Account Penalties and Enforcement FAQ

Answers to some commonly asked player questions about account penalties and enforcement.
Dev
just a capybara, Riot Phroxzon

Over the past few weeks we’ve seen a lot of discussion and questions asking for more clarification around how we’ll be implementing penalties in cases of rank manipulation, having multiple accounts, etc. In an effort to help clear up some ambiguity we’re spinning up this FAQ with the goal of addressing a good amount of your questions.

Quick disclaimer: many situations can be unique and have extenuating circumstances, so it’s quite literally impossible for us to address every single possible scenario, but we’ll do our best to broadly answer as many of your questions as possible.

Timing

  • When will bans for purchased and botted accounts go into effect?
    • As of September 9, 2025 (Patch 25.18), and we have also begun to penalize for this behavior dating as far back as our detection systems will allow us.
  • When will punishments for account sharing go into effect?
    • September 9, 2025 (Patch 25.18), and we will also penalize for this behavior in 2025 and onwards.
  • When will bans for smurfing (namely boosting and hitchhiking) officially start?
    • Penalties have started rolling out for individual accounts in waves on patch 25.18 for behavior in 2025 and onwards.
  • When will account and penalty linking go into effect?
    • Penalty linking will go into effect November 19, 2025 (Patch 25.23) and onwards.

Definitions

  • Intentional Deranking: Playing below a player’s actual skill level in order to lose games or perform worse to decrease an account’s MMR and rank.
  • Hitchhiking: Queuing up with another account—typically a booster—in order to get carried to a higher ranked division.
  • Boosting: A form of ranked manipulation, this is queuing up on an account that is not their own to inflate said account’s MMR. This can also include a booster duo queuing with someone on a smurf account to inflate the boostee’s account MMR.
  • Ranked Manipulation: Inclusive of boosting, this also can involve grouping up in Flex queue and intentionally losing games to reduce rank/MMR, or using one of these deranked accounts to queue with another account to artificially push it up the ladder.
  • Purchased and Botted Accounts: An explicit violation of our terms of service, any account not leveled and used by a single player falls under this category.
  • Account Sharing: Giving or selling an account for use by another individual that is not the original creator. Alternatively, using an account created by another individual.
  • Account Linking: Linking multiple accounts together in cases where we are extremely certain they are all being used by the same individual. 
  • Penalty Linking: Sharing penalties between linked accounts in order to prevent a user from avoiding repercussions for their actions.
  • Bans, Suspensions, and Restrictions: "Ban" and "suspension" can be used interchangeably to describe a penalty where you're unable to access your account for a set period of time. "Restrictions," on the other hand, are time-based limitations placed upon your account for earlier or smaller infractions.

Account and Penalty Linking

  • Which penalties are linked across accounts vs which are account specific?
    • All penalties (queue delays, account suspensions, account bans, chat restrictions, etc.) will be linked across all accounts that we are confident are yours.
  • Will my accounts that I’ve owned for years but are purchased or botted be banned if I’ve been well behaved?
    • This one’s a bit tricky. If you bought the account a long time ago and it’s your new main and you’ve demonstrated good behavior you will likely be fine. If you own several accounts and rotate through them all consistently you’re more likely to get banned. For example, if you spend time across all five equally, all will probably be banned as this will be based on % time spent on accounts.
  • As a note, KR already uses a unique identification system to verify each player when signing up for a new account and, as a result, will follow their local policies when it comes to account linking.

Smurfing, Boosting, and Ranked Manipulation

  • Will smurfing bans be done automatically or by manual review?
    • We’ll be automatically banning accounts that meet the strict parameters that we have an extremely high level of confidence in.
  • What can I do if I believe I was falsely banned?
    • We have a very high level of confidence in our parameters that result in bans and we continually evaluate error rates so we expect these cases to be incredibly rare. That said, if you believe you received an incorrect punishment please submit a ticket to our Player Support team so that we can take a look.
  • What’s the range of rank difference that officially qualifies an account as being boosted?
    • Our system actually doesn’t take visual ranks into account at all and purely looks at the MMR of the account. If we detect that there are major, unusual MMR changes over a short period of time we would define that as boosting and/or Ranked manipulation. It's very obvious to us when an account that has a Silver rank suddenly has Master level MMR; that’s pretty clearly incorrect. Make sure to check out the formal definitions on our Player Support page as well.
  • Are Iron to Challenger accounts against ToS now?
    • This is technically still allowed as long as you are legitimately placed in Iron (aka you skill level when trying your fullest) and you make the climb from there. If you are found to be engaging in ranked manipulation to place in a rank below your true skill level, that will be flagged and the account will be banned.
  • Can my Challenger friend duo with me on an alt so I can learn?
    • Not in Ranked because that would be boosting, but you’re welcome to play in normal Summoner’s Rift queues or other game modes. We understand that this might not be what some friends who play together want, but to the rest of the players in the lobby it’s simply not fair and ruins their Ranked experience.
  • Are streamers and pros going to be given exceptions?
    • We won’t be allowing exceptions, so if they create a smurf account or engage in Ranked manipulation we’ll penalize their accounts just like any other player. That said, we will give them practice accounts with their main accounts’ MMR so they can do things like play in another region for content or practice for international tournaments without having to spend their time climbing.
  • How are you punishing smurfing and boosting?
    • Our penalties are as follows, for both the account being boosted and the player boosting that account:
      • First offense: 3 day ban
      • Second offense: 14 day ban
      • Third offense: Permanent ban 
    • 6 Month Account Suspension when duoing with confirmed scripter
    • Your Honor will drop to level 1 or 2 and will stay there until you have played a defined number of games without further penalties. 
    • Exclusion from receiving the current season's Ranked Rewards (and revocation of a season’s Ranked Rewards, if already received).
    • All LP and MMR gains from the boosting are reverted

