How can a university student earn hundreds of pounds per month by playing games without taking part in e-sports tournaments?
What causes you sometimes to encounter obscenely strong players in low-ranking competitive games?
If you have been banned and want to get back into your ranking division with a new account, what is the quickest way to do it?
The answer is the Elo boosting. But what is it, how does it work, and how seriously do developers take it? The author addresses boosters, customers and site owners such as the founder of elo-boosting.com in this feature.
Enhancement of Elo is essentially an action that allows a more experienced player to log into your account, play matches on your behalf and “upgrade” your account to a higher level or Elo.
Suppose, for example, that you’re a poor humble silver player in the League of Legends like me. It can cost you a few hundred pounds to get someone to go platinum or diamond on your behalf.
The higher the elo or MMR, the longer it will take and the more money you pay, ranging from ยฃ20 or so for a rank or two to hundreds or even thousands of pounds for top tier or particularly rare accounts.
In a sense, it’s like an auto service – whether you want to pump your car or make repairs, and here if you want to play at a particular level of the game you will be made Elo Boost by your account, or maybe you want to flaunt your rank as a cool sports car.
Every now and then, as a journalist, you come across a subject that many people in the industry don’t want to talk about. It is a grey market in computing, counterfeit toys and gamergate games, although one of the topics I have covered so far has been independent retailers buying from larger retailers such as Walmart or Amazon rather than official suppliers.
In the world of competitive online gaming, it seems that elo pumping is one area gamblers don’t like to discuss openly. At least not in a public space.
This means that I have a lot of unofficial comments on this article and you just have to trust me. I spent weeks writing this article and put it off for a few months just because I knew it would take a long time to write.
Elo boosting has been fun and even makes you feel good. It’s great to have an extra League of Legends income for someone who is not at the top level of eSports. “
One of our British League of Legends boosters
But now it’s here, and you just have to believe me that all the quotes are authentic. Anonymous, but sincerely.
There are several reasons why people in eSports UK or elsewhere don’t want to talk about Elo Boosting, including the following:
- This can damage their reputation, especially if they play for an amateur or professional team.
- This violates the terms and conditions of many online games and can lead to their blocking.
- Many pumped-up customers will not be willing to admit openly that they bought Elo Boosting for many reasons.
Of course, this is nothing new. When World of Warcraft was relatively new and growing faster than Apple’s share price, there was a huge market for illegal gold mining.
You could pay a ten for 100 gold or something, and someone somewhere would be sitting playing WoW all day, polishing the gold farm sites, selling items, and making lots of game money to sell them in real life. Blizzard’s answer was a WoW token – an official item that can be bought with real money and sold to another player for in-game credits. The token can then be exchanged for 30 days of playing time (equivalent to ยฃ9.99 or so). Gold mining still exists today, albeit on a smaller scale. And today, accounts are bought and sold.
But elo-boosting is far more difficult to eradicate. Games such as Valorant, Fortnite, League of Legends and Overwatch are more popular than WoW. And do developers really want this to be eradicated? I will try to explore this in this article.
How much do boosters earn?
The real question is not why boosters do what they do. It is clear that you can make decent money here.
For example, when one player was once asked why he promoted an Overwatch player from the United Kingdom, he said: “Damn it, I earn a pot while going to university.”
He also claims to have earned more than ยฃ600 a month on elo upgrades.
And if the booster is part of a larger, more global pumping service like ours at elo-boosting.com, it may be easier to pump multiple accounts and make money faster.
“The whole market was crazy a few years ago. I could earn between ยฃ1,000 and ยฃ3,000 a week. ” Owner of a UK eSports organisation
One owner of a British organisation admitted: “A few years ago, the whole market was crazy. I could earn between ยฃ1,000 and ยฃ3,000 a week on the boosting.
“I was in charge of the operation and usually stood in a duet with a Turkish player known to me, who was an applicant / high diamond.
‘We’d also hire a couple of other people for promotions, but we’re pretty sure they used scripts to do the job and we didn’t like it.
We didn’t take them for granted in any way. And the other people who came up to us we took. We gave them 60%, and the rest was divided between me and my partner.
“I was in 11th grade at the time, so I had a lot of free time to download accounts. It was a great business, but as the game evolved and the market became saturated, we had to cut prices – and in the end it just wasn’t feasible. “
Another well-known British League of Legends player commented anonymously: “Overall the increase was around ยฃ5 an hour for me with a win rate of 80% +, and that will be for most who do not complete Challenger assignments.”
