Even More CS: GO Pros Banned

"The strength of professional Counter-Strike comes from the integrity of its players and teams."

Valve has issued bans to 19 19 professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players from sponsored events and advises players to never to never bet on games they could have inside information on.

After gathering information from players and reviewing historical activity of accounts, Valve said it directed its CS:GO event partners to not allow the following players to participate in any capacity in Valve-sponsored events: Kevin "Uzzziii" Vernel, Joey "fxy0" Schlosser, Robin "GMX" Stahmer, Morgan "B1GGY" Madour, Damian "DiAMon" Zarski, Michal "bCK" Lis, Jakub "kub" Pamula, Mateusz "matty" Kolodziejczyk, Michal "michi" Majkowski, Karol "rallen" Rodowicz, Mikolaj "mouz" Karolewski, Grzegorz "SZPERO" Dziamalek, Pawel "innocent" Mocek, Jacek "minise" Jeziak.

Additionally, the following players will not be eligible to participate in the $250,000 ESL One Katowice tournament as it continues its investigation: Robin "r0bs3n" Stephan, Tahsin "tahsiN" Sarikaya, Koray "xall" Yaman, Ammar "am0" Cakmak, Antonin "TONI" Bernhardt.

Finally, in a post to the official CS:GO blog titled "Unnecessary Risks" Valve said that professional players or anyone involved in the production of CS:GO events should under no circumstances gamble on CS:GO matches or associate with high volume CS:GO gamblers, because they might have inside information.

"Because of this, we will always assume that you have access to private CS:GO-related 'inside information' that might give you an unfair advantage when placing a bet on any CS:GO game or match," Valve said.

Valve is also clearly aware that these incidents reflect poorly on eSports and endanger its future. "It’s important to consider the substantial impact an individual professional Counter-Strike player has on the health and stability of the sport," Valve said. "Performing before an audience of millions of fans, you are ambassadors for your game – the strength of professional Counter-Strike comes from the integrity of its players and teams."