Monarch, Duel and CSGOEmpire Suspended on X

Controversial Finnish entrepreneur Ossi “Monarch” Ketola has had his X account suspended, along with those for his two gambling businesses, CSGOEmpire and Duel. The bans came Wednesday morning, just as Ketola’s latest venture began rolling out games with near-zero house edge that threaten to undercut the entire crypto casino sector.

Monarch announced the suspensions on his Discord server, framing them as a coordinated “attack” on his businesses and suggesting that rivals in the crypto gambling space orchestrated the takedown. He urged his followers, who he occasionally describes as a “cult,” to carry on messaging for Duel on his behalf. As of Wednesday afternoon, all three accounts, @Monarch, @Duel, and @CSGOEmpire, displayed X’s standard suspension notice.

The timing is significant. Ketola claims the bans are due to Duel’s launch of games offering 99.9% to 100% return-to-player rates, a radical departure from the industry standard of 96% to 99%.

In his Discord statement, he positioned the move as economic warfare: “We are under attack. This came right after we released 100% RTP games on Duel, undercutting the entire gambling industry. We are a threat to their profits. Traditional crypto casinos WILL lose BILLIONS of dollars due to Duel, I promise you that much.”

During a Twitch stream addressing the situation, Ketola suggested that “someone spent a significant amount of money to get the accounts banned,” though he didn’t back up the claim with hard evidence. He vowed to continue operating regardless, stating that “the lion doesn’t mind the sickness” and that “Duel is going to continue working.”

Background on Monarch

Ketola is best known in poker circles for his high-stakes heads-up matches against elite players. In August 2025, he lost a record-breaking $15 million to Dan “Jungleman” Cates at the inaugural Onyx Super High Roller Series Cyprus, followed by a $2 million loss to Kayhan Mokri. Despite those setbacks, he won a $12.7 million pot against Bjorn Li in September, the largest televised poker hand in history.

But Ketola’s fame, or infamy, extends far beyond poker. He founded CSGOEmpire in 2016, a skin-betting platform that dominated the Counter-Strike gambling space and reportedly generated over $100 million annually for nine consecutive years.

His public persona has consistently courted controversy. Ketola regularly goes close to the line of taste and decency on social media, a practice that has drawn widespread condemnation from the poker community.

The Duel Casino Pitch

Monarch always claimed Duel was a middle finger to the established crypto casino hierarchy when it launched earlier this year. The platform markets itself as offering “the purest form of gambling” with unprecedented transparency. Duel’s proprietary games, including Dice, Blackjack, and Plinko, currently operate at 99.9% RTP, and the casino is rolling out 100% RTP house games now.

By comparison, major crypto casinos like Stake and Rollbit typically run games with 3% to 4% house edges. Even the smallest difference compounds dramatically over volume.

Industry Response and Speculation

Whether the X suspensions resulted from competitor pressure remains unclear. Ketola’s documented history of slurs and inflammatory language provides ample grounds for suspension under any interpretation of the platform’s rules. All it would have taken was somebody to collect them all together and file a report.

The poker media has begun to reckon with Ketola’s darker side. In September 2025, PokerScout published an opinion piece arguing that coverage had failed to adequately address his behavior, describing him as “a self-proclaimed cult leader who tweets racial slurs on the regular” while benefiting from the attention his massive bankroll brings to the game.

What Happens Next

Ketola’s immediate priority is getting the accounts reinstated. Without X’s massive