The former British league player said that apart from the money, it also gave them pleasure: ‘A couple of years ago I was in League for a few months. It was fun and even makes you feel good about yourself. It’s nice to have an extra income from the league for someone who is not playing at the top level of eSports. “
‘Normally a decent job requires a couple of days’ work and I earn about ยฃ50 from it.
“If people can get customers for themselves, especially to upgrade at a higher level such as Master or Challenger, it can be very profitable. Busting is a great job, I could do it all day. “
“Things are going well, I earn my money while studying at the university.”
Booster, a League of Legends player from the United Kingdom
One owner of an American organization agreed: “It’s much more profitable than most player contracts until you’re a professional. I’m sure that for some games it can be more lucrative than being a professional player, to be honest. “
Another player said there was a “level of alienation from customers,” and they needed to be careful not to get robbed or paid.
They said: ‘On one or two occasions people have approached me directly to buy boosters. I asked for half the money up front and half on completion. I had a guy who was blocking me everywhere after finishing, so I didn’t want to do any more boozing in the future.
“I believe that if you have a good reputation, you can ask for 100% down payment, but otherwise you will not be lucky without an intermediary such as elo-boosting.com where even though interest is charged, you can be sure.”
This highlights one potential pitfall that boosters should be aware of.
What are the drawbacks of elo boosting?
This player is not a real low-Elo player, he’s a high-level player raising someone else’s account or smirking at his own. Confronting a smurf is not always bad. After all, you’re still just playing the game and can learn something from a smurf or booster. Imagine that in every match you run into a booster and he’s on an enemy team, which is probably as satisfying as being constantly poked in the eye.
One well-known British amateur player told elo-boostinf.com: “Overall it’s not a HUGE problem or impact on the games, but in general negative,” he said.
“I stopped doing elo boosting because if you don’t work on a big site that gets 30% + of all your” jobs, “you won’t be able to find customers.
A former LoL player from the UK. I thought it would be better to engage in real eSports, where I made legitimate money without abusing the system for easy money. “
A former League of Legends player also said that pumping can be incredibly time-consuming, and you can get sucked into it if you work in a group that gets most of the revenue.
“The drawback was that it took a lot of time and because I found customers through the website they were taking a very large share – I think this was 60 / 40 for me though I could be wrong,” he said.
Of course it was for a League of Legends game, but to make any decent money you have to spend a lot of time doing that.
In addition, if you find your customers through a promotion website, they will often want you to complete a certain number of orders in order to ensure speedy fulfillment times for their clients.
“It’s just not possible to play for several hours a night, be pumped up, get enough practice on the single line and have personal time, especially as many people do it while studying at university or working in real jobs.”
There is also a glut in the market. Games like League have been around for a long time, and there are plenty of other boosters to compete with.
Why buy elo boost? We ask our customer who regularly buys elo boosting
When we reached out to the community for comment on Elo’s promotion, there was no shortage of boosters coming forward to speak anonymously.
But from a customer point of view, we didn’t find many people who were willing to comment and then not for the record.
He is a League of Legends coach who has worked on the UK’s eSports scene.
They said: ‘The only time I’ve done it for myself is going from 1st gold to 5th place in League of Legends. I’ve failed my promo once six times so I just thought, heck, I’m going to get there eventually but it’s not worth the headache.
‘It cost me ยฃ15 to ยฃ20 and I was very happy with the service.
“The boosters did it in two days – they lost one and won five. The live chat was good and I had a quick response time. I went straight to Platform 4 after being promoted. “
‘I’ve failed my promos six times so I just thought, hell yeah, I’m going to get there eventually but it’s not worth the headache. It cost me ยฃ15 to ยฃ20 and I was very happy with the service. “
The anonymous client of elo-boosting.com
Was the person being pumped afraid that their account might be blocked? “I know Riot Games are pretty bad when it comes to tracking and blocking accounts sold or downloaded, so I wasn’t too worried about being banned,” they replied.
‘To be honest, I was more worried about my account being stolen but I’m pretty sure after that I didn’t even change the password and it was all right. I have other accounts, so losing them wouldn’t bother me. ‘
The customer also pumped out low-Elo accounts and sold them.
“I’ve probably been buying and selling accounts for about two years,” he said. ‘I buy them without a rating for about ยฃ20 and can double that amount once I get the gold. This takes about two weeks, plus or minus a week depending on how much I want to play with this account. But I don’t really do it for the money – I just have a lot of free time.
“The people I sold accounts to were almost always real-life or League of Legends friends, so I could usually sell for double the price, it’s from a more reliable source. Not all people know about the sites. “
The anonymous owner of an American organization has given his advice to those thinking about elo boost.
“My advice to clients is: try buying elo boosting from someone actively engaged in coaching,” he said.
