DreamHack aligns to ESIC recommendations on sanctions for cheating in esports

September 6, 2017

Stockholm, Sweden

Launched in July 2016, the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) was founded with the mission to be the recognised guardian of the integrity of esports and to take responsibility for disruption, prevention, investigation and prosecution of all forms of cheating within esports. As esports continues to grow, and all aspects within the competitive environment continue to have raised stakes, DreamHack recognises the key role ESIC will play within the esports ecosystem. DreamHack is proud to be a full ESIC member, relying on ESIC’s expertise to provide the best recommendations for appropriate precautions and actions to ensure fair conditions to best serve the esports community.



Effective immediately, as following with ESIC’s recent recommendation, DreamHack will implement the following sanctions:



Cheating: Disqualification from the tournament, results voided, forfeiture of prize money, ban between 2 year and lifetime depending on age and level of player and nature/size of tournament and how the player cheated (this offence includes “smurfing” where both parties involved are liable to sanctions). Cheating at a competition played above an amateur level (i.e. where significant prize pool is involved or qualification for a professional event is at stake) should normally result in a 5 year ban, but, in aggravating circumstances, can result in a lifetime ban.

Match-Fixing/betting fraud: Results voided, 5 year ban unless significant mitigating factors in line with the ESIC Anti-Corruption Code or, in the presence of aggravating circumstances, a longer ban, forfeiture of prize money and monetary fine (if discovered before the end of a tournament, disqualification).

Doping: Results voided, ban of between 1 and 2 years, forfeiture of prize money (if discovered before the end of a tournament, disqualification).

Competition manipulation and bribery: Results voided, ban of between 1 and 2 years, forfeiture of prize money and monetary fine (if discovered before the end of a tournament, disqualification).

For second and subsequent offences, participants should expect far harsher sanctions and, in the cases of (a) and (b) above, in all likelihood, a lifetime ban from esports. Alongside this, all previously issued indefinite lifetime bans issued prior to February 15th, 2015 have been lifted. This applies to all DreamHack’s large scale CS:GO tournaments to begin with, primarily DreamHack ASTRO Open and DreamHack Masters. These sanctions and updates do not apply for publisher sponsored competitions, in which sanctions in place by a publisher such as Valve will supersede such sanctions.



“We are proud to be members of ESIC,” commented Michael Van Driel, Chief Product Officer at DreamHack, “As all aspects of our esport competitions continue to grow, the need for an assisting regulatory body has become more and more apparent, while it took us some time to internally review and ratify the ESIC recommendations which came out a couple of months ago, we are happy to be able to rely on ESIC’s consultation and expertise on these matters.”



“ESIC would not have had the impact it has had since inception were it not for DreamHack’s support and influence,” said Ian Smith, esports integrity commissioner, “The phenomenal growth of DreamHack’s esports competitions, both in terms of scale and geographical reach has been a pleasure to watch and their engagement with us at ESIC has been rewarding and helped spread the message of the need for a strong, consistent stance for integrity in our great industry.”



More information about ESIC may be found on their website here.



About DreamHack

DreamHack is the world’s largest computer festival. DreamHack’s core, and origin is the LAN party, with the major festivals in both Europe and North America. The events are a platform for eSport, knowledge and creative competitions, music acts, lectures by game developers, Internet & game culture, cosplay, the DreamExpo and much much more. DreamHack is also a production company with a focus on gaming, esports, music and arena productions for both traditional TV and digital content providers. During 2016 DreamHack had more than 230,000 visitors to its events and close to 40 million hours of content watched by viewers who followed the broadcast online. More information is available on www.dreamhack.com or http://company.dreamhack.com



About ESIC

The Esports Integrity Coalition is a not for profit members’ association established in 2015 by key esports stakeholders to deal with issues of common interest – in particular the threat that match manipulation and betting fraud and other integrity challenges pose to esports.



Membership of ESIC centres around key Principles that the members have agreed and they have also agreed to be bound by a Code of Ethics to govern their behaviour amongst themselves. ESIC is an historic coalition of businesses that are usually in competition with each other, but recognise that they are all threatened by attacks on the integrity of esports.



ESIC is designed to be scalable and open to new members of any size. Ultimately, it aims to welcome all meaningful stakeholders in esports and enquiries and applications should be directed to the Integrity Commissioner.