Professional gambler explains why Competitive matches are rigged and how to negate the forced win/loss

General Discussion
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So guys not gonna spend too much time talking about this cause im probably going to get alot of hate and arguments from alot of people who are die hard overwatch fan boys but here goes.

For the last 5 years i have been a professional gambler. What that means is i give people advice on what sports and events to bet on. lets get one thing straight before i go on. I dont want anyone to start gambling as it can be very addictive and i have seen alot of people who had not listening to me lose alot of money including thier houses .

i started gambling when i was very young. i enjoyed betting $5 here and there on the horses and realised from a very young age i had a knack for it. Then when i got older i was winning alot of money and watching everyone around me lose money. In the end long story short i became a advisor of sorts for people who wanted to make a buck here or there betting on the sports they enjoyed.

Anyway lets get onto overwatch and why a big majority of your games are forced wins/loses . Now there was youtube videos a few years back with people arguing it wasnt forced but they clearly had no idea what they were talking about and tried to defend a game they loved so dearly. Blizzard would never do that right? … Wrong.

Blizzards main goal is to keep you playing anyway they can. Hence why they put a ranking system in the game. its a shiny emblem for you to grind for and keep you playing to get to the tippity top (pro status) look at me im a GM! etc etc etc .

What you dont realise is the only way for blizzard to keep you playing is to keep you grinding and what better way to do that than stack the odds against you.What you will notice if you go into replays right now in your overwatch account is you will either see 1 win 1 loss. 2 wins 2 loss. 3 wins 3 loss and sometimes in my case 6 wins 6 loss .This is what you call forced 50/50. Oh no i said the bad word that works everyone up and gets them mad .

But lets be honest here ever get those games where you will win one match so convincingly and then the next there is nothing you can do to win. That isnt blizzard putting you up against harder competition thats blizzard giving you terrible allies so you can go onto lose that match and then go onto the next game . Kinda like a drug. Giving you a little hit a little bit of excitment only to take it away with the next game.

lets be honest if blizzard didnt do this masters and gm would be over encombored with players and most likely it would be a crap storm of noobs and good players . People say well how did this player get to gm or masters . its simple …playing as a team negates the very bad match maker and makes it harder for it to keep you down. Alot of these diamond and masters players who ranked up played with 4-6 man teams and even then the match maker will still try force your loss by making everyone on the other team smurfs and super good players.

Blizzard has a very long history of doing this in starcraft 2 and alot of thier games. Making terrible match makers and rigging games so players had no chance to win.

and overwatch is no differant . My friend who is a diamond player wanted to play on one of my old gold accounts. He went on a nice little winstreak for a bit but in the back of my head i knew it was only matter of time before the lose streak came . Was it that this diamond player faced some god like gold players ?. No of course not it was that it was the match makers program the software behind it if you would like to call it that stepped in and squashed him back down. Could you imagine a diamond zarya losing to gold players ? how could that be lol . Simple its how blizzard keeps you playing and later that day 7 losses came and he rage quit.

a diamond getting beaten by golds who would of thought right?.

All im gonna say guys is there is alot of players who are most likely alot better than they think they are and should be alot higher on the system but deep down they think they are bad because of a system that blizzard puts in place that they cannot control . So pls guys there is a pattern to everything in life a algorithm if it may. Your probably alot better than you think and if blizzard actually did a decent job with thier match maker there wouldnt be so many people walking away from overwatch right now . Anyway thats my piece what would i know with a 64% winrate in professional gambling and some of the highest stats in the world . let the trolling from the comment section begin ;). Overwatch is rigged and there aint a dam thing you can say to make me think otherwise good day fellow gamers!.

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… well thanks for talking at us then.

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Np friend. Dont be too hard on yourself there is a reason why blizzard does this and that one reason is money.GG.

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As someone who avoids comp for anything but placements and free comp points for placing, your particular discussion is , as politely as I can put it, none of my concern.

I’m putting faith in the possibility you think you’re doing good, but I also wonder at the motivation behind posting something in a discussion forum and absolutely shutting yourself to the possibility you might learn something from someone.

Of course OW is designed to make money, it’s published by a business. I’m not entirely convinced it’s as ruthless as you think though.

As someone who’s done some research into game design and player engagement, I’d like to think more thought was put into this than a slot machine. In the end players must be retained and the experienced lengthened, but purely disregarding a players expectation of “I improve and I will move up” is … pretty heartless.

