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Here is everything you need to know about cheating in CS, from cheat types and the state of play in matchmaking to the biggest controversies in professional play over the past decade.

What kind of cheats are there in Counter-Strike?

There are many different illegal ways to gain an advantage in CS, and they can be broadly categorized depending on the way they disrupt the natural flow of gameplay. Some are straightforward to detect, but others are tougher to find. Reports also suggest that the market of cheat software features general products and more bespoke, custom cheats that are specifically designed as a unique tool with a view of making it even harder to detect their presence and usage.

These are the main vectors of cheating in Counter-Strike, explained:

Visibility hacks: Think wallhacks, ESP, and radar hacks. These cheats help the cheater in the information game. By knowing where everyone is at all times, they can easily walk up on undefended pathways of the map, surprise an enemy holding an angle while never getting surprised themselves, and instantly debilitate any speculative setups. Their use makes up for a complete lack of game sense or teamplay, making them extra odious. And unlike blatant aim assist tools, they can be harder to detect – though amateur users always seem to stare at opponents through walls, giving the game away quickly.

ESP hacks, or "extra-sensory perception" assists, also show all the other stats you would see in a demo: health, loadout, ammo count, anything you'd need.

Mobility hacks: Speed hacks and teleport hacks make up the bulk of these cheats, though don't expect to see them often in ranked matchmaking servers. Their ease of detection makes them counterproductive for cheaters, and if you are looking for illegal assistance because you are in dire need of a skill boost, getting faster to Bombsite A before getting banged out won't get you far.

Aim hacks: Aimbots, triggerbots, spinbots, you name it. If it helps you in the shooting department, it constitutes an aim hack. There are various levels of blatantness at play here, depending on the kind of CS2 aim hack that is being used. We have all encountered our fair share of spinbotters, whose character stares at the floor and rotates at impossible speeds, always getting instantaneous kills when the option presents itself. A less evident but just as disruptive variation on the tool is a trigger bot, which automatically triggers the fire button whenever the hacker's crosshair passes over an enemy. Aimbots, meanwhile, are their perfect counterpart, auto-aiming at opponents when they appear on the screen, so the hacker only has to pull the trigger, knowing full well they are covering the perfect location.

They all suck, and so do those who use them.

How does Valve fight against cheating in CS?

As the developer and publisher of the game, it is critical for Valve to maintain the competitive integrity of CS2 lobbies and to stop and punish cheaters at the earliest opportunity. While many in the Counter-Strike community often criticize the developer team for what they perceive as lacking efforts in this regard, it is important to note that there is "security in obscurity" at play, meaning that their anti-cheating efforts are much tougher to counteract if the wider community isn't aware of all the specifics. This is a big part of why bans happen in huge waves as a new anti-cheating element is rolled out.

For those interested in specifics, including the AI-related elements used by the company, there is an interesting talk from the 2018 Game Developers Conference titled "Robocalypse Now – Using Deep Learning to Combat Cheating in CS:GO," which, while clearly outdated (I mean, it discusses Global Offensive rather than CS2 to begin with), is one of the most direct sources we have about the inner workings of Counter-Strike anti-cheat tools to this very day.

Valve's VAC – the Valve Anti-Cheat – is not as potent as some other solutions are in the industry, like Riot's VANGUARD, and this is because of the Bellevue-based company's insistence on not requesting kernel-level access to the players' systems for their cheat detection tools. The benefits of such an approach are questionable, and they raise other significant security and privacy concerns, which is why they do not intend to go down that particular route. Previously, Valve also relied on player-based demo analysis and reports with the Overwatch system, which they did do a limited rollout for in CS2, but it has not been made available to the wider player base, and it is unknown how important an element it is when it comes to making ban-related judgments.

For the regular player experience, it seems that your Trust Factor is a big determinant of the kind of Counter-Strike gameplay (and whether you will encounter cheaters along the way or not.) As is the case with the anti-cheating tools themselves, Valve is unwilling to reveal the specifics of what goes into formulating a Steam account's Trust Factor, and you can't even check it yourself, but the Trust Factor Matchmaking FAQ page does reveal that it is "determined by looking at a user's past experience in Counter-Strike 2 and on Steam to ensure the system is as accurate as possible" and that "the only way to improve your Trust Factor is to be a positive member of the Counter-Strike 2 and Steam community." Prime status and phone number verification are confirmed to have a positive impact on your Trust Factor, but details otherwise have been purposefully vague. Anecdotally, if you are a longtime Steam user and Counter-Strike player with no infractions on your record, you are unlikely to find yourself among cheaters in your game.

