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The Esports Integrity Commission, the body known as ESIC that writes and enforces anti-corruption rules for the competitions of its members, announced on July 1, 2026 a multi-year partnership that names Runestone its Official Data Partner. Under the agreement, according to the commission's release, Runestone provides data and integrity monitoring across the titles and competitions within ESIC's remit, flags suspicious activity and produces evidence-based reports that may support ESIC's investigations, disciplinary proceedings and sanctions.
The two organizations are not new to each other. ESIC says they had already worked together on several integrity reports in the Counter-Strike ecosystem, reports that supported its investigations and contributed to sanctions. The release turns that working relationship into a formal one. It gives no length beyond multi-year, no start or end date and no financial terms.
What ESIC announced
The commission presents the agreement as a shared commitment to the integrity of esports and to tackling cheating and malpractice. The scope it describes is wide on paper. Runestone's infrastructure, the release says, is available to ESIC's integrity programs across the tournaments, titles and publisher ecosystems where the commission administers integrity functions.
Only one of those ecosystems is named: Counter-Strike, where the earlier joint reports were produced. The release does not list other games, circuits or organizers that the monitoring will cover from now on, and it does not say whether Runestone's role is exclusive.
Stephen Hanna, ESIC's Chief Executive Officer, tied the agreement to the way the commission works: its activity, he said in the release, depends on a wide network of trusted stakeholders, technical expertise and reliable information. He added that formalizing the relationship within the commission's wider integrity infrastructure strengthens its ability to administer integrity functions for publishers, tournament organizers and participants.
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The release calls the partnership multi-year and stops there. It gives no financial terms, no start or end date and no list of the titles or competitions covered beyond the Counter-Strike work already done.
ESIC's release describes Runestone as a data and engagement infrastructure company and part of the Realms Group, a group it does not describe further. In the company's own description, carried at the foot of the release, Runestone uses real-time in-game data from tournament organizers and publishers to build broadcast overlays, analytics and interactive experiences for fans, and also monitors matches for suspicious activity.
The release sets the two activities side by side, the commercial use of live match data and the monitoring of matches. It does not say which data feeds Runestone holds, from which organizers, or on what terms.
The commission itself is described in the same document as a not-for-profit members' association, established in 2015 by esports stakeholders, that works to disrupt, prevent, investigate and prosecute cheating and malpractice, including match-fixing and doping.
From a flag to a sanction
The release draws a clear line between the two roles. Runestone monitors and reports; ESIC decides. Shane Clarke, Managing Director of Runestone, put it in one sentence: "Our role is to provide the foundation and the evidence; ESIC governs the process."
- MonitoringRunestone watches data from the competitions within ESIC's remit and flags suspicious activity.
- Evidence-based reportThe flag becomes a documented report handed to the commission.
- ESIC's processThe commission decides whether to investigate, bring proceedings and sanction under its own codes.
The report, in other words, is an input. A flag is not a finding, and a report is not a charge: the release says Runestone's reports may support investigations, proceedings and sanctions, which leaves every decision with the commission and its own rules.
The case that shows the model
The clearest public example of the cooperation is a Counter-Strike 2 case decided this spring. On April 1, 2026, ESIC published a four-year sanction against the player nifee for match manipulation and betting-related corruption at an ESIC member event, running from October 21, 2025 to October 20, 2029, both days included. The commission said a five-year sanction would normally have applied, and reduced it because the player admitted the conduct and cooperated.
Related readNew York's attorney general sues Valve over loot boxes as gamblingThe ruling describes how the case began. In cooperation with Runestone, ESIC identified a pattern of unusual in-game incidents tied to abnormal betting on one specific proposition market. The commission defines these as markets that target discrete in-game incidents rather than the outcome of a match. The flagged activity came from newly created, dormant and high-value accounts.
The data was the start of the case, not its end. ESIC also reviewed match footage and gameplay data and worked with independent third-party integrity experts, whom it did not name. It thanked Runestone for its cooperation during the investigation.
