CSGOEmpire Cup not cancelled despite CS2 teams withdrawing post-PGL Copenhagen incident

In light of a recent fiasco during the quarterfinal match between G2 and MOUZ at the CS2 Copenhagen Major, the tournament sponsor of the CSGOEmpire Cup has pulled back. In a recent X post, Fortune Esports, a prominent Serbian media company, announced its departure as the tournament organizer. The CSGOEmpire Cup was all set to kick off in the upcoming months with a prize pool of $50k.

But that is not the only woe of this event. Many CS2 teams have pulled back from this event too following the unfortunate incident. Earlier, the CSGOEmpire Cup was supposed to feature tier-2 and tier-3 teams across Europe to give them a chance to test themselves. However, it turned into a disaster after multiple teams and casters withdrew from the event, after expressing repugnance against CSGOEmpire’s actions. Keep reading to know more about the incident.

Fortune Esports cuts ties with CSGOEmpire Cup

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In a recent stream on Kick, Monarch (CSGOEmpire’s owner) allegedly took all responsibility for funding some hecklers to barge into the main stage of the CS2 Copenhagen Major to protest against G2 Esports’ partnership with a betting website, CSGORoll. The tournament got delayed as a result.

Apart from his own main betting and gambling website, EyE (CSGORoll's CEO) allegedly took a huge part in exit scamming some of their young users by locking their balances in his other websites such as HyperDrop.

After Monarch confessed to funding the protestors, Fortune Esports decided to cut ties with CSGOEmpire Cup and will no longer provide them with any further services. They posted:

"After tonight’s shocking events at the PGL Major, we are cutting all ties with CSGOEmpire effective immediately. We will not provide our services in connection with their tournament and we deeply apologize to all of the players, teams, casters and everyone else we contacted with regards to the CSGOEmpire Cup."

"The most important thing is that everyone was kept safe and no harm came to the players or staff and that something like this never happens again."

Furthermore, many reputed teams like Bleed Esports, ENCE, Nexus Gaming, and more sent out official statements, confirming their exit from the CSGOEmpire Cup. Despite this, Monarch is still determined to host the tournament and is in search of a different organizer.

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He made some debatable promises such as an increased prize pool of $500k, and a whole new cast and crew. He also stated that he would reconsider the teams participating in this tournament, and most likely go for non-professional teams.

Where did it all start?

The root of the incident lies in an event where G2 partnered with CSGORoll back in 2023. G2 Esports used Ilya “mONESY” Osipov as their main face in a video to promote betting and gambling on EyE's website. Several members of the Counter-Strike Community criticized this event as using such a young face might mislead other young CS players to bet and gamble more on such websites.

Before the quarterfinal between G2 and MOUZ took place in the heart of Copenhagen on March 29, 2024, Monarch tweeted about how an incident was about to take place and things would go out of control.

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Following this tweet, Monarch posted from his website, CSGOEmpire:

"Since the beginning of the Empire, we have fought wars against scams — CSGODiamonds, Skinhub, CSGOWild, CSGORoll, HypeDrop, and more. But now, the battle is reaching a tipping point — two days ago, HypeDrop exit scammed, robbing users of tens of millions in rewards that they will now never be able to access. It's more important, now more than ever, to fight."

A huge incident like this caught the attention of millions as some players are still combating these gambling websites. It’s high time that Valve should take some action against CS' current gambling scenario to save their millions of users from potentially getting scammed.