Ban Boosters: How do developers deal with this issue?
Are developers restricting the pumping as much as possible? What penalties?
The general answers to these questions will be negative and not what you might think.
Riot’s position on pumping is as follows:
“Any account that participates in the pumping of ELO / MMR (whether an elo boosting person or a customer) shall be subject to the following penalties:
- A two-week lockout on the League of Legends account. Exception from receiving rank awards of the current season.
A few months ago, Riot Cluvie said: “We’re bathing [pumped-up accounts].
There is a problem in other games, of course. Overwatch has been around for over a year, and Blizzard only recently said it would do more to combat boosters.
“Doing anything to manipulate your internal MMR or skill rating (such as raise or drop) is not a good thing,” the game’s director Jeff Kaplan said.
“Doing anything to manipulate your internal MMR or skill rating is not a good thing.
Jeff Kaplan, Blizzard
Blizzard also made some other changes earlier this year to prevent elo boosting. A statement said: “Some players deliberately abandon matches in order to achieve the lowest attainable skill rating. We obviously don’t want to encourage this kind of behavior, so we’re making it a little more difficult to achieve the lowest and highest possible scores: 0 and 5000. We also no longer display skill ratings below 500. “
Developers would never say that, of course, but the pumped-up customer is still one of their customers and important to them. This is someone who still plays his game, comes up with the numbers and can occasionally pay for cosmetic items and make other micro-transactions.
What would happen if Riot, Blizzard, and other developers banned all well-known boosters and their customers overnight? The games may be a little fairer in the short term. Developers will probably make a little less money. It’s not deep, but they have a lot to think about.
A spokesman for one major game told elo-boosting.com: “If it’s a free play, they really shouldn’t (ban elo boosting) too much. I saw a lot of people to whom I did elo boost who spent ยฃ1,000 on rank and also spent a lot on other things such as RP, rare skins etc.
“I’ve always told clients that the chances of being banned are pretty low unless it’s super obvious, for example going from a crap Iron 4 Garden main to getting Diamond 4 using only Wayne and Twitch – just asking him to be caught.
“Riot has looked at Internet IP addresses and the like, even though I have never had a client bank.”
Another experienced player, a colleague of ours, admitted to us: “Riot is not even close to doing what they are capable of in terms of stopping the elo boosting.
‘They’re very slow, and that’s why a lot of people do it – because they get away with it.
“There are literally egregious examples of people taking part in tournaments and openly promoting elo busting on Twitter. And nothing has ever been done. “
“Coaching is much better than busting. Give the man a nudge, you will spur him. Teach him to climb, and he’ll climb for the rest of his life. “
He said Riot released a statement during the second season saying that Boost was banned and anyone caught would be punished.
But boosters and customers will also take steps to avoid being caught. Some deliberately played random games, while others joined forces.
“When I did elo boost, most people wanted to do it while queuing up together because they didn’t want them to be obvious that they were being promoted,” said one former booster.
“Instead, developers should spend time fighting the cheats.”
Another US official familiar with the organization said that booting didn’t matter much, and developers should focus on something else.
“I think developers trying to stop the busting are probably wasting their time. They are 100% better off spending their resources on anti-cheats.
“More dubious boosters use cheats to win, not skills. This destroys games much more than a professional player who transfers someone to Global Elite in CSGO, “an anonymous representative of the organization explained.
“The number of cheaters in games like Overwatch is crazy. I know players who spend hundreds of dollars a month subscribing to cheats but still buy training and elo boost. This is utterly preposterous. It’s literally surreal to coach someone who has a goal and walls, and it reignited my hatred of cheatery. ‘
For some, elo boosting itself will count as fraud. This is subjective and obviously depends on how each problem affects every individual.
“The revenue problem” – why one British LoL player turned to the booster
“Why do elo boost? Well, money used to be better, but today it is still good enough to justify that.
“Let’s compare competitive play with pumping. If a team wins the LAN, it will receive several thousand pounds. For most organizations, the share is 15-20%. So I, the player, have a few hundred pounds left.
‘It’s my reward for a grueling tournament, weeks of team training and being the best. Second place would be half that.
“Now let’s take a random Diamond 4 player from the United Kingdom, who is unlikely to make it onto an ESL professional team. It can go from bronze to gold, maybe even platinum. Suppose a client wants to go from 3rd gold to 4th platinum. That’s ยฃ100. How long will it take? From 15 to 20 wins, it’s about 10 hours.
“What better way to win ยฃ400 or ยฃ500 in a LoL tournament after several months of work, or ยฃ100 per day doing elo boosting?” he asked.
