FACEIT Partners With Genius Sports To Increase CS:GO Integrity
Published: Apr 10, 2017 - Last Updated: Apr 8, 2024
FACEIT, the leading competitive gaming platform, announced earlier this week it has entered into a partnership with the sports data technology company Genius Sports. The partnership should address integrity issues in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene.
The partnership will be launched in conjunction with the upcoming Esports Championship Series (ECS), which starts April 14.
Bringing more integrity to the game
Genius Sports provides data-driven solutions to numerous sporting bodies, including FIBA, the Premier League, La Liga, and ATP. Now, it’s looking to enter the competitive gaming world.
With its CS:GO-tailored platform, the company is looking to utilize analytics to help increase integrity in the market. Generating split-second predictions and performance assessments of teams and players with in-game data should enhance engagement among ECS fans.
Additionally, through its bet monitoring system, the company will address rising concerns over match fixing and skin betting in the CS scene.
The system was developed to monitor betting markets in real time. The gathered data will provide ECS organizers with information about betting activity across a wide range of bookmakers. This should help identify suspicious patterns in wagering liquidity and increase the quality of the competition.
FACEIT Chief Business Officer and co-founder Michele Attisani offered these remarks:
“Integrity has always been the core value for FACEIT and ECS. We are very aware of the challenges all leagues face as the industry grows, and we felt this was a logical next step to safeguard our fans and stakeholders.
Genius Sports is the trusted and go-to platform for all major sports leagues, their unrivaled experience in this sector alongside the newly developed technology specifically designed for CS:GO makes them an integral partner for ECS as the league continues to grow.”
The partnership will also include educational workshops conducted by the Genius Sports team.
Regulators address skin betting issues
Valve, the game’s developer, has been dealing with skin betting issues for a while now. These issues included match fixing and obfuscation of ownership, among others.
Last July, the company banned third-party skin gambling websites. Moreover, regulators in the state of Washington stepped in, ordering Valve to stop facilitating skin gambling.
A recent report from the UK Gambling Commission also showed skin betting on its radar:
“We are strongly of the view that the video games industry should not be, or perceived to be, passive to the exploitation of their player community by predatory third parties. The significant risk of harm posed by these unregulated gambling websites, whilst unintended, is nonetheless a by-product of the manner in which games have been developed and in-game economies incorporated for commercial benefit.”
Unregulated gambling in esports has attracted a lot of scrutiny. Genius Sports (in cooperation with FACEIT) hopes to change that by bringing more fairness and transparency to the wagering.
“We are incredibly excited to partner with FACEIT and ECS with our groundbreaking esports technology to … ensure players and fans are treated to a fair and transparent game, and ECS league representatives are equipped with information and tools necessary to maintain a clean, honest and exhilarating contest,” said Genius Sports CEO Mark Locke.
Since: September 12, 2015