All that having been said, none of this changes the fact that the highest ranks in Premier – the main matchmaking mode in CS2 continuously features some fairly prominent cheaters, and it is a big part of why most of the high-level non-tournament play in Counter-Strike has historically taken place on third-party platforms like ESEA and FACEIT, which offer a more robust scoring structure and more biting anti-cheating measures.

Is there cheating in Counter-Strike esports?

It is quite clear at the time of writing that the elite level of CS2 esports is a safe and sanitized affair, and if a series is available on Bitsler to bet on, it is safe for you to consider getting involved with it. However, as you ascend the pyramid, where new teams and unknown players appear in lesser-known tournaments, things get a bit more murky in nature.

It is way beyond our scope of discussion here to cover the tools used by custodians of various tournaments – which include physical checks and cooperation with betting sites to track suspicious betting patterns – but suffice it to say that there are many ways beyond VAC to identify foul play in competitive environments and that many steps are being taken to ensure the integrity of the game.

That said, there have been many high-profile incidents in the past, ranging from unfounded suspicion to a player getting red-handed on LAN. Here's the rundown.

The ten biggest pro player cheating stories and accusations in Counter-Strike history

Robin "ropz" Kool: from falsely accused to Counter-Strike superstar

Nowadays, ropz has firmly established himself as one of the greatest CS2 esports players in the scene, breaking record after record on Team Vitality to follow up his two trophy-filled stints on FaZe Clan and mousesports, but it is easy to forget that the young Estonian was also embroiled in a cheating scandal back in the day – to put it simply, he was so darn good at the game at such an early age that many of his fellow competitors thought that there has to be something fishy going on.

Spearheaded by fnatic's JW, multiple pros openly accused ropz of foul play on social media after their repeated encounters in FACEIT's FPL-C league, eventually prompting the tournament platform to host a private trial run of sorts for him, playing FPL straight from FACEIT's London headquarters. He still performed at an extremely high level under the watchful eyes of watchdogs, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But what if he had choked under the pressure and underperformed on the big occasion? To this day, it remains important to remember just how damaging false cheating accusations can be in competitive esports and that Counter-Strike careers can sometimes turn on a single good day of play.

The legend of word.exe – Nikhil "⁠forsaken⁠" Kumawat

One of the most significant – and, let's be real, also one of the most hilarious – cases of offline cheating in Counter-Strike esports concerns Nikhil "⁠forsaken⁠" Kumawat, a player with the dubious honor of single-handedly halting the growth of his country's esports scene with his antics.

Perhaps this is a bit of an overstatement, but not by much. The date is October 19, 2018. OpTic, a large esports org, has expanded its footprint to India by establishing a team, and the squad has repaid the favor greatly by qualifying for the eXTREMESLAND 2018 Asia Finals, a notable continental competition. With tournament organizers and orgs flocking to the country at the time in search of a new frontier, it was a great opportunity for the nation.

If you are wondering why all this has evaporated seemingly at a flick of a switch – you could say why they forsake the country – it might have something to do with this player and his antics.

After OpTic India's first-round loss, forsaken was caught by the admins using a cheating software, as the anti-cheat platform flagged his system in the middle of their next series after a 16-7 on Inferno against Revolution. Per HLTV's report, "after alt-tabbing, the admin spotted a suspicious program running in the background, which forsaken quickly closed and deleted. The admin team recovered the file but wasn't able to get the program back up-and-running, however, visual observation combined with the anti-cheat trigger was deemed enough by eXTREMESLAND admins for a disqualification to be warranted." In a clumsy attempt at subterfuge, he named the program "word.exe." It didn't fool anyone, but it did become a meme of epic proportions in the scene.

OpTic went on to terminate the contract of all five players and has not returned to the scene since. Later, forsaken apologized to his teammates in an interview, adding, "I would probably delete the day when I first played [Counter-Strike]. Nothing good has happened to me since the day I started playing this game." 

KQLY – "Ban was justified"

While Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian's best-known highlight clip was never proven to be a case of cheating, the former French Source player did get a VAC ban for his account in November 2014 and ended his career in the process.

