After revelations that the ex-iBUYPOWER team allegedly fixed a game against NetcodeGudies.com—an organization co-owned by ex-iBP captain Sam “Dazed” Marine—several other people have come forward with information about an alleged betting ring that sought to profit from these games.
Fellow skins gambler Joe “joEmygod” DeMarco revealed how he was approached by Derek Boorn—whose text messages to his then girlfriend Ashley Lebouef gave away the crucial details in finding out how the bets were placed around the game—to sell skins worth approximately $1,200 just days after the controversial game.
The amount of $1,200 is particularly significant. It totals a sixth of the $7,000 that Boorn stated had been transferred into his account after Duc “cud” Pham bet for the team, potentially enough for him and five players.
“Derek added me on Steam out of the blue” DeMarco told the Daily Dot. “I presume because I had a good rating on CS:GO Lounge. I myself have made about $15,600 worth of skins on betting on games according to the website’s statistics.”
Although DeMarco was aware that match-fixing was a possibility, he said he had never bet on any game that he knew to be fixed, and wanted to share this information as soon as the information came to light.
“He was a well-known player in the US, so he didn’t need to introduce himself” he continued. “We’d make small-talk about who we thought was going to win in other games but we didn’t really associate all that much. Then on Aug. 29 he asked me if I wanted to make $50 selling some skins for him. He claimed he had too many to sell and couldn’t be bothered to do it himself.” This was less than a week after the iBP vs NetcodeGuides.com match.
Although DeMarco had heard about the controversy surrounding the game, he wasn’t certain whether Boorn had placed a bet on that game or not. “I had heard about the drama but wasn’t sure whether or not Derek was involved. For me it was an easy $50 and a chance to improve my sales reputation on ESEA.”
Though Boorn didn’t really know DeMarco, he fully trusted him with the transaction, transferring across the following inventory:
DeMarco
“It was an impressive set of skins, 21 in total with each one worth about $60. You lose a bit with Paypal transactions so in the end I transferred across a total of $1047.63.” DeMarco sent us proof of the transactions, which you can see below.
DeMarco
“We had a few more conversations after he got his money” DeMarco said. “And it was clear from some of them that he was a heavy better. He would send me chat logs where he would ask other pros about information from the game, even ones where he was asking people about potential throws. I didn’t pay much attention.”
Then, shortly after the transaction, DeMarco found that Boorn had removed him from Steam Friends. “He didn’t say anything but you can see he keeps a fairly small circle. Only ever has about thirty friends, most of them high-level pros, and this cud guy.”
These new statements from DeMarco add to the mountain of evidence pointing to a thrown match. But the Daily Dot also obtained conversations between two players, one who claimed the team planned the whole event.
Veteran Counter-Strike player Chris “sheehan” Sheehan, something of a journeyman in the scene, named both NetcodeGuides.com owners in his exchange. He also estimated the winnings to be at over $10,000, something that tallies with the findings that CS:GO Lounge shared with the Daily Dot during that site’s own investigation into abnormal betting patterns.
Daily Dot
Sheehan claims that the problem of match-fixing in North America is more endemic than anyone has suspected, even going so far as to talk about result trading in the ESEA league.
With more evidence likely coming out over the next few days, the players will have an anxious wait to see the outcome of Valve’s own findings. For tournament organizers, this could be a watershed moment in their battle against match-fixing.
Photo by Daniel Dionne/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
