We have just reported before that at the 2025 Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) e-sports event, the organizer of a Thai female e-sports player who was caught and disqualified after hiring someone to compete on her behalf said at that time that they would launch legal action against her. Just a few days ago, the Pathumwan District Court in Bangkok, Thailand, ruled on March 17, 2026 that the 29-year-old Thai female player Naphat “Tokyogurl” Warasin and her 23-year-old boyfriend Chaiyo “Cheerio” were sentenced to three months’ detention instead of traditional imprisonment for cheating in the women’s semi-finals of “Arena of Valor”.
Thai female e-sports player cheated during the Southeast Asian Games and was sentenced to three months in prison together with her boyfriend
The cheating incident occurred on December 15, 2025, at the women’s semi-finals of the Southeast Asian Games “Legend Showdown”. According to details disclosed by the Thai police investigation and the court, Tokyogurl gave his account and password to Cheerio who was on standby remotely during the game. The latter watched the game simultaneously through the Discord platform and performed actual operations under Tokyogurl’s account.
This method is called “ghosting” in the field of e-sports, and it is one of the common types of cheating in online competitions. By handing over account control to a more skilled third party, players gain an unfair competitive advantage without physically leaving the game. Compared with the script cheating that was common in computer games in the past, proxy playing is more difficult to detect immediately because the operation does come from the account of the real account holder, but the actual controller is someone else.
After the cheating occurred, Thailand’s e-sports authorities immediately launched an internal investigation. On February 4, 2026, about seven weeks after the incident, Tokyoogurl and Cheerio were formally arrested by the Thai police. Investigators obtained a number of key pieces of evidence during the investigation, including the IP address records of both parties involved, the technical characteristics of the login devices, and relevant conversation records via Discord.
These digital footprints became the core basis for court convictions. Prosecutors argued that cross-referencing IP addresses with account login times during the competition could clearly prove that Cheerio performed account operations from a remote location during the Tokyogurl competition. Although the defense did not deny the relevant technical facts, it emphasized that the two were in a relationship at the time, and the account sharing may have been motivated by private trust rather than deliberately deceiving the competition unit.
However, the court ultimately did not adopt this defense. According to the relevant provisions of Thailand’s Computer Crime Act, the act of logging into the system with another person’s account without authorization constitutes an independent criminal offence. The court specifically pointed out in the ruling that the cheating behavior “severely damaged the country’s reputation and the credibility of the e-sports selection system”, indicating that the judicial authorities regarded the case as harming Thailand’s international image.
Legal price: reduced sentence and detention system in exchange for guilty plea
The Pathumwan District Court initially sentenced both defendants to six months in prison each. However, the defendant chose to plead guilty during the trial. According to relevant provisions of Thailand’s criminal law, guilty pleas can be treated as half of the statutory sentence. Therefore, the final sentences of each of the two were reduced to three months. More importantly, Thailand’s judicial system allows prisoners with sentences of less than three months to choose to serve their sentences in detention centers instead of traditional prisons, as long as they pay a bail.
Tokyogurl and Cheerio have each paid bail of 24,000 baht (approximately US$670 to US$740) and are waiting for the appeal process to start. Legal observers pointed out that since both of them have no previous convictions and have pleaded guilty, if the appeals court upholds the original verdict, there is a high probability that they will still approve the application to use a detention center instead of prison, and the possibility of actually serving prison sentences is not high.
However, penalties other than criminal penalties may be more severe. The Thailand Esports Federation (Thailand Esports Federation) has officially announced a lifetime ban on the two men, which means they will never be able to participate as players in any esports events recognized by the federation. In addition, Tokyoogurl’s professional e-sports team TALON also quickly terminated her contract after the incident. Overnight, this player, who was once regarded as the hope of Thailand’s new generation of e-sports, lost almost everything in his career.
follow-up effects
After the scandal broke out, the Thai e-sports circle fell into extensive discussion and reflection. Many senior e-sports practitioners expressed their opinions on social media. Most people condemned cheating, but some also pointed out that the entire industry still has shortcomings in player psychological counseling, professional ethics education and competition system design. A coach of a Thai e-sports team who did not want to be named revealed that professional e-sports players are under far more performance pressure than outsiders imagine: “Medals in large-scale sports events not only represent personal honors, but are also related to national subsidies, team resources, and the rise and fall of personal brands. When the costs of victory and failure are over-magnified, some players may take desperate risks.”
After the incident, the Thai E-Sports Federation announced that it would review the player qualification review mechanism and discuss introducing stricter account verification procedures in future events. It is understood that the association is considering implementing a two-factor authentication mechanism in important competitions, requiring players to bind their accounts with biometrics (such as facial recognition) for verification before the start of the competition to eliminate the possibility of proxy playing. As of now, the appeal process between Tokyoogurl and Cheerio is still ongoing. It is widely expected that the outcome of the appeal will be announced within weeks to months.
Source: KOCPC Chinese