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Anyone outside Moonton Games who wants to run an official Mobile Legends: Bang Bang tournament now has a new condition to meet. The publisher and the Esports Integrity Commission, the body known as ESIC, announced on June 11, 2026, that the commission's integrity program becomes a requirement of the license Moonton grants to outside organizers. ESIC published the announcement that day and Moonton carried it on its own site on June 12.
The measure concerns what the two parties call third-party tournament organizers: companies that are not the publisher but stage competitions in its game with its permission. To obtain that permission through Moonton's official licensing process, an applicant has to adopt key parts of the ESIC Integrity Program, the announcement says. The Esports Advocate, which reported on the framework on June 16 with comments from ESIC's chief executive, Stephen Hanna, added that it extends to the commission's anti-doping standards.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a mobile game in which two teams of five fight over one map. The decision does not sanction anyone and names no case.
Announcement by ESIC and Moonton Games, June 11 and 12, 2026; ESIC's portal for Moonton license applicants and its list of codes.
What a licensed organizer has to do
The announcement sets out three obligations. They apply to prospective organizers who apply through the publisher's licensing process, and they follow the life of a tournament: its documents, its participants, and what happens when someone breaks the rules.
- Write the program into the documentsESIC integrity provisions and model clauses go into the tournament rules, participation agreements and general terms.
- Bind everyone who takes partTeams, players, coaches and managers acknowledge and follow ESIC's codes, the Code of Conduct among them.
- Give effect to ESIC decisionsThe organizer recognizes and enforces the commission's sanctions, suspensions and disciplinary outcomes.
The first condition is the most concrete. Moonton's text lists the documents concerned: tournament rules, participation agreements, general terms and conditions, and other competition documents.
The second widens the circle beyond the players. The announcement names teams, players, coaches, managers and other relevant stakeholders as the people an organizer must bring under the codes.
Related readUbisoft opens R6 Europe MENA Challenger Circuit to partner eventsThe third is what gives a sanction its reach. An organizer that holds a license cannot treat a suspension pronounced by the commission as someone else's business. The Esports Advocate set out the last two points in the same terms in its report: competitors who acknowledge and comply with the Code of Conduct and the related integrity policies, and ESIC sanctions, suspensions and disciplinary outcomes that are honored.
Two model clauses and a portal
ESIC has opened a section of its website for Moonton's applicants. The announcement describes it as an integrity portal that gives licensed organizers model clauses, guidance and supporting resources.
The portal holds two pieces of ready-made wording. One is a clause for the tournament rules, which places the event under the ESIC Integrity Program and requires participants to follow the Code of Conduct. The other is a clause for the agreement between an organizer and its teams or players, which commits them to the program and to cooperating with ESIC investigations.
According to the portal, the program is incorporated by reference, which means the tournament's terms point to ESIC's texts instead of copying them, and taking part is conditional on complying with the program as it is amended over time. The page ties this to a specific line of the game's own rulebook, rule 4.2(n) of the General Rules of Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. Participants also accept that the organizer may take whatever action is reasonably necessary to give effect to an investigation or a determination by the commission.
There is a service attached. Organizers can send their draft rules and agreements to ESIC for review through a form on the portal, and the page gives a contact address for other enquiries, reports of a suspected breach included. ESIC describes itself there as a non-profit funded by its affiliates and says it may invite prospective organizers to become affiliates.
Related readHow the Rainbow Six Seasonal Series ladder works for amateur teamsWhat the Code of Conduct covers
The program an organizer adopts is a set of seven documents, listed on ESIC's site: definitions, a Code of Ethics, a Code of Conduct, an Anti-Corruption Code, an Anti-Doping Code, a Disciplinary Procedure and a list of prohibited substances. The announcement singles out the Code of Conduct.
That code has been in force since May 1, 2016. It binds every participant automatically and keeps applying for 12 months after a person last took part in a match or an event. It sorts offences into four levels, from the least to the most serious, and attaches a range of sanctions to each. Fines are expressed as a share of the prize money of the match or the event.
| Level | Examples in the code | First offence |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Misusing venue equipment, showing dissent, excessive swearing | Reprimand, fine of up to 25% |
| Level 2 | Deliberate physical contact, manipulating a match for tactical reasons | Fine of up to 50%, up to 2 suspension points |
| Level 3 | Intimidation, cheating, discriminatory statements | Fine of up to 100%, up to 4 suspension points |
| Level 4 | Physical assault, violence, the most serious cheating | Suspension of one month to lifetime |
ESIC Code of Conduct, Articles 2 and 7.3. Fines are a percentage of match or event prize money; ranges rise with repeat offences inside 24 months.
Suspension points work like penalty points on a driving license. Under Article 7.4 they add up over a rolling period of 24 months, and a participant who reaches eight is suspended automatically. Cheating sits at Level 3 or Level 4 depending on its seriousness; the code gives map hacks, aim bots and ghosting, which it defines as getting extra information about the game, usually about the opponent, from third-party sources, as examples.