The Titan superteam instantly discombobulated as they – and Epsilon – were disqualified from DreamHack Winter 2014, the upcoming Major. KQLY later admitted that he did use cheats but insisted that he only did so before his time on Titan and never in official matches. Regardless, it's this highlight against Virtus.pro's paszaBiceps that lives longs in the fan memory:

When Vexed picked him up three years later, players and analysts immediately left the team in disgust.

Sf – Another one

Gordon "Sf" Giry was also caught in the same VAC ban wave as KQLY, and his Epsilon squad was impacted the same way as Titan was, losing their spots at the upcoming Major. "Obviously we didn't know that Sf cheated, and how long he cheated for, and was it 1 time only? All I know is that he told me that he cheated once in a Matchmaking, that's all," a statement by management read, according to HLTV.

"Did emilio just get VAC banned?"

There have been many satisfying comeuppances in CS cheating history, but Joel "emilio" Mako getting banned in the middle of a Fragbite Masters match is perhaps the best example of all. The casting clip, featuring Anders and Semmler – and CS:GOat s1mple in a supporting role – is quite the trip down memory lane:

Like KQLY and Sf, emilio also insisted that he only ever cheated in matchmaking games and never in competitive play. His teammates strenuously disagreed. While he did have short stints on various teams in the next few years, he never again made a mark on the competitive scene.

Robin "flusha" Rönnquist and his otherworldly game sense

Though there was never any confirmation, the Swedish rifler was not-so-affectionately nicknamed "Senor VAC" due to his sometimes otherworldly game sense, and his exploits have played a huge part in fnatic's massive streak of tournaments in the early CS:GO era. In a team that was already controversial enough because of their tactics and personalities, flusha's contentious gameplay clips also added fuel to the fire.

With wallhack-like crosshair placement and occasional crosshair snaps – something he attributed to lifting his mouse on occasion on account of his preferred DPI settings – flusha remained a target of cheating accusations throughout his professional career even though no smoking gun has ever been found.

Still, perhaps if there is one highlight to show off flusha's monstrous in-game intelligence, it would be one of the clips from the team's renaissance era, featuring a shocking clutch in the 2018 Katowice grand finals on the fifth and final map against FaZe. (Better still? He followed this up with an ace in the next round, setting his team on the path to victory.)

The iBUYPOWER matchfixing saga

The only time in CS:GO esports history that a squad was outright banned for matchfixing at high-level play, the iBUYPOWER saga showed just how high a bar the accusers need to clear for Valve to officially take action. Unlike in-game cheats, proving this sort of collusion requires various types of proof – from suspicious betting patterns to leaked dodgy DMs, it is tough to reach a definitive conclusion.

Investigative journalist Richard Lewis did just that, however, in the iBUYPOWER case, which saw the iBUYPOWER-sponsored team throw a match against NetCodeGuides.com in 2014 in Cevo Season 5, which, after a thorough back-and-forth, led to Valve issuing then-unprecedented bans for seven players in total for any Majors in the future (meaning "Valve-sponsored events," as explained in the official blog post pertaining to the decision). In 2023, the bans were retroactively changed to a ten-year period in a change of policy.

Jamppi – the VALORANT player who sued Valve

Elias "Jamppi" Olkkonen was once a rising Counter-Strike star on ENCE, but he has since transitioned to VALORANT esports. This decision had a lot to do with his contentious relationship with Valve and the VAC ban that has been issued to his Steam account a long while ago.

Jamppi claimed to have bought his copy of Counter-Strike from a friend using his father's credit card when he was fourteen years old and that he then sold the account to someone else, which was then flagged by a VAC ban. Reaching out to Valve about his status, in October 2019, Valve's response stated that they had "found a VAC banned account that we've concluded was under your control at the time of the ban. Therefore you are not eligible to participate at our events."

Jamppi went on to sue Valve, claiming damages on account of having lost a contact offer from the OG org because of the ban, a case that was dismissed in November 2020. Ultimately, Jamppi's ban was overturned by the same decision that changed the lifetime sanction of those involved in the iBUYPOWER scandal, retroactively adjusting the ban period to ten years. He was unbanned in April 2021 – by then, he was playing VALORANT esports professionally on Team Liquid and never looked back.

