Following the official closure of the investigation concerning cheating, match-fixing, and related claims within the VALORANT Challengers NA scene, Riot commented: there was nothing to find. Riot had gone through all the video footage, interviewed players, checked internal logs, and even went to third-party data for confirmation, concluding finally that the evidence was simply insufficient to confirm the allegations. Of course, this has not been exactly met with acceptance by the gaming communities.
When Tier 2 VALORANT competitions had allegations of match-fixing formally laid before them, the drama exploded. Players, teams, and even orgs were in the limelight, with whispers of betting and match-fixing scandals. Riot could not let their esports reputation be besmirched again, so they pushed full-throttle in this investigation and brought third parties for cross-checking of the results.
All of the digging resulted basically in a corporate shrug: “Nothing found; case closed.” Of course, the answer was met with…mixed reviews from the public.
Certain players like xuthentic claimed that this points to Riot actually getting third-party investigators, implying that no evidence probably does mean there was nothing to find. On the contrary, viewers like Mitch3551 stated that there is evidence of match-fixing and that it is being suppressed. Just for a bit of irony, Techconix waved their hand and said: “We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing.” Oof.
This skepticism is warranted, because esports, shooter competitions in particular, have had their fair share of scandals. From the notorious iBUYPOWER throw in CS:GO to the newer-day VALORANT betting conspiracies, the list is long. So when Riot comes out with the claim that everything is clean, hundreds of thousands of gamers just… do not believe them.
“Cardu_1,” for example, called the report “bs” for not defining how they arrived at their conclusion. Meanwhile, RealityThought just mocked the idea of players actually confessing to throwing in comms. Then a content creator by the name TDAWGG tried to play a bigger role, saying he’ll drop his report if Riot doesn’t get on a call with him first. Yikes.
But the real kicker? The timing. Players like “Ectoplasmic” were laughing uncontrollably because this announcement had dropped whilst some of these pros were still openly betting on matches. Like, come on.
So where does this leave the Tier 2 circuit? Officially, Riot stands behind the fine state of affairs: no bans, no penalties, no further action. Straight from Riot? Trust is gone. Gamers are calling for some transparency and proper oversight and maybe an independent audit. Because right now, it sure looks like Riot is vigorously trying to cover up something bad.
And honestly? That’s not a good look for a game trying to mark itself as a premier esport. If the players stop believing in the competitive integrity of Challengers, that whole system goes down. So yeah, the case might have been closed by Riot, but the court of public opinion is very much still open.
Until then, it’s just a waiting game until some new evidence hits the floor, or a second scandal comes out blasting from below. Either way, the scene for competitive VALORANT sure got a lot messier.
