Is 1v9.gg a scam? Lies and racism galore

Boosting in general is an up-and-coming industry. As more players start playing competitive games like Marvel Rivals and Valorant, the overall industry’s size also increases. After all, everyone wants to reach a high rank, right? Unfortunately, this also means more self-acclaimed “boosting service providers” also jump on the hype train, intending to profit off of the scene.

1v9.gg is one of those abovementioned boosting websites. While the website may look excellent on the surface, covering multiple top games and consistently having its articles rank well on Google, most customers likely don’t know what happens behind the scenes. With evidence of unfairly stealing content, having a potentially racist owner, and unprofessional behavior, some may want to tread carefully before purchasing 1v9’s services.

With a collection of researched facts based on evidence, here’s whether 1v9.gg is a scam.

What is 1v9.gg?

Before anything, it’s important to clarify what exactly 1v9.gg is to ensure everyone’s on the same page. 1v9 is a gaming platform co-founded in June 2023 by Jelle Toonen, a Swedish full-stack developer ^[1]. Not much is known about Jelle aside from the fact that he developed the 1v9.gg website and has been in the website-creating business since 2017. 

The second owner is the individual known as Riot Kassadin. While he prefers to stay anonymous, ensuring not much is known about him, Riot Kassadin has an extremely large following, especially on X. As a matter of fact, most of 1v9’s initial members were Kassadin’s followers.

1v9 provides services for a variety of different games, including Valorant, Marvel Rivals, and Honkai: Star Rail ^[2]. These services include boosting, providing teammates, coaching, and selling and buying accounts. There are also game-specific services like buying gems in Clash of Clans or coins in FC 25.

The website has a fairly strong presence on social media. With accounts on X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. However, it’s unknown how many followers are organic and how many were funneled from Kassadin’s following.

Known controversies

Now that everyone’s on the same page regarding what 1v9.gg is, it’s time to highlight some of the most troubling controversies the website has fallen into. While the owners are fairly good good in sweeping issues under the rug, mostly thanks to giveaways and promises of boosting jobs, some inevitably slip through the cracks.

1v9 casually accepts racism and hate speech

Starting with the most troubling thing is how accepting 1v9 is of hate speech and individuals who apparently joke about it. A small trigger warning: the below image mentions extreme racism and hate speech.

The above screenshot is of a GIF someone sent in the official 1v9 Discord server. One look at it would make most think that the person saying the hateful things is actually Riot Kassadin, the owner of 1v9. However, upon further inspection, there’s a chance the gif may just be photoshopped.

While having something like this done by a random individual is understandable, especially since the owners can’t control what strangers send on the server, that isn’t the case here. As a matter of fact, the GIF was sent by one of the starting members of 1v9 who has been around since 2023 and seems to be close friends with both the owners. The user also has 1v9 in their username, suggesting they may be more than just a regular member of the Discord server.

Instead of tackling such hateful speech and the casual usage of slurs, the GIF was simply deleted to pretend it never happened. The Discord server member who sent the gif, model1v9, is still in the Discord server and didn’t face any known consequences or repercussions. Most server owners would have kicked members from their servers for less.

Stealing complete articles isn’t okay

Now, it’s very likely that a lot of people may have discovered 1v9 through the many articles it has on its blog post. However, what they likely don’t know is that a majority of those articles are stolen by other websites. 

Take Eloking.com’s Top 10 best mods for Marvel Rivals as an example. Not only did 1v9 completely steal the article and upload it using AI to paraphrase things, but the images are completely botched, suggesting the writer likely didn’t care enough to resize them. This leads to the conclusion that 1v9 is more interested in mass-producing articles using AI than writing high-quality content that actually helps players.

One look at 1v9’s article will make it clear it’s stolen. Not only are the entries exactly the same, but the content is the same but paraphrased. The last entry, which is the Magik to Sora from Kingdom Hearts mod, is an unpopular mod that our writer personally loves and uses, and 1v9 placing it in the same number 1 spot is no mere coincidence.

Taking a look at the article’s dates, Eloking’s article was uploaded on January 9, 2025. On the other hand, 1v9’s article was uploaded on January 15 of the same year, which means the website stole the content in less than a week and ran with it.

Exposing user reviews

1v9.gg’s reviews on TrustPilot ^[3] are fairly strong. Having a 4.6 out of 5 on a website like that is extremely good, especially when you consider 92% of reviews are perfect 5-star reviews. However, one look at the one-star reviews will reveal that most of these reviews may be false or heavily exaggerated.

According to user luverflex:

The website is glitchy and getting a refund is almost to near impossible with QUICKEVE and their staff. As much as I want this company to succeed, their deceptive tactics and lack of communication makes this site not even worth using. They will also insist you on putting a good review so do not listen to some of these five star ratings.

After considering this review, taking a closer look at the other positive 5-star reviews makes people think twice about their legitimacy. Take the review in the screenshot below, for example.

Seeing how 1v9 is the website’s name and is already known for using AI in articles, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the website uses AI to write reviews. No genuine reviewer unironically writes 1v9 like this.

Do you want a refund? Tough luck

Another thing in common in all the negative reviews is that they talk about 1v9’s reluctance to give proper refunds. While there are a lot of customer talking about the website straight-up ignoring customers who want reviews, we want to take a closer look at user luverflex’s review. The second part of his review says:

They will also give you in-store credit instead of directly refunding your money. QUICKEVE said I would get my money back in 3-5 days, but no email confirmation or receipt has been given.

It’s known that boosting websites can’t ever guarantee a 100% win rate. Every top website, may it be Eloking or any other, has a flexible refund policy to ensure customers aren’t unfairly swindled out of their money. 1v9 not having one speaks of its unprofessionalism behavior.

Is 1v9 legit or a scam?

All in all, what’s the conclusion? While 1v9 isn’t a scam in the traditional sense, there are a couple of things you must keep in mind before giving your money to the website. Buying services from 1v9.gg is akin to gambling, as you could either get good service or an extremely painful experience.

Of course, there’s also the moral point of view to consider. Before buying any service from the website, you should first ask yourself if you really want to buy a boost or account from a website that uses AI to steal the articles others work hard to write. Are you okay with giving money to people who let clearly racist people make gifs targeted toward ongoing real-world issues?

References

1. [1] "1v9 co-founder Linkedin". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved February 11, 2025
2. [2] "official Honkai: Star Rail website". hsr.hoyoverse.com. Retrieved February 11, 2025
3. [3] "1v9 Trustpilot". www.trustpilot.com. Retrieved February 11, 2025