HLTV Top 20 Players of 2025 was most likely leaked. Website's user fanat1k_legenda_z investigated the accounts from the top of the leaderboards and discovered eight profiles that had identical lists that predicted placements from 19 to 7 with almost pinpoint accuracy.
These accounts also made the same "mistakes". They all put NertZ as the number 20 and swapped iM and Jimpphat. Most of the accounts have signs of being fake: no replies or topics, and late registration dates, including two profiles created on December 24 and 25, the last days before the vote was locked. They could all copy one person be someone's alternative account.
The only active user from this list is BayGoodHarbor with the Canadian flag. The investigator is sure that this person got insider info to get all the correct guesses and win prizes worth ~$1,000 - $2,000. He could also bet on a third-party website to win even more. In one of the recent threads, he asks other users about withdrawals from bookies.
HLTV Top 20 prizes:
- Bayonet | Gamma Doppler Phase 2 (Factory New)
- AK-47 | Fire Serpent (Field-Tested)
- Hand Wraps | Overprint (Field-Tested)
BayGoodHarbor denied the accusations. He claimed that the other accounts had stolen his picks. There would be no reason for him to create so many accounts with identical predictions. According to him, he was just very good with numbers and data, so he managed to guess the placements correctly. As a counterargument, HLTV users found his public prediction posts dated December 20, which were drastically different from the final version. Some positions were also too far on the initial list to be considered a result of later readjustment.
What are the odds of so many correct picks?
It's nearly impossible to deduce the system HLTV uses for their predictions. Most likely because it's not entirely number-based, as the editors repeatedly said on social media how they struggled to make some decisions.
As for lucky guesses, a single person can always score a bingo. However, eight people can't give the same exact predictions with that accuracy. They could've copied BayGoodHarbor's work, but there were numerous threads like his on HLTV. People often look for pick'ems and predictions on the web and it doesn't change the overall distribution. As of now, we have a massive gap: the eight leaders have 61 points on the leaderboard, two accounts have 57 and two have 56. The next one has 55.
The overall possibility of a leak seems very likely given the suspicious activity. Note that there were only 38k voters, so we aren't dealing with millions of users, some of which guessed a one-in-a-million chance. The gap between the leaders and the following best predictions also signals statistical anomaly.