·event MAJOR
World War Bee 1 - The Casino War
Image: razorieneve / Razor Alliance · Used under fair use - community battle archive (Razor Alliance Flickr)
The Money Badger Coalition (funded by EVE casino sites) drove the Imperium out of Deklein and the entire north of nullsec; the Imperium relocated to Delve, where they remain.
World War Bee 1 - The Casino War
Background
The Imperium (Goonswarm-led nullsec superpower) had dominated the late-2010s nullsec era. In late 2015, an unexpected funding stream emerged: real-world online casinos - IWantISK and Lenny Kravitz2 chief among them - were accumulating massive ISK reserves from gambling capsuleers. The Money Badger Coalition (PL, NCdot, TEST, Pandemic Horde, Mercenary Coalition + allies) coalesced around that ISK supply, ready to bankroll an offensive against the Imperium.
The engagement
A multi-month campaign across the second half of 2015 -> mid-2016, fought across Tribute, Vale of the Silent, Pure Blind, Branch, Tenal, and Fountain.
The decisive moment came at the Battle of M-OEE8 on 28 March 2016. Imperium ally Circle-of-Two (CO2) defected mid-battle, joining the Money Badger Coalition. Eyewitnesses called it "the biggest backstab in EVE history." 5,806 unique pilots across the constellation, 3,436 in J-GAMP at peak, ~460 billion ISK destroyed in the first night alone - CCP's only published numeric for the war.
Within months, the Imperium retreated from northern nullsec to Saranen lowsec, then to Delve. The Tribute Keepstar fell in M-OEE8 on 10 December 2016 during the post-war coda - the first fully-armed Keepstar ever destroyed in EVE Online.
Decisive moment
This was not a "doctrine war." The decisive variable was political - CO2's mid-battle defection - combined with the casino-funded ISK supply. Rented mercenaries, supercaps paid for with real-world casino bankrolls, and a single coordinated betrayal turned a contested-sov campaign into a strategic loss for the Imperium.
The Saranen siege and the morale war
The bleakest stretch of the war did not look like a battle. With the north given up, the Imperium walled itself into Saranen, an uncapturable lowsec staging system, and lived there under daily siege - camped, shedding members by the thousand, watching its home region of Deklein come apart behind it. It was the kind of low point that breaks coalitions, and The Mittani met it the way he had built his reputation on: morale warfare. In his fireside address of June 2016 he mocked the enemies he said were "drinking their Kool-aid that we are dead and gone," and he turned the Imperium's steady loss of structures into scheduled entertainment. Each night at 0200 the coalition onlined a fresh bait Citadel on the Saranen station grid - the "Baitadel" - and dared the rest of the game to come and kill it. "We expect all of EVE to turn up to blow it up," he told the broadcast, promising to repeat the ritual the next day, and the next, and the next. It was bravado laid over a real defeat. For all the showmanship the Imperium did not hold the north, and within months it relocated for good to Delve.
Aftermath
CCP banned in-game gambling in October 2016, with account confiscations from IWantISK and Lenny Kravitz2 operators. The casino era ended.
The Imperium retreated to Delve, regrouped, and four years later launched WWB2 in 2020 as the avenging-rematch. The Casino War sets up the entire late-2010s political arc.
Returning player note
If you left between B-R5RB (2014) and the late 2010s, this is the biggest political event of your absence. The Imperium losing its northern home to a casino-funded coalition is the mid-2010s nullsec story.
The policy fallout - CCP banning in-game gambling - ended an entire industry.
Battle stats
Money Badger Coalition held the field- System
- M-OEE8 · Tribute
- Sides
-
Pandemic Legion
Anchor
On side: Money Badger Coalition (PL, NCdot, TEST, Pandemic Horde + allies)
Northern Coalition.
Partner
On side: Money Badger Coalition (PL, NCdot, TEST, Pandemic Horde + allies)
Test Alliance Please Ignore
Partner
On side: Money Badger Coalition (PL, NCdot, TEST, Pandemic Horde + allies)
Pandemic Horde
Partner
On side: Money Badger Coalition (PL, NCdot, TEST, Pandemic Horde + allies)
Goonswarm Federation
Anchor
On side: The Imperium (Goonswarm Federation + Circle-of-Two until defection + allies)
The Initiative.
Partner
On side: The Imperium (Goonswarm Federation + Circle-of-Two until defection + allies)
Circle-Of-Two
Partner
On side: The Imperium (Goonswarm Federation + Circle-of-Two until defection + allies)
- Decisive doctrine
- Political: Circle-of-Two mid-battle defection at M-OEE8 (28 March 2016) and casino-funded ISK supply. MBC Mach + Cerb + Cane vs Imperium Baltec Mega
What does “held the field” mean?
The badge marks the side that held the field at the end of this engagement — who was still on grid, who walked away with the objective on the day. It is not a verdict on the wider war or campaign, which often turned on logistics, attrition, or political fallout in the weeks after. The full strategic arc lives in the deep-dive above.
Caveats & contested numbers
Casino War (also called WWB1) was the campaign-scale war that ran from October 2015 into mid-2016. The numeric figures here anchor on the decisive Battle of M-OEE8 on 28 March 2016, which is the most-documented engagement in the campaign. No canonical cumulative ISK aggregate exists across CCP, INN, or EVENews24; the only firm figure is CCP ICN's "almost 460 billion ISK" for the M-OEE8 first night. Campaign-wide losses are universally described as "trillions of ISK" but never aggregated by any source into a single number. Per-side ship losses across the full campaign are likewise unaggregated.
Side sizes at M-OEE8: Den of Geek quotes ~2,000 MBC pilots vs ~1,200 Imperium pilots; CCP gives 5,806 unique pilots across the constellation and 3,436 in J-GAMP at peak. The Imperium narrative frame of "won the peace" through post-Delve recovery is contested, since the war itself was unambigously a loss for the Goonion. The Tribute Keepstar that fell in M-OEE8 in December 2016 was the first fully-armed Keepstar ever destroyed in EVE.
The ISK figure is left empty because no campaign-aggregate has ever been published with enough source agreement to corroborate. CCP ICN's 460 B M-OEE8 first-night figure is the only single source. Campaign-wide framing as "trillions of ISK" has no quantification across INN, EVENews24, TAGN, or Massively OP, and a magnitude hand-wave is not the same as a number. The figure may be added later if a corroborated total surfaces.
Context at this date
- Killmails
- - total ships destroyed game-wide that month, from CCP's killmail feed (aggregated by EVE Ref).
- PLEX
- - Jita market price of one PLEX (30 days of game time), in ISK.
- Maps
- - quarterly sovereignty / coalition / faction-warfare snapshots from verite.space (Verite Rendition).
Gallery
Sources
- INN: The End of War
- Massively OP: World War Bee update - Imperium shatters
- Boing Boing: Online casino bankrolls largest war in EVE
- EVE News 24: Remembering World War Bee
- INN - World War Bee Six-Month Summary
- EVE Universe - World War Bee end-of-era
- TAGN - Casino War coverage
- Battle photography - razorieneve / Razor Alliance
- r/Eve - Full text of The Mittani's fireside chat, 6-12-2016 (community transcript)
Related
-
Oct 2022
The Fall of TEST (2022): The Year a Nullsec Juggernaut Rotted on the Couch
-
Jul 2022
The Mittani Resigns from Goonswarm
-
Sep 2017
The Judge Heist - 1.5T ISK from Circle of Two
-
Oct 2016
Gambling Banned - The Ascension EULA Change
-
Aug 2014
SOMER Blink - RMT Scandal and Permaban
-
Jan 2014
Battle of B-R5RB