Account Sharing

  • I play League in an internet cafe / PC bang / on a shared household computer, will my account be linked to other accounts used on the same computer?
    • No, we’re not just flagging accounts that share the same IP addresses. We have additional methods that inform whether we know someone is account sharing or not. Checking one box is not enough for us, so we check multiple to be confident in that decision.  
  • How often will I have needed to share my account to trigger a ban?
    • If you want to keep your account in the clear you shouldn’t share it because that goes against our ToS, but if you just shared it for a single normal game or a game of TFT we likely won’t punish you for that. If you shared it in a way that we can correlate to boosting or Ranked manipulation then we’ll start by suspending the account, removing the boosting benefits, and any associated Ranked Rewards, regardless of how frequently it was shared.
  • If I let a friend play on my account a few years ago will my account be banned?
    • Depending on whether or not Ranked manipulation occurred while sharing your account then we may or may not enforce our ToS with a suspension.
  • What if I shared my account with my little sister/brother/friend, but now we both have our own?
    • Similar to the above, as long as you both aren’t playing Ranked on each other’s accounts and engaging in Ranked manipulation then you’re most likely fine.
  • What will happen if I use my friend’s account as an alt?
    • If you used it to boost or manipulate their rank, then the account will likely be flagged for Ranked manipulation and banned. If you’ve only used it to play Normals, Game Modes, or TFT, then you’ll most likely be fine.
  • What will happen if my friend gave me their old account and it's my new main now?
    • This one is a bit trickier. If their MMR was significantly lower than yours and you increased the MMR drastically within the past year, then there’s a good chance you will be flagged for Ranked manipulation. Sharing and selling accounts is against our ToS and if it gets flagged and detected for "Ranked manipulation," we will stand by the penalties (and any future detection and penalties) because it was technically a "shared" account.

Purchased and Botted Accounts

  • To what extent does having ever purchased an account matter?
    • Selling and buying accounts is against our ToS so we will almost certainly ban that account, but your legitimate accounts won’t be penalized. If this happens AFTER we roll out our account and penalty linking changes then all of your accounts could be banned, so don’t buy accounts. This is your final warning.
  • Will my main account get banned if I ever used a purchased or botted account?
    • No, just because you purchased or used a botted account a few times doesn’t mean that your main account will get banned. That said, if we detect that you’re a frequent user of a purchased/botted account you are more likely to receive a penalty.
  • Will my main account be banned if I purchased another account years ago but don’t use it anymore?
    • No, if you bought an account years back it could be banned, but your main account should be fine unless you’re a frequent user of purchased/botted accounts.
  • Will all botted accounts be banned or only if they were botted in the past few years?
    • Our goal is to ban all botted accounts that are being purchased or sold going forward. We’ll be making some exceptions for players that have purchased accounts in the past that are now their mains and have been in good standing however.
  • I bought an account 10 years ago and it’s now my main. Does this mean that I'll lose my account?
    • No, you won't lose your account. We understand that many players who are in good standing have, at one point in time, purchased or shared an account that over time became their main account. In those cases, we don’t want to punish those players for breaking our ToS a long time ago while respecting our rules since then. If a player has multiple purchased or shared accounts that they have been active on in the past year, we will be less understanding of those choices and may ban all of that player's purchased or shared accounts.
  • I have a hand leveled account from a few years ago, will I get banned for using it?
    • If you, yourself personally leveled your account and it has not been shared or sold then you are likely in compliance with our ToS so you’re in the clear so you’re more than welcome to keep using them.
  • I bought an account to play on when I used to live in another country and played on another server. Will that account get banned?
    • If it's detected as botted or shared, it's possible that it will be banned. 

Boosting

  • I’m in good standing but a few years back I got my main account boosted, regretted it, and haven’t done it since. Will I still get banned?
    • No, if it only happened a single time a while back and you’ve been in good standing since we most likely won’t act on your account. 
  • Is there any way you’re able to detect boosters and punish their accounts?
    • Yes, our goal is to get boosting out of League completely and we have a very thorough system for detecting these accounts with high accuracy. 

Legitimate Alt Accounts

  • Can I have more than one account, for example one for each role?
    • Yes, as long as you do your placements to the best of your ability, haven’t purchased it, created it yourself, level it yourself, don’t share it, and don’t engage in Ranked manipulation.
  • What if I have a second, hand-leveled account close to my main’s rank to play with friends?
    • You're fine as long as you aren’t de-ranking to play with your friends in Ranked on your alt account and only play Ranked with them when you are both eligible to queue together naturally.
  • I’m Diamond, but I have a hand leveled alt account to play ARAM with my low MMR friends. Will that account get banned?
    • No, because ARAM MMR is different from your Ranked MMR, so you could have even continued to play on the same account with no impacts to your friend's lobby.
  • If I’m a Masters player and create a new, legitimate alt account but get placed in gold while doing my best would that be considered smurfing?
    • No, if you legitimately tried your best in your placements and got placed in gold then that mistake is on us. That said, if you are a high MMR player and get placed significantly below where you think you should be please reach out to our Player Support team so we can look into it and assist you.

Reporting

  • How do I report someone for smurfing or having a bought account?
    • If you believe this to be the case for someone that was in one of your games please report them using the Ranked Manipulation category.
  • Would you consider bringing back the Tribunal so other players could decide what happens to an account?
    • Not at the moment. The Tribunal had its own issues that we still don’t have solutions for, namely it’s not scalable for the hundreds of thousands of accounts we act on. Additionally, our goal is to make League a better experience for honest players, not naming and shaming players that violate our ToS.