Both Wind and Rain and Pecado Squad Gaming have been disqualified from the North America’s Dota Pro Circuit Season 2 due to match fixing. In addition to this punishment, the teams and their players are banned from competing in future TI regional qualifiers or Valve events.
Wind and Rain and Pecado Squad Gaming have been banned following match fixing allegations revolving around their May 9 series (Image via Wind and Rain)
People within the Dota community noticed some rather odd betting lines for the series between Wind and Rain and Pecado matchup that took place on May 9. On a Reddit post, it was noted that Wind and Rain went from 1.2 (-500 in American odds) to 4.3 (+330) within a day. Wind and Rain ultimately won the series 2-1.
Though a large betting line shift is not immediately indicative of match fixing, it can be a sign that something amiss is happening. The betting line itself will move drastically if there are large sums of money bet at the current betting odds. Such a drastic shift in the odds above implies that large sums of money were placed on Pecado in a short period of time despite being looked at as big underdogs.
Though the NA DPC League did not provide much information aside from the punishments, this was not the first time Wind and Rain had been looked at with some suspicion. Chad “Szabo666” Szabo, who was previously A-Team, had released three of his four teammates while bringing in three new players just before the deadline for roster changes.
Though the full details of the practice were not exactly the proper way to handle the situation in the eyes of many, it was the players that were brought on board that started the suspicion. Daniil “satesate” Krivenko was previously part of Recast Gaming, who had been removed from the organization following allegations of match fixing at ESL Meisterschaft. Some within the community have claimed that the other players on Wind and Rain were “known match fixers” but there has never been any official action to support this.
Both teams have also been banned from all future Beyond the Summit events.
