Akuma denies betting fraud involvement and ready to cooperate with ESIC

Yesterday, we reported on the news that the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) found potential evidence of betting fraud and/or match-fixing relating to Akuma. In case you are not caught up, there are several allegations of cheating lodged against Akuma. It went as far as 15 CIS teams signing an open letter to Valve asking for further investigation. Now, Dmitriy "SENSEi" Shvorak has posted a message on behalf of Akuma, in which the team denies involvement in betting fraud.

Akuma denies betting on their own matches

The betting fraud and/or match-fixing evidence was found by ESIC from their Global Suspicious Betting Alert Network (SBAN) and relates to the CEO of Project X, Oleksandr Shyshko. This relates to Akuma because most of their current roster was under the Project X matches at the time.

Furthermore, Oleksandr Shyshko, according to ESIC, made accurate pre-match bets on the outcome of Virtus.pro and Akuma during EPIC League CIS, the recent RMR event for the region.

Akuma has now come out to deny any involvement in betting fraud, via a TwitLonger post from Dmitriy "SENSEi" Shvorak.

(Picture: SENSEi via TwitLonger)

In the post speaking on behalf of the Akuma roster, SENSEi states: "We want to make a statement that none of Akuma/ ex-Project X players were involved in betting on own matches. Also we want to claim that we cannot be responsible for our ex-CEO of Project X Alexander Shysko activities on betting websites. We are ready to cooperate with ESIC and provide all necessary information."

It is important to note that ESIC sent the potential evidence to Valve. However, it is good to see Akuma wants to cooperate with any possible further investigations. At the very least, this is a step in the right direction.

This is a developing story. At the time of writing, Valve has not publically responded to the potential evidence of match-fixing and/or betting fraud relating to Akuma and Oleksandr Shyshko.

• Read more: ESIC sends potential Akuma match-fixing and betting fraud evidence to Valve

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