Articles confirming rumors of illegal gambling and match rigging of professional StarCraft matches have been recently posted by a user at TeamLiquid.net.
The first news of this hit the foreign community when
Dan "Rekrul" Schreiber posted a video blog regarding the rumors. He could not provide any solid evidence on the scandal, but he reassured us that he had a reliable source. A day later, his rumors would be confirmed.
Fomos.kr had written several articles on the issue, one of which says that the player rigging began in 2008, while the illegal betting stretched as far back as 2006. Several other articles are summarized by the TL.net poster; these articles cover issues from how the scandal began to when the e-sports organizers found out and what their response to it was.
There are several high-level pro-gamers involved, one of which is
Ma "Savior" Jae Yoon. In his blog, Rekrul states that Savior is rumored to have accumulated around $2,000,000 from the illegal betting and match rigging, while on average each player would receive about $4500 from throwing each game. Retired pro-gamers as well as coaches and a commentator are also said to be involved.
Illegal gambling and match rigging is nothing new in competitive sports. Scandals such as this have gone on in every popular professional sport in the world. Whether this further legitimizes StarCraft is a sport or not, controversy and scandals such as this one can only bring question and doubt into the integrity of the sport.
Links
TeamLiquid.net - Source
TeamLiquid.net - Rekrul (vblog)
Fomos - Source (Korean)