One category is kept apart. Conduct linked to corrupt betting is excluded from the Code of Conduct and falls under the Anti-Corruption Code, a separate text of the same program.
The clause that matters most to an organizer is Article 9.1. It says that sanctions and final decisions are recognized by all members and participants as soon as notice is received, with no further formality, and that ESIC and its members take all legally available steps to enforce them. Moonton's license condition asks the outside organizers of its game to do the same.
Related read2XKO Competitive Series will finish 2026 as Riot ends developmentAnti-doping, at Moonton's discretion
The conditions listed in the announcement do not include doping, which appears only in ESIC's description of its own work. The Esports Advocate reported that the framework includes ESIC's anti-doping standards, which it described as among the few of their kind in active use in esports.
Testing happens only if Moonton asks for it
Stephen Hanna told The Esports Advocate that any practical deployment, a testing program included, would respond to Moonton's requirements and be at its discretion. No testing plan has been announced for any Mobile Legends event.
ESIC's Anti-Doping Code shows what such a program would look like. Participants agree to be tested when an authorized official requests it. Samples of body fluid or hair are collected by accredited third parties authorized by ESIC, with or without notice, and analyzed only in laboratories the commission approves. The presence of a prohibited substance is an offence without any need to prove intent.
A player who takes a listed medicine for a medical reason can apply for a therapeutic use exemption, a permission applied for in advance of a match or an event, when going without the treatment would seriously harm the player's health and the treatment brings no advantage beyond a return to normal health. For a first doping offence the code provides a fine of up to 100% of prize money, four to eight suspension points, a suspension of up to 24 months, or a combination of these.
Hanna also told the outlet that the arrangement is not meant as a single model every publisher would adopt in the same way, since publishers differ in their ecosystems, tournament structures and operational capacities. "The objective is not simply to have policies on paper," he said.
A partnership that began in 2024
The licensing rule is the second step of a relationship that started two years ago. On September 25, 2024, Moonton announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with ESIC, a document that records an intention to work together. It covered information sharing, education campaigns, policy development, risk management and the identification of new threats, and it gave Moonton a seat on ESIC's Publisher Committee. Lucas Mao, then presented as Moonton's managing director of global esports, said at the time that professionalism and integrity had long been central to the game's competition.
Related readRiot postpones the NLC Spring Split to late April after operator exitESIC describes itself as a not-for-profit members' association established in 2015 to deal with match manipulation, betting fraud and other threats to the integrity of esports, doping included. The Esports Advocate writes that Moonton was the first publisher among its members.
The 2024 text spoke of exploring joint policies. The 2026 one turns a policy into a condition. Ray Ng, Moonton's head of esports ecosystem, put the reasoning in one sentence in the announcement: "Trust is fundamental to long-term success of any esports ecosystem." He described third-party tournaments as a way to create opportunities for players and to reach grassroots communities. Hanna, for his part, called the arrangement a benchmark for cooperation between publishers and integrity bodies and said ESIC would support licensed organizers in meeting what is expected of them.
Which tournaments are concerned
The condition applies to events run by outside organizers. Moonton's own leagues are a different matter.
Those leagues carry the name MPL. Esports Insider reported on February 24 that MPL Philippines and MPL Indonesia are franchised, meaning that teams paid a buy-in fee for a permanent place. In Malaysia, Moonton selected eight teams this year for a partnership program, for a seventeenth season due to start in March 2026; the outlet noted that the publisher had not detailed how the two models differ.
Around that core, outside organizers also stage competitions in agreement with the publisher. In January, The Esports Advocate reported a partnership between Moonton and PGL, a tournament organizer, to create a second-tier competition in Europe called PGL MLBB Challengers. Its first edition was scheduled to open with a qualifier on January 13, with the eight best teams going on to a main event from January 16 to 18. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The announcement gives no list of licensed organizers and no number of events. It says only that the requirement applies to applicants who go through the official process, and Moonton presents it as a consistent standard for Mobile Legends events operated outside the company.
A busy calendar for the game
The framework arrives ahead of a crowded second half of the year. The Esports Advocate notes that the game will be played at this year's Esports World Cup, where its Mid Season Cup carries US$3 million in prize money and counts as an official stop of the game's international circuit. It is also on the program of the first Esports Nations Cup, a competition between national teams scheduled toward the end of the year.
National selections are the other stage. Mobile Legends: Bang Bang has featured in all four esports competitions held at the Southeast Asian Games and makes its debut at the Asian Games this year, the outlet writes.
Whether ESIC's rules would apply at such events is a separate question. Asked about multi-sport events sanctioned by Olympic bodies, Hanna told The Esports Advocate that it would depend on the structure of the event, on its governing arrangements, and on the approach of the rights holder and the organizer.
Neither ESIC nor Moonton has given a date from which the license condition applies, and neither has named the first tournament to run under it.
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