Riot penalizes 296,416 accounts for boosting in VALORANT and League of Legends

Between a ranked VALORANT match in the middle of the night, no one sees the face of the person sitting in front of the screen. Only the oddly precise aim, the movement rhythm unlike an average Silver player. Days later, that account climbs in one stretch, leaving behind former teammates struggling. The community calls this phenomenon by a familiar name: boosting. Riot Games, the owner of VALORANT, has just sent a clear message that it is ready to act. Boosting is when a highly skilled player logs into someone else's account to climb ranked for them in exchange for money or other illicit benefits. In a recent announcement, Riot Games said its anti-boosting system, called Anti-Boost, detected 296,416 accounts with rank-manipulating behavior across both VALORANT and League of Legends, from late last year until now. This figure includes many forms of violations: hiring others to climb, buying, selling or transferring accounts, intentional deranking, and climbing with the help of smurf accounts operated by skilled players. Riot emphasized an important boundary: alt accounts created and operated by the players themselves are normal activity. Anti-Boost does not target multi-account ownership; it targets the intent to manipulate ranked results. According to the publisher, the process is designed in four tiers. At the first level, when cheating is detected, the system cancels ranked points and rewards earned from that behavior, and returns the account to its pre-violation rank. The account is also temporarily suspended. If repeated, ban duration escalates. For more severe cases such as buying, selling, transferring accounts or intentional deranking for profit, Riot can issue a permanent ban. Beyond the violating account, the system also targets the booster's main account, along with accounts that frequently play with them. This is a joint-liability approach aimed at cutting off the support network for boosting. Anti-Boost is not a new tool. Riot has developed it for a long time and updates it constantly. Instead of relying only on player reports, Anti-Boost uses behavioral data to detect anomalies in movement, reaction time and match history. Determining manipulative intent is based on a combination of signals, not a single action. From my years following Riot's operational policies, the strongest point of Anti-Boost is its intent-based determination. Rather than issuing blanket bans on all alt accounts, Riot chooses to decode the purpose of use. This approach both protects players who create alt accounts for legitimate practice and cracks down on those who exploit the system for profit. Penalties are clearly scaled, from restoration to permanent bans, creating a measurable deterrent. A rank earned through skill is the only thing that cannot be hacked. Riot is trying to protect that value. But the joint-liability policy is a double-edged sword. The clause targeting those who frequently play with a booster can sweep in innocent players who unknowingly queued with one. A close friend often invites you into a party, but is actually making money from paid boosting — the other person could be wrongly punished without any clear appeal mechanism mentioned. This is one of the system's biggest blind spots. Moreover, the 296,416 account figure is self-reported by Riot, not independently audited. It reflects the scale of enforcement but does not prove a tightening trend, since there is no prior-period data for comparison. The community should treat the figure as a signal, not as complete evidence of long-term effectiveness. In the underground economy of rank, trust is the first currency to collapse. In Vietnam, boosting is not unfamiliar. Many young players still spend money to climb ranks, even though they lack the skill to hold that rank. Riot's move is therefore expected to affect the domestic gaming market, although no region-specific data has been provided. Riot says it will continue expanding Anti-Boost and developing methods to detect boosting signs within individual matches. That means this fight will not stop. But without a transparent process for handling appeals, the backlash from wrongly punished players could overshadow all cleanup efforts. Will Riot have the courage to disclose each wrongful case, or will it stop at polished numbers on a press release? The answer will shape millions of players' trust in ranked fairness. Sometimes the scariest silence is not when a system fails, but when no one trusts it enough to question it.