Drug Test For Gamers?

The Electronic Sports League will start random drug testing at competitive reports following news that more than 10% of elite athletes are using PEDs

12:29 27 July 2015

The World Anti-Doping Agency has released a report saying that 10per cent of elite athletes could be using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). To address the problem, the Electronic Sports League (ESL) the largest eSports events company, is to begin random drug testing at competitive tournaments.

  

A few weeks ago, competitive player Kory Friesen admitted he had used the drug Adderall during a major competition in March.

 

ESL's Vice President of Progamming James Lampkin said that he has "known for some time" that they would "eventually have to be directly tackling performance enhancing drugs in e-sports".

 

He added: "We don't think the problem [of doping] is widespread but we suspect that once it came to light that some players were using it, and because there were no really strong enforcement mechanisms, that other players would begin to use drugs - so that's why we've began to move so quickly against the problem".

 

"As the industry has seen this massive growth over the past few years the stakes have increased quite substantially.

 

"The stakes are getting so high some players are looking for ways to get over the stress and look for ways of getting the edge in competitions".

 

"Five or six years ago some of these players might have only been playing for a few thousand dollars and getting PEDs may not have made sense.

 

"But in the last year or so because the prize pools have increased so dramatically into hundreds of thousands of dollars per event, with huge salaries coming on board, now we're looking at players really starting to look for that specific edge that could mean the difference in half a second of reaction time that could win them an event."