The Fortnite World Cup is currently underway and the stakes are high. The competition is open to all and the prizes on offer are big, with each player who qualifies for the finals walking away with a minimum of $50,000 and the total prize pool running into millions of dollars.

With a large amount of money on offer and limited barriers to entry, it’s sadly almost inevitable that some players will use every trick in the book to try and beat the competition. Luckily for those who play by the rules, Epic are on top of it, having dished out numerous penalties to cheaters. These include revoking the prize money of over 200 players, who have been found to be breaking the tournament rules or Fortnite code of conduct and terms of service.

In a statement on their website, the Fortnite team emphasis the monitoring that is done, and the actions taken against players who try to bend or break the rules. All tournament players are subject to being vetted to ensure fair play, and players who suspect cheating are being encouraged to report it. Those found to be playing unfairly, are quickly disqualified and penalized.

Related: How To Qualify For This Summer's Fortnite World Cup - And How Much Is Up For Grabs

As well as highlighting the measures they have taken to detect cheats, Epic also shared some statistics about what they call “integrity actions taken” during the tournament’s first week. They make for quite eye opening reading, and no doubt Epic hope to use this information to show that cheating doesn’t pay.

via techradar.com

Competing in multiple regions is firmly against the tournament rules and 1163 accounts were banned from competitive play for 14 days for circumventing region locks in order to do this. These bans include 196 prize winners, who will have their prizes forfeited.

Account sharing is also prohibited and 48 accounts were banned for 14 days for this offence, including 9 prize winners who will lose their winnings.

A further 8 accounts were banned for teaming, the practice of teaming up with others during solo competitive play, with 1 winner losing their prize for the offense.

Finally 1 account was permanently banned less than 5 minutes into the tournament for using cheat software while another was banned for 72 hours for intentionally disconnecting to avoid giving points to another competitor.

Epic also remind players that competing on alternative accounts to circumvent a ban will result in being permanently excluded from competitive play.

The Fortnite world cup is currently underway and is running until June 16th.