HLTV stops displaying group stage and round-robin information of online tournaments to deal with match-fixing

Post translated from Twitter by Petar Milovanovic, owner of HLTV.org:

HLTV.org will not display group stage or round robin information for online tournaments, with the exception of ESEA MDL as it is the only competition system with sufficient ‘tryhard’ engines, including promotion EPL rankings and relegation, and the presence of high-class teams – teams that fans certainly won’t want to miss. This will not affect the knockout stage or part of LAN tournaments.

The decision was made to avoid low-level misconduct (like match-fixing), specifically the ongoing NoxFire tournament where a portion of the community is speaking out about match-fixing and allegations cheat. Unfortunately, no one has collected enough evidence to prove that this tournament has been ‘pulled’ or that some teams and players are suspected of participating or not.

HLTV does not have the authority to investigate or the time to understand these issues at every tournament, and there is currently no indication that there will be a party to manage and monitor these tournaments, and find and punish them. penalize the violating parties. As such, it is our decision not to have them appear on HLTV.org in the future in order to reduce this risk.

HLTV understands that round-robin competition (a format in which each team has to play against all the other teams) is the optimal choice for many small tournaments, to increase the number of matches and increase the stream time – helping for sponsors to appear more.

But HLTV believes this decision will prevent such mistakes from appearing in procedural matches (even the iBP case happens in such tournaments).

This really creates problems when the format is applied at a lower level, with semi-professional and amateur teams. Often in CSGO, these online tournaments are not an important goal for most participating teams (as opposed to traditional sports tournaments).

HLTV also understands that there is no other format perfect enough to replace, enough to make a big difference and solve outstanding problems in online CS, but we know a lot of bookmakers (betting websites) that have additional options. CSGO matches are based on HLTV match information. Therefore, HLTV hopes that the elimination of these matches will somewhat reduce those risks.

This is the best we can do right now to make sure HLTV’s goals stay on track, making it known to players and teams of all levels.

We expect the organizers to adapt and find a better format to increase the motivation of the participating teams, always play fair and play to win, while the other parties will continue their tournaments. which is not displayed on HLTV. Either option is fine.

As for teams and players, we hope this will at least reduce the incentive to intentionally lose matches appearing on HLTV, which can reduce their chances of developing their own careers.

This change does not apply to ongoing leagues (future ones only) with the exception of NoxFire League Season 2. HLTV will stop displaying league information immediately as the community has clearly lost faith in the league. This game is full of accusations and teams that have already dropped out, so there’s no reason to add them. We are not saying that the tournament organizers were the party to the violations, so HLTV will continue to show the LAN portion of the tournament, if it does. As for the present, this decision only applies to all future tournaments.

Source: Twitter