +5.5 handicap, which means your bet wins if team X get 11 rounds, as they'll win 16.5 v 16 if the score is 11-16 against team X. You add +5.5 to their score = 16.5 = more than 16 = winner

There was huge gamble on an underdog Chinese team on a +7.5 handicap(ended on -1.5) line on Inferno in a bo3. They were 4.22 to win the map,into 1.86. This is a monster gamble on a specific map market. They were 89% winners on the handicap market by the time the map went live

The team who needed to lose more rounds when it was 12-10 so the handicap would win would plant the bomb on A in a 4v4, 1s after planting bomb, the entire team rushed arch and died to the Cts in about 10 seconds.

Another round they molly'd top mid & all 5 ran thru. Down to 20hp

The favourite won the game 16-13 and the +3.5, +4.5, +5.5, +6.5 and 7.5+ handicap bettors were in clover. At one point the +3.5 handicap was as low as 1.24. They were the worst performing team in the competition(-243 round diff) vs a top 3 ranked team (+36)

After analysing every round from all POVs and armed with the betting intelligence i had, i wrote my report, where i detailed what happened in every round, from everyones POV i'd then submit my report.

It's rare for personal records of those who place suspicious bets to be shared during an investigation due to a multitude of personal data laws. Such info would be disclosed should a court hearing happen (Sportradar presented evidence at court over Champions League match fixing)

It cannot be understated how important it is to rigorously look into someones social media history, stream VoDs (to see if they open steam chat,who are they chatting to?). Who have they just followed? Who is on their steam friends list?

Bad actors are known, did they follow one?

To pull off a successful conviction you need:

a) Betting intelligence, bookmakers to agree to provide information in a prosecution. Crucial.
b) Have reviewed every POV, every social post about the game, even players Facebook pages for any clues. Who have they recently followed?

c) Produce a detailed report on the match in question, a document that would hold up in court and you'd be prepared to take the stand to defend your report

d) Have the buy in of the TO in question. They can choose to not to act on your findings. Up to them to proceed.

If one of a) b) c) or d) don't happen a case collapses due to lack of evidence.

I'm looking forward to the outcome of this report and seeing the methods they used. You have to be as sure as you possibly can be with your evidence to push for convictions. You need buyin from the sportsbooks for valuable data, you need to of done extensive irrefutable research.

If they've done all of the above then you must alert authorities & push for criminal convictions like Australia. If a TO dishes out a punishment & authorities aren't aware, it'll feel like a hollow victory considering match fixing is illegal in pretty much every country.

This thread has been written from the POV of someone having to report without any anonymous tipoffs, witnesses or any insider knowledge. If someone speaks, like the iBP case, this process is a hell of a lot easier. However, the same sort of reporting is required for a conviction