An anonymous player from the United Kingdom
“Which is better: 400 or 500 pounds after a few months of work, or 100 pounds per day?
“What about ethics? Be a “professional”? Both become obsolete. I can list a few LCS players who are currently active on this site.
“The booster network has grown and chat rooms for elite boosters have appeared, which makes it easy to find duos or groups to pump out the same games with minimal risk of losing.
“The problem is the difference in income and time costs between competition and boosting. And the lack of punishment for boosters and how easy it is to get away with it. “
We spoke with an anonymous former World of Warcraft booster to find out what they were doing and how it worked…
“In 1-4 seasons Wow, a lot of the items had their ratings blocked and they were considered very prestigious. WoW did not have what they call a transmogrification system (making the outfit look like other gear), so people’s accomplishments were generally recognizable by the equipment they wore. Shoulders and weapons required quite a high rating and meant an excellent player in the PVP.
“In later seasons, the currency used to buy equipment was given out on a weekly basis depending on your rating, so people paid you to get higher ratings. This meant they would receive more currency per week and access to higher-profile subjects.
“At that time, there were widespread scandals in every combat group about people winning in exchange for ratings to gain undeserved access to items. Around it, there were waves of bananas and dramatic bombs.
“I got into the game simply because I was good at PvP, communicated with people who were good at PvP, and initially guild members asked me for small boosts. Then I started making a decent amount of money… “
“At last there were gladiatorial titles; 0.5% of Arena’s best players each season got a title that could be used the following season, and a means of transport that was preserved for life. They were incredibly valuable.
“The main motivation for a lot of people was to respect random passers-by, because people would gather in places like Stalhorn and Stormgrad and stand out with these things.
“I got into the game simply because I was good at PvP, communicated with people who were good at PvP, and initially guild members asked me for small boosts. Then I started earning a decent amount of money and playing on people’s accounts to get higher ratings / getting them into our teams so they could leech.
“It would be something like ยฃ300 per 2k rating – quite a lot for Season 4. And we usually didn’t offer Gladiator because it was too risky. I came out at the end of Wrath’s extension, since I left WoW altogether.
“Our guild had a huge number of 1st rank gladiators, most of them doing stunts for friends and money.”
The League of Legends strimer, a coach and former player on the British scene, anonymously shared his thoughts about boosting. “Elo boosting is basically an anomaly,” he said. “The huge number of legitimate players that play in the rankings far exceeds the number of people who have been given elo boost.
If you have a booster in your game, it won’t affect your overall ranking or where you end up.
Boosting has become much more intense. Now we are talking about 2,1 thousand +, which is equivalent to the level of an average master. “Because so few people had that rank, even fewer wanted to raise it.
What’s sad about all this elo booing?
To finish this article about pumping, we thought it would be appropriate to interview the owner of Elo-Boosting.com, one of the League of Legends pump sites.
The site has about 3,000 users and was billed for hundreds of orders.
Interviewer: Why do you run elo-boosting.com, what kind of money do you earn?
Owner: I run elo-boosting to vilify Riot for their disastrous acquisition of Tencent, which has sent Riot into a downward spiral in its attitude toward eSports and especially about balancing its game.
I would probably still be a streamer / YouTuber and an avid League of Legends player if they hadn’t done so badly with my favorite game of all time.
I was a step away from earning about 50,000 annually, but now, because of the lack of time when I work full-time, I probably estimate around 20,000 per year.
What sort of split do servise take from your boosters?
I take 20% on all elo boost orders.
You have some bizarre marketing videos, as shown below. How well do they work for you?
Not as good as the impressions I get from a simple tweet of memes and tweets about current events in the League of Legends community, but still well worth $5-10 per video.
What do you think about pumping in general, do you believe that this is creating problems with the elo, are developers like Riot serious enough and should they try to stop it? Do you care?
People complain about me playing against boosters and stuff, but every time I played against people who obviously did elo boost, I was just trying to learn as much as possible from how they played the game and also took me to a new level of tryhard in an attempt to break up their winrate.
I’m a really competitive person, so I’ve always seen it as a challenge. Should Riot even be trying to do something about it? No, there is no way to deal with booms because of the way they are conducted nowadays.
What do you think about this? Have you ever had any problems with your boosters / customers?
It’s actually impossible to get a ban for boo when boosters are doing it right, I mean, God, even Brofresco, the YouTuber, got a boom and wasn’t banned for that.
In the whole history of elo-boosting, I have only had one client banned and that is because he removed a booster from his account many times while the booster was in games so it was just very careless and rude on the part of the customer as well as easily detected by Riot due to an IP address changing over and over again.
