How “322” Became Shorthand for Esports Corruption

As match-fixing in esports has become ever more common, a meme has become a powerful reminder that fans are keeping watch.

On June 14, 2013, Alexey “Solo” Berezin, a respected Russian Dota 2 pro, deliberately sabotaged his own team, RoX.KIS, in a meaningless StarLadder game.

His motive? A meager betting payout of exactly $322.

What Solo didn't know was that his act would become one of esports’ most enduring memes - as the three digits became a universal shorthand for corruption.

How did it start?

Solo placed a clandestine bet against his own squad in a StarLadder StarSeries match in Dota 2, a colossally popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena). The match was effectively meaningless in standings, yet Solo’s play was conspicuously poor, dying 50 times in a single game, It soon emerged that Solo had wagered $100 on his team to lose at 3.22 odds, which would net about $322 in winnings.

When evidence of the fix came to light, StarLadder organizers acted swiftly: Solo was initially handed a lifetime ban, and several teammates and the RoX.KIS organization also faced suspensions. The player confessed to the scheme and his ban was later reduced to one year, allowing him to return to competition and eventually rebuild a successful career.

But the Solo incident birthed both a meme and a cautionary tale. In the aftermath, the gaming community immortalized “322” as shorthand for match-fixing and throwing games.

To this day, fans and commentators, especially in Dota 2, will quip “322!” whenever a favored team started losing inexplicably, implying the choke might be intentional.

The term took on a life of its own. Players making poor or inexplicable decisions in-game would be called out, often humorously, through “322” chants.

In late 2014, a series of betting scandals in southeast Asia continued to undermine DOTA 2 competitions.

Malaysian team Arrow Gaming was disqualified from a tournament due to allegations that players bet on their own matches and intentionally lost, the same strategy Solo used. Investigators from betting site Dota2Lounge found that Arrow had dramatically underperformed against an underdog team, CSW, and that proxies connected to Arrow’s players placed bets on Arrow to lose.

In speaking to the press, a tournament organizer said “one of my favourite teams bet on their opponents to throw a match which mattered nothing for them. I can say that CSW could win that match without 322, but who knows it now?”

322 was part of the esports lexicon, and it soon spread beyond DOTA 2.

In 2014, a major tournament in South Korea was affected when a member of team ahq Korea, Cheon “Promise” Min-Ki, revealed that his coach had coerced players into fixing a League of Legends match.

Harrowingly, Promise attempted suicide after confessing the scheme.

An investigation by the Korean eSports Association confirmed that the team had been involved in a fix, and that the coach was the main culprit. Fans soon began referencing “322” in League or other games to insinuate a throw, a sign that the meme had broken out of Dota 2’s confines.

Next was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), probably the most popular esports game in the world at the time. A match between iBUYPOWER – then a top North American team – and NetCodeGuides appeared inexplicably one-sided, with heavy favourites iBUYPOWER losing in bizarre fashion. Rumors of a fix swirled for months before evidence came to light in January 2015. Again, multiple iBUYPOWER players conspired to bet against them.

322 was explicitly used by media outlets, cementing the terms place in esports journalism.

The term “322 mafia” is even used to refer directly to match-fixing rings specializing in manipulating esports.

Was 322 taken seriously?

Very much so. Valve, one of the major tournament organizers, issued lifetime bans to Dota 2 and CS:GO match-fixers for the first time in March 2015. Other organizers respected the bans.

Solo’s one-year slap on the wrist in 2013 was old news. By Valve’s count, over the next few years, more than 50 Dota 2 players would receive lifetime or indefinite bans for match-fixing or related corruption. Other companies followed suit. Riot Games, for example, began issuing multi-year or life bans to those caught fixing games in League of Legends as well.

In 2016, the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) was formed – a third-party watchdog organization dedicated to combating cheating, doping, and betting fraud across all competitive games.Without a global governing body, consistency in punishments had been lacking.

ESIC soon began its own investigations and issuing its own bans. In in 2017–2018, several StarCraft II and lower-tier CS:GO match-fixing rings were exposed. Notably, Lee “Life” Seung Hyun, a StarCraft II world champion, was arrested in South Korea in 2016 for fixing matches for gambling payouts.

This showed the potential to lure even the top stars. Life wasn’t an over-the-hill veteran, he was the reigning world champion.

During this period, the “322” meme persisted as a cultural reference – a constant reminder of the ongoing integrity battle. Twitch chat spammed “322” whenever a blunder or unlikely comeback occurred, poking fun at the possibility of a throw.

Vale, ESL, DreamHack and other tournament organizers aligned their rules, and by 2018, lifetime bans were standard practice. The 322 meme had prompted a movement.

So did the situation get better?

No, match-fixing in esports merely shifted to new arenas.

In CS:GO, the focus turned to semi-professional leagues, where the combination of online play and smaller prize pools made cheating more enticing.

In 2019 and 2020, North America’s MDL (Mountain Dew League) and Australia’s CS:GO leagues became hotbeds of alleged fixing. ESIC’s commissioner Ian Smith revealed that they were actively investigating dozens of players in NA who were suspected of match-fixing, some with the involvement of organized betting syndicates. In early 2021, Smith even confirmed that the FBI’s sports betting unit had begun assisting in a U.S. esports match-fixing investigation.

Perhaps the most sweeping action against match-fixing came in League of Legends’ secondary circuit in China.

In early 2021, Riot Games China conducted a massive investigation into match-fixing in the LoL Development League (LDL) – the tier just below the LPL (China’s top pro league). Thirty-eight individuals – players, coaches, and team staff – were banned as a result of this probe.

The investigation, which lasted two months, uncovered systemic fixing schemes in the developmental scene.

It even ensnared a few LPL-level players: notably, FunPlus Phoenix jungler Zhou “Bo” Yang-Bo, a rising star, admitted that he had been coerced into fixing some LDL games before he reached the top league. Bo’s honesty led to a relatively light 4-month suspension for him, but many others received multi-year or lifetime bans. Riot halted the entire LDL Spring 2021 season midway, undertaking an “internal rectification” to root out corruption.

And what about players who are not cheating?

But eight years after the meme’s birth, “322” is still very much part of esports vocabulary in 2025. On Twitch, one can hardly watch a high-stakes match without seeing a flurry of “322” jokes in chat the moment a team throws away a lead or makes an absurd misplay.

In esports journalism, the term appears in headlines and analyses whenever match-fixing allegations surface. The shorthand is convenient and widely understood; saying a player “322ed” is instantly recognizable as accusing them of throwing.

But 322 mentions also carry a clear risk. A player who makes an honest mistake can suddenly be lambasted with 322 comments. A prolonged slump can make it worse.

To prevent such false accusations and rapidly confirm suspicions, most tournament organizers and esports betting platforms now have partnerships with data monitoring agencies. ESIC cooperates with the FBI and Interpol on match-fixing.

The 322 meme helped such advances happen.

The meme endures today mostly as a cultural legacy – a quick moment of snark for fans will never hesitate to deploy. But its usefulness may not be over.

Riot Games is currently investigating allegations of match-fixing at a recent Valorant event in North America. A week ago, ESIC banned a Mongolian CS2 team for placing over 70 suspicious bets in 2024 and 2025. And Dota 2 still has problems with five players banned for match-fixing in January.