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FACEIT bans CS:GO admin for selling ELO boosts for money

A staff member of the esports competitive platform FACEIT has been accused of boosting players for money. The admin... Daria Belous | 31. August 2022

A staff member of the esports competitive platform FACEIT has been accused of boosting players for money. The admin was selling ELO points directly to the players, by which he violated the company’s Terms of Service.

Admin named luvsteRRRRRR was firstly accused by the prominent CS:GO player and coach Aleksey “OverDrive” Biryukov. He accused the FACEIT representative of corruption on August 29 on his Twitter account. 

OverDrive also added screenshot proofs which show that some players gained +200 ELO only for one game, which is abnormal. It should be noted that the usual rate for a match on FACEIT ranks from 10 to 30 ELO points per game. Another screenshot shows that a player gained 400 ELO without even a single match, so the claims seem to be legit, as the system won’t allow players to earn such amounts of points without interruption.

The hatching scheme was simple. A player pays for a desired amount of ELO, which would be added the next day, even if the buyer doesn’t play a single match. 

A Twitter commenter said that this admin also sold team spots, however, there were no proofs regarding this claim. However, this could possibly happen, as luvsteRRRRRR had an access to database editing.

One way or the other, the fact that the corruption found its way even into player ratings on esports tournament platforms is rather gruesome. 

Faceit banned the admin

OverDrive later reported that FACEIT has banned luvsteRRRRRR and fixed the amount of ELO distributed among the players. However, the fact that an admin can bypass the system and sell ELO is harmful to the reputation of FACEIT, which claims to be a fair platform with its game anti-cheat. 

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Image credit: FACEIT

The main concern here is that luvsteRRRRRR wasn’t a high-level FACEIT admin, however, he had access to ELO distribution on the platform and to the database. What’s more, there’s no proof that he’s the only person trying to grab some cash on the side by using such schemes. FACEIT hasn’t published an official statement regarding the situation. 

Alex Slabukhin, ex-CEO at HellRaisers esports club, expressed his opinion regarding the situation on a Telegram channel called Cyberslovo: 

“There will be such earnings if there are such opportunities. In fact, such situations began to appear due to high competition and availability. As I said earlier, given that if you work hard for years and get only a thousand dollars on a contract, such schemes may seem to many something divine (Ed: very profitable compared to a fair salary). 

I just don’t understand one thing — why unfairly boost ELO, if the service still can check it later?”

Header credit: FACEIT