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Two professional Valorant gamers from the Singaporean Esports team Resurgence colluded to purposely throw a match in a regional tournament to earn from bets from an illegal gambling website.

Valorant is a popular online first-person shooter game in which two opposing teams of five players each take turns to attack and defend.

Malcolm Chung "Germsg" Wai Kiat, captain of the team, was sentenced to four months in jail on May 26, 2023, after pleading guilty to one count of corruptly receiving gratification under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Another charge under the Remote Gambling Act was taken into consideration.

Team member Ryan “Dreamycsgo” Tan Shern, 20, was sentenced to reformative training a day earlier for at least six months after he pleaded guilty to bribing Chung to throw the match.

Needed money to fuel gambling habits

Tan and Chung have known each other since 2014 before they were pro gamers when they played another online game Counterstrike together. They eventually joined the Singaporean Valorant e-sports team Team Resurgence (RSG), and Chung became captain.

In Aug. 2020, Tan borrowed S$1,000 from Chung to fund his gambling habits.

Chung kept asking Tan to repay the money, but Tan couldn't.

On Sep. 21 2020, Chung asked Tan to repay at least $400 as he was short on cash.

Bet on own team to lose

At the time, Team RSG was playing in the EPULZE Royal Southeast Asia Cup Tournament, part of the Valorant Ignition Series facilitated by the game's US developer Riot Games.

Team RSG had lost their first two matches against Team Paper Rex from Singapore and Team Vision Strikers from South Korea.

The last match to be played on Sep. 22, 2020, was against Team Blackbird Ignis from Japan.

Before the match, Tan suggested to Chung that they bet on Team RSG to lose and for Chung to purposely throw the match so that Tan could win money by betting against them to repay Chung.

Chung agreed to the plan as he thought it would be the only way to get his money back.

Tan then pleaded with his older brother to lend him S$3,000 which he transferred to Chung.

Chung then used the money to place five bets against his own team on an illegal gambling website on which he had an account.

During the match, Chung deliberately underperformed and instructed his team to do the same. Eventually, his team lost the match by a score of 0-2.

Chung won more than S$7,000 from the bets and kept part of it for himself after transferring more than half of it back to Tan and his friend.

Incident led to significant public disquiet in the e-sports industry

On Jun. 24, 2021, the Chief Operating Officer of the team's managing company lodged a police report regarding the match-fixing.

The prosecution highlighted that the incident led to significant public disquiet in the e-sports industry.

Team RSG suffered a blow to their reputation, and the Valorant team disbanded shortly after.

In addition, Riot Games sanctioned both Chung and Tan and multiple members of the team's roster.

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Top photo via Valorant/Twitter and IStock