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Beyond Gaming's Maoan suspended from LoL Worlds for gambling association

(Screenshot courtesy of LoL Esports/Riot Games)
(Screenshot courtesy of LoL Esports/Riot Games)

Beyond Gaming’s Chien “Maoan” Mao-An has been suspended from the League of Legends World Championship 2021 (Worlds) for violating rule 9.3 of the Worlds 2021 ruleset, which prohibits players from getting associated with gambling.

According to Rule 9.3, "Association with Gambling: No Team Member or WCE official may participate, either directly or indirectly, in betting or gambling on any results of any WCE game, match, or tournament".

The announcement was made by Riot Games on Saturday (9 October), following a thorough investigation completed by their Internal Competitive Operations Team.

According to the statement, they "obtained definitive evidence showing Maoan provided inside information to a friend for the purposes of wagering on today’s match".

Alleged screenshots of a chat between Maoan and his friend broke on social media, where Maoan allegedly leaked the potential draft strategy of Beyond Gaming.

According to a tweet from LoL Esports PCS caster Jenny “Reirachu” Lee, the screenshot showed that Maoan mentioned to his friends “Sylas and Orianna, but don’t buy too much it’s just a high chance”.

These allegations surfaced soon after Beyond Gaming’s victory against Galatasaray Esports during the second round of the Play-ins, where they won 3-2 in a best-of-five series.

Soon after, the owner of Taiwan organisation Beyond Gaming, Xue “DinTer” Hong-Wei, issued a statement on Facebook regarding the events around the investigation on the case.

DinTer confirmed some of the details of the ongoing investigation and challenged those who accused him of covering up the gambling issue to show solid evidence.

DinTer also issued an apology to all of the fans and hoped that Riot would find a balance between punishing Maoan and not putting the effort of the rest of the players to waste. In his post, he had hoped that Maoan would be allowed to play in Beyond Gaming’s match vs Hanwa Life, then dealt with after.

However, with Riot's ruling, Maoan will be suspended for the rest of the World Championship in 2021. In addition, he could potentially face extra fines upon the conclusion of an investigation.

At 18 years old, Maoan is a relatively young player in the scene, having joined Beyond Gaming in March 2021, the second season of his League of Legends career, from Malaysia-owned Berjaya Dragons.

At this time, Beyond Gaming have not announced a replacement midlaner for Day 5 of the play-in stage series versus Hanwha Life Esports. The match is scheduled to start later at 7PM SGT.

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