A blogger has accused several DPC teams of match fixing. Leading the whole operation was a man named Monetin. Now that the scandal has gone public, Monetin has spoken out about it – and surprisingly, hasn’t even denied the accusations. Recently, Russian-language blogger Morf published an extensive investigation into the Dota 2 match-fixing scene. He named teams and players who are or were believed to be involved in 322 or match fixing.
Summary of the investigation
The blogger hired a spy who managed to get into a Discord channel that dealt with match fixing in Dota 2. The administrator was a man named Anton Monetin, who had previously worked for Winstrike. He appeared to be a middleman for a large match-fixing group active throughout the Dota 2 scene. On this server, Anton was allegedly observed talking about match fixing and betting. It didn’t take long for Morf’s spy to make contact with Anton. Shortly after the two parties got closer, Anton allegedly offered the spy to bet on rigged games and share the winnings.
Pic.: Screenshots of Anton Monetings chats
During this time, the spy was surprised at the sheer number of rigged games and estimated that Anton was earning between $2,800 and $4,000 per month through his alleged game rigging ring. At some point, the agent was allowed to bet on higher-profile games. One of the teams was Dawn Gaming, which was later banned by Valve as part of the recent wave of bans that affected more than 40 players. According to Morf, several teams in Tour 1 of the NA DPC committed match fixing. He claims that at least in the Shopify Rebellion vs. Thiuth Gaming and TSM vs. Wildcard Gaming matches, the outsiders fixed certain outcomes and totals. However, the blogger does not know which players knew about the cheating. He explains that Thiuth Gaming was created solely for the purpose of game manipulation. The team had a “fake” manager, but in reality Anton and his group operated under his name after buying the DPC place.
Anton Monetin reacts to scandal
Anton “SayLich” Monetin has since responded to the allegations. He appeared on a stream and while one might expect him to deny everything, that was not the case. Monetin admitted a lot of his own guilt in the extremely strange stream, he gave additional informations and even answered the chat’s questions. He made no secret of his intentions to cheat and acted as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and many people who watched the stream found that Monetin almost boasted about his criminal activity, labeling it as “commonplace.”
Pic.: the intricate network
Dmitry “Korb3n” Belov, the team manager of Team Spirit commented, “It’s hard to trust Monetin without serious evidence when he’s obviously greedy and dumb as a rock. He will lie about anything just to make a profit.” Vladislav “Kozak” Lazurenko, the owner of Team Sexy, also commented on the match-fixing allegation, saying, “There is no evidence for this information, which upset me. If you’re going to claim something like that, you should at least provide some proof. But in the end, the source was once again a screenshot from a third party Telegram chat where they were talking about me. I know him [Anton Monetin], but I discovered his existence only during the Neon League, when he appeared as an admin of the event. Before that, I didn’t know the person and didn’t know what he did. I would like to see proof of my messages or calls with Monetin, but they don’t exist.”
Monetin denies nothing
Anton Monetin made a lot of interesting claims like that the players that fix matches can make about $1,000 per bet in DPC qualifiers and other Tier 4 events. He was very open about the limits of betting and what is going on behind the scenes. For example. at EPL-level events, it’s $2 to $3,000 per match. In D2CL, it’s $10,000, and in DPC it’s not possible to determine a fixed rate but it depends on many factors, like odds and the matchup. “Players get about 50-70% of the money won from the game.
Any player/team guilty of match fixing should be perma banned without exception. Feels odd to see other pro players trying to excuse/forgive their friends and asking for unban.
— skiter (@Skiter) April 7, 2023
But sometimes they don’t achieve the desired result and have to work it off. In the league at the EPL level, they owe about $2,000. If that happens in the major league, they have to pay back $30,000″ said Monetin. He also said, “Right now in the lower division of the EEU there are about 3 pure teams where there are no players involved with 322. In the rest of the teams there are players who are either currently doing it or did it in the past. A large number of people know about it. And even among the major winners in recent years, there are players who have been involved in match fixing in the past.”
A new ESIC?
Monetin’s grand plan is to work for the “good guys” now and use the publicity to move over to the legal side. He “doesn’t like the instability”, of the matchfixing scene, the nervousness of everyone, all the conflicts because of greed and the overall bad vibes. That’s why he now wants to build something like the ESIC himself.