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A slot machine is a very good analogy of basically what overwatch is. i have watched countless videos on youtube where the overwatch player says “hope i get good dps this time” because basically thats what your doing everytime you search a game your hoping for those lucky numbers or hoping for those great team mates but in actual fact your wins and loses are predetermined at the match making screen before you even start the game. overwatch is just written code after all so if they werent predetermined overwatch would be the first game in the world to ever do this which is highly unlikely considering its just software and code. but hey everyone is entitled to thier opinion i just wanted to educate the few that had researched it and actually looked into patterns and stats weather it be sports or online gaming. There is always a pattern.

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I find it hard to believe that a “professional gambler,” an odds-maker, would have such a poor understanding of statistics.

The reason that forced losses occur is to counter-act the effect that inaccurately rated players have on skill-based ELO style ratings systems. This is usually known as “ratings deflation”.

It is not a rigged system designed to keep you “grinding” your rating.

It is a system that cannot accurately rate players without some sort of compensating mechanism when there is a constant influx of highly experienced players playing on unrated accounts.

Hence, winning several games consecutively triggers a “reality check” game that tests to see whether your ratings should be boosted or decreased significantly, and the games with “rigged” wins or losses are the means it uses to enact that ratings change on multiple players at once.

It is not a perfect system by any means, it is in fact a poor solution to the problem, but is not some kind of “capitalist conspiracy”.

If people stopped smurfing, the matchmaking wouldn’t be quite as messy.

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Definitely a thing and definitely should not be a thing imo. Very frustrating solution used by the matchmaker.

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Wait a minute so your telling me blizzard cant make a system that can accurately rate players but yet they can program the entirety that is overwatch lol .Sorry but i find that very very hard to believe. People have argued this testing system from the beginning of time " But thats simply not true. overwatch is not a difficult game to play and anyone can rank up if you play 8 hrs a day and the reason why i say 8hrs a day is because 50% of your loses are going to be forced and the only way to negate that is by playing in a team which would reward you with a small percentage over 50% because again playing in a team makes it harder for the match maker to pit better players against you 1. Because it has to find a team of similar skill which in most cases there is not going to be alot of 4-6 man team searching online at egzactly the same time and 2. If it cant find a team your going to vs all singles making communication less likely or gelling as a team less unlikely which shifts the balance into your favour.

You cant just say consecutive wins triggers a reality check without any based evidence ?.

I definatly know there is a forced win/loss though everyone here only has to go to thier replay section to see it . As a mater of fact play 20 games right now and i guarantee you will lose at least 10 of them in the next 2hrs ;). Hey its just a my opinion what would i know being a pro gambler and all hahaha :).

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Hypothetically… if someone were to present you with a 15-18/5-2 win loss record within that given period, what would you say that is?
I do not have this evidence, as I said… I do not play comp if I don’t have to, but I’m wondering if you are 100% sure this would ALWAYS be the outcome and if shown this is not so, do you have a reasoning that still enforces your conviction?

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I did not suggest once that forced wins/losses do not exist.

I tracked all of my games over the course of several months from june to mid september, and after more than 100+ games it came out to almost exactly 50% wins and 50% losses. That is incredibly unlike to happen unless something is manipulating the matchmaking behind the scenes.

I merely proposed an alternative explanation that does not imply any kind of “money-making” scheme that tries to “keep you from climbing”.

Which, by the way, is another nonsense idea, one which also highlights a lack of understanding about statistics ratings systems.

You cannot “climb” by gradual improvement and time invested if EVERY OTHER PERSON playing the game is also “climbing” through the same method.

You have to improve FASTER than every other player in your skill bracket, or you will stay exactly even with them no matter how long you play.

All skill-ratings systems are RELATIVE. Not absolute. No matter how well you play or how good you get, your rating will always be a number that evaluates you based on all of the other players in the game.

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…or unless your hidden MMR has been calculated accurately, has not changed and you have been placed in matches accordingly. Your SR will rise and fall as you win and lose games - your MMR will only change if you actually get better (or worse) at the game.

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It’s built to weigh your averages against the averages of your teammates and the enemy team. It’s really not a forced win/loss when you take into account the law of averages. Especially when they use all of your stats to determine the averages and not just some.

The main issue with the system though, is the average counts not reflecting recent play, but instead a great deal of matches.

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Ok, I can see why that might be your perspective.

However, even if you flip a coin 1,000 times, it is incredibly unlikely that you will wind up with exactly 500 heads and exactly 500 tails despite a 50% chance of either.

If that happens, it is almost certainly the result of something manipulating the coinflip behind the scenes. If you do not understand the difference between what I am describing and what you are describing, I’m not sure there’s much point in continuing this discussion.

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Uh… that’s not how statistics work. The more times you flip a coin, the more likely you are to see an exact 50/50 result (assuming the coin is equally likely to land on heads or tails, of course).

It’s not always going to be exactly 50%, but the number will approach 50% as the number of throws increases.

