KILLERFISH react to Lounge ban

On Monday, the popular betting website announced an embargo on KILLERFISH after detecting suspicious betting activity in several matches involving the German team.

The news was met with widespread criticism as the team had already been accused of match-fixing at the start of the year, when they were playing under the name myRevenge.

Back then, the players rejected all accusations, but that did not stop Valve from disqualifying the team from the offline qualifier for ESL One Katowice as it conducted an investigation into the matter - whose outcome remains unknown to this date.

Contacted by HLTV.org, Antonin "⁠TONI⁠" Bernhardt has now put together a statement about the latest controversy surrounding his team, which you can find in full below:

Since the news of our alleged involvement in another match-fixing case threatens the careers of the players and the reputation of KILLERFISH, I wanted to stand up for my team and the organisation and make a comprehensive comment on this matter as quickly as possible.

Some of you might remember the match-fixing scandal in which we were involved at the beginning of the year, when we were named myRevenge. We got banned from CSGOLounge and disqualified from the ESL One Katowice offline qualifier by Valve as a result of CSGOLounge's decision. After this drama there was no proof of us throwing matches for skins and we are not banned from attending Valve-sponsored tournaments. As a result, we were able to continue playing, CSGOLounge reversed our ban and our matches were once again featured on the platform a few weeks later. 

Since this first match-fixing scandal is officially still under investigation by Valve since there has not been any official statement about it, I highly doubt Valve will punish us for this case since they apparently do not need nearly a half a year to investigate a serious matter like this. I wrote an extensive letter to the people in charge at Valve back then to explain our situation and they did not punish us, which we are really grateful for since it was the only right decision.

Now, this whole disaster happens again as we are accused of being involved with a nameless bettor who unfortunately places insanely high bets on a high amount of CSGOLounge tracked matches of us. Since this single bettor apparently made so many max bets with over 100 accounts from the same ip and had a 100% winrate in our matches, we can understand CSGOLounge's worries. My team and I kindly ask CSGOLounge to provide more information about this bettor: for example, the number of our matches he bet on and preferably his name, so that we can get in contact with him/Her. Moreover, we kindly ask everyone who reads this to provide information about the person behind the crazy bets or maybe the bettor himself/herself can help us out by saying we have no ties with him/her. We would be highly grateful for it.

Since we were innocent the first time around, I would like to make it clear that we can say with a clear conscience that we are innocent this time again. I can understand that is it not the easiest thing to believe in, but I can say that this is the truth. My team and I have dedicated half of our lives to Counter-Strike and we put enormous effort into the game since we are a professional team that is contracted. I would just like to mention that it would be stupid and careless after the first scandal to risk our careers and names or even get into legal trouble because we are signed by a professional organization.

About the recent accusations: We are not the best team in world, so we can lose against top tier teams. When we lose we are not throwing. Besides, some of our recent matches had cash prizes involved. The latest matches that we lost and that we are accused of losing on purpose were really close, like 14-16 or lost in overtime. Furthermore, we were also winning matches against good teams in which this crazy bettor was betting on us. This time, my team was accused of cheating during the match against nerdRage. Either we are throwing or we are cheating. It is a bit crazy, is it not?

I would also kindly ask CSGOLounge and even Valve to investigate our case right down to the smallest detail. Check our inventory history, the IP of every player, our betting activities (there are none) and the alleged arrangement with the bettor. No one on the team or in KILLERFISh even knows the name of the bettor, let alone has been in contact with that person. Since this is an incredibly frustrating situation in which we find ourselves again while being completely innocent, we want our case to fully investigated by CSGOLounge and Valve. We are suffering from the injustice and back luck of being the target of a bettor with incredible results.

My team and I are available to prove our innocence. I can be reached via e-mail or Steam or by phone to provide every information CSGOLounge needs from us to pick us up on their platform again. 

I hope the community stops the hate until there is a final verdict by CSGOLounge or Valve."