The infamous coaching bug (and its very long shadow)

Of all the incidents and controversies in the CS:GO era related to cheating, arguably, the discovery of the coaching bug in August 2020 was the biggest of them all.

In the middle of the "online era," a period where the worldwide pandemic forced competitive event organizers to eschew LAN environments and to host even the biggest tournaments over the internet. In this environment, since there was no stage where the coach could stand behind their players, they'd be given the option to spectate their team on the server.

This is where the "coaching bug" comes in. Under certain circumstances, the coach spectator was able to move and rotate their camera to any specific location on the map, giving them a huge information advantage.

It remains unclear just how long the bug has been present in the game, but Valve immediately logged a hotfix after it was initially revealed, but it didn't entirely solve the problem at the time. Esports integrity watchdog ESIC's report suggests that there were there variations of the bug – a static version, a free-roam variant, and one where coaches could spectate the match from a third-person perspective, and all coaches with confirmed instances of the bug getting triggered ended up getting some sort of ban.

This was quite controversial in some cases since it was difficult to prove whether the coaches actually used the bug to gain an advantage or if they even understood what was happening at the time. Certain coaches have claimed to have immediately alt-tabbed out of the game after encountering the unusual behavior, but, again, this was near-impossible to prove.

Ultimately, ESIC banned three coaches in August – Ricardo "dead" Sinigaglia of Made in Brazil, Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen of Heroic, and Aleksandr "⁠zoneR⁠" Bogatiryev of Hard Legion – with the total rising to 37 by late September as the watchdog began to review all demos on file dating back all the way to 2016. They also stated that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether any player was actively involved in taking advantage of the coaching bug – even as one of the affected coaches, HUNDEN, insisted on the contrary and released transcripts of online conversations suggesting some of his team's players at the time were fully aware of the exploits.

Valve ended up fully banning coaches from big online tournaments as a consequence of this ban, stating that they would not be allowed to join the server whatsoever or to be in the same physical room as any of the players during these competitive events – a controversial decision at the time.

Joel "joel" Holmlund, Martin Luther King, and a lifetime ban

Let's wrap up things with a fairly recent story: that of Joel "joel" Holmlund, who was banned by esports watchdog ESIC in the spring of 2025 for "multiple and serious breaches" of its anti-corruption code and code of conduct, with ESIC's statement highlighting that "Mr. Holmlund engaged in deliberate cheating and subsequent attempted intimidation of ESIC in connection with its enforcement processes."

That is, of course, the end of the story. First rumored to be involved with matchfixing in 2023 after his oddly aborted stint on Monte, joel had a strong stint on GODSENT, which also ended in ambiguous circumstances. Soon thereafter, ESIC slapped him with a provisional suspension for matchfixing, as he was alleged to have placed bets on his own games. In early 2024, ESIC stated that no "compelling or conclusive" evidence had been found, giving him a second chance. He was picked up by TSM soon after his existing charges expired and later found himself on BCG.

What makes this story (somewhat) comical is that joel made an interesting tweet after TSM picked him up provisionally, going for a hat-trick of cringe by quoting Kobe Bryant, David Goggins, and Martin Luther King Jr. In August, he was banned by the Akros anti-cheat before his upcoming CCT Season 2 match. He was immediately benched by BCG after that, and soon after, and even though he maintained his innocence, ESIC's report states that he was found to be in possession of a "premium hardware cheat," which "included aimbot, triggerbot, and ESP features."

He admitted to this to the watchdog and requested a delay in making the fact public so that he could try and sort out a new career avenue. However, as the report suggests, he then “issued a threat to blackmail ESIC, with fabricated allegations, in response to ESIC's intention to make the matter public—an act ESIC considers to be an egregious breach of its Integrity Program," prompting a lifetime ban.

Conclusion: Everything you need to know about cheating in Counter-Strike, summarized

There are various ways to cheat in Counter-Strike, almost all of them involving various third-party programs. Be it visibility hacks, mobility hacks, or aim hacks, they all are extremely detrimental to the integrity of the game. In competitive play, there is also the consideration of matchfixing and high-impact bugs.

While the history of CS esports features many examples of controversial stories, the post-COVID era of elite-level Counter-Strike is safe to enjoy and bet on. Continued vigilance from players, fans, and tournament operators – and most importantly, Valve themselves – will be very important in the future, as well, though.

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