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VOD reviews in the past and now the replay system in general just obliterates the delusion that match making is fixed and players are at some given SR due to match making/teams.

The only reason a person is at some given SR is they either don’t bother to play enough comp to leverage their win percentage or they do play a ton but are still making tier correct sort of errors. So they 50/50 out.
That’s about it. The only exception to that is once a person breaks 3k+ you can quickly run out of nerd skills for moving into to 5%, top 2% etc.

and yeah, a person from any higher SR can lose games in lower SR ranges. It happens all the time being it’s a team game

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Exactly 500/500 is not a 50% chance.

Even flipping 50/50 out of 100 coinflips is a 7.96% chance.

Every coinflip is independent of the ones before or after. You are more likely to APPROACH 50/50 as you run more and more trials, but to come within +/- a single digit number, let alone to the exact value?

Matchmaking weights the outcome when it begins to deviate beyond 50/50, and player skill is the force that opposes this weighting.

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Obviously. At some point when you’re winning enough games, your MMR (not your SR) begins to increase. At that point, you’re going to start seeing games that are, on-average, more difficult. That isn’t the game trying to make you lose - it’s the game assuming that you’ve become a more skilful player and are ready to face more skilful opponents.

Some people genuinely have improved and will continue to climb (or at least settle into their new place on the ladder). Others haven’t and won’t.

It seems like most complaints about rigged matchmaking stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of what an ELO system actually is and how they work.

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I have to agree that matchmaking is rigged I actually went on a 10 lost streak recently and in these games it’s not like I was playing massively worse than before

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The problem is when they do put more effort into these games to turn “players into payers” :sleeping:

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The system tries have balanced matches of 50/50 odds, but with some deviation accepting 40-60 ratios. Also the system gets more accurate with the number of games you play. If in 20 games you win 10 and lose 10 everybody would but around the highest tiers on comp. Because you always win more points than what you lose.

The issue with overwatch, often. Relies on people trying to trick the matchmaker. Using alt accounts, smurfs or playing on group and maining hero.

If you literally play solo you will around 40-60% to get win/lose(actually with around 600 hours I have ~57% winning rate) when your MMR reached. Why I’m saying that? Because I play since launch and I got really good and balanced matches except on: “overwatch sale, free weekends, free for limited time”. Where a huge amount of accounts appears on my MMR range. Which often would be likely to be between 2000-3500.

So my objective it’s not diminish your job. But cleary you supposed some things without further testing. You friend diamond zarya means that he actually isn’t diamond he placed in there for a factors like match-ups with team and relying in a single hero or even hadn’t enough matches to be proper positioned. Which messes with your MMR, because he takes the role not the hero. If you want accurate data try to check you stats on QP and you will see the patern I said, play with the right hero in that role and check the odds(try after 4th january). If you want to measure correctly anything play with the right hero in that role every single time. I don’t use one tricks neither single hero every single time and my winning rate across all modes are 57, some with 54 others with 62, so on.

When I play on groups with friends I got some rollercoaster matches because some of my friends have few games played or the MMR difference it’s high. Sometimes we get some balanced matches, but when “these sale events happens”, if I play on group often I play against some alt accounts and often with starters. But if I play solo, often those “new accounts” plays on my side then next match on the other side(for around 1-3 matches at total) then I never see these guys again. If I play on group I can get as much as 6 matches in a row against the same guys.

It’s clear tha MMR working behind the scenes to measure these new accounts. Like you said, if the “gambler machine” meant to make you win 10 games in 20 matches my win ratio would be more like 48-52 not 57(which sometimes reached 58-59 and when these events happens get 55-57)

It’s clear that MMR affect the odds,quality of matches and winning rate. But by no means you will lose 1/2 matches in certain number of matches. Playing solo often I get 12-14 wins in 20 matches while in group with friends I often get around 7-11wins.

I had moments who I played a lot hours in a row, other moments who actually I played 1-3 matches per day, othe moments I played as group entire day, other as group for a few hours, weekends, work days, morning, afternoon, nights every single kind of “variable”

My conclusion from experience was:

  • Modes who I actually didn’t touch much I had more random matches than the modes I play more often(reinforcing that few games means less tunned MMR)
  • “Sales, free weekends and limited free” affects a lot on the overall quality of the games, a lot of accounts with less than 100 levels appeared in the games and these games where awful(too easy or bad teammates or high skilled players) - Reinforcing that their MMR wasn’t tunned
  • Playing with a friends with less or more skill than me, made games less balanced. When played with better players became harder with weaker players became rollercoaster. - Reinforcing that MMR on groups has more error margin
  • Solo I never had any kind of easy wins in a roll or easy loss in a roll. In groups I got some of these(because kept matching with the same players often)
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