The same ruling set out the commission's view of the risk. ESIC said it considers targeted proposition markets to present an acute integrity risk, because they are open to manipulation through isolated incidents within a match. It listed work with betting operators, integrity bodies and law enforcement among its next steps, and said it was continuing to work with international law enforcement and integrity partners on other individuals.
Why the data side matters for betting integrity
The April ruling rested on two kinds of information: abnormal betting on one market, and what happened in the game, reviewed through footage and gameplay data, together with the player's own admission. Each side has its own monitors.
Betting-side monitoring is already organized. The International Betting Integrity Association, a body whose membership includes more than 90 companies with over 200 betting brands, publishes quarterly counts of suspicious betting alerts. Its report for the first quarter of 2026 counted 70 alerts across 10 sports, with soccer first on 25, tennis second on 16 and esports third on 15. The report does not attribute esports alerts to any country or continent, because, it explains, the locations of esports events can be transnational. The report also notes that its figures may be revised while investigations continue.
Related readKansas and Wyoming license Oddin to supply esports betting productsThose counts sit on the betting side. The July release, by contrast, describes Runestone's work as built on in-game data from organizers and publishers, the competition side of the same matches.
Publishers have written monitoring duties into their own rules. Riot Games, when it opened betting sponsorships to Tier 1 League of Legends and Valorant teams in the Americas and EMEA in June 2025, required any potential betting partner to use GRID, its official data distributor, and said it was improving its ability to monitor betting activity for violations of its policies. Teams that pursue a betting partnership must also run an integrity program covering policy development, monitoring and education, according to the same announcement.
| Party | What it watches | What it does with it |
|---|---|---|
| Runestone | In-game data from competitions within ESIC's remit | Flags suspicious activity and reports to ESIC |
| ESIC | Reports and information from its partners | Investigates, prosecutes and sanctions under its codes |
| IBIA | Betting activity across its membership | Publishes quarterly counts of suspicious alerts |
ESIC release, July 1, 2026; ESIC ruling, April 1, 2026; IBIA first-quarter 2026 report.
The rules a report is measured against
A flag from a data partner matters only against a rule. For betting, the rule at ESIC's competitions is its Anti-Corruption Code, in force since May 1, 2016. Its participants include registered players of an ESIC member's game and the people around them: player support personnel, coaches, managers, team owners and agents. They are bound automatically once they become participants.
Article 2.2.1 of the code bars them from placing, accepting or otherwise entering into any bet on any match or event in the game they play professionally, or are involved in any other capacity. The ban is not limited to classic sportsbooks: the article also covers regulated daily fantasy games and in-game betting with items of real value. Where a participant is heavily involved in several games, the Integrity Commissioner may extend the ban to all of them. Article 2.2.2 adds a ban on intentionally facilitating or authorizing bets by others, and Article 2.3.1 forbids using inside information for betting purposes on any match or event.
Where ESIC's remit runs
The value of the data partnership depends on how far ESIC's rules reach, and that reach grew in June. On June 11, 2026, ESIC and MOONTON Games introduced a formal integrity framework requirement for organizers seeking a license to run official third-party Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournaments.
Under that framework, organizers applying through MOONTON's licensing process must adopt key parts of the ESIC Integrity Program, include ESIC's provisions and model clauses in their rules and participation agreements, make sure teams, players, coaches and managers acknowledge and comply with ESIC's codes, and recognize and enforce ESIC's sanctions. The June announcement describes no monitoring mechanism and no betting-specific provision.
The July release does not say whether Runestone's monitoring extends to those tournaments. It says only that its infrastructure is available wherever ESIC administers integrity functions.
What comes next
The release announces no further step: no first list of competitions under the new agreement, no reporting schedule and no public figures on the alerts or reports it will produce. ESIC's published outcomes are where a partner's role has appeared so far, as Runestone's did in the April ruling.
The commission's April ruling also flagged that other individuals were still under review with law enforcement and integrity partners, and that further enforcement actions may follow. Any such case is decided under ESIC's codes, whatever role the data played in opening it.
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