Allegations of cheating surface in $2M League of Legends playoffs

Allegations of cheating has disrupted the $2 million League of Legends world playoffs.

The allegations surfaced on a community thread where observers noticed that the stage setup made it easy for teams to cheat. Players on opposing teams were reportedly able to just turn their heads and sneak a peek at the opposing team’s minimap, which gave away its positions. It seems like a silly mistake to make, given that $2 million is on the line. Observers of the livestream said they saw players looking at the screen to observe their rivals’ moves on the minimap.

Massively reported that the match organizer replied, “We keep a constant watch on all the players on stage at all times. We have cameras as well as live people walking onto stage to keep tabs in everything. All players are told that they need to remain sitting, facing forward, and with headphones on at all times, including during pauses. I can personally confirm that no WE player looked at the minimap at any point during the match.”

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.