MANILA, Philippines – Six professional players of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game DOTA2 have resigned their posts following an investigation into allegations of match fixing between members of those two teams.

On September 25, a match between two Philippine teams – MSI and Mineski – was allegedly rigged by its members to win on betting sites.

Users bet digital items on teams to win to gain more items based on the betting site’s odds. The digital items inside DOTA2 have an approximate market value dictated by the community, which can then be sold for real money on trading sites or trading groups.

Allegedly involved is Michael Vincent Vallejos, the founder of the MyDOTA2community trading group and Jonathan Radores, a frequent stand-in of Mineski.

Screenshots of conversations between Vallejos and Radores were leaked online due to Radores’ Facebook account reportedly being hacked.

The conversation screenshots contained the planning of match fixing of the September 25 game, as well other future games. 

MSI allegedly asked Vallejos P40,000 (approximately US$892) to throw a match.

The match fixing reportedly concerns at least 3 matches, with the following 6 players coming forward and resigning their posts after admitting match fixing and connections to Vallejos and Radores:

Mineski:

• Mark Anthony ‘Jacko’ Soriano
• Richard ‘Paseo’ Minowa

MSI:

• Carlo ‘Chin’ Rivera
• Mark ‘Byb’ Gavin
• Denver ‘yNd’ Miranda
• Patrick ‘JyC’ Pascua

Two other players from Mineski, Joven ‘jvn’ Pancho and Jo ‘Jotan’ Tan, have received temporary bans, pending further investigation. 

Mineski Philippines is continuing investigations into the match fixing allegations and is also looking into major betting site dota2lounge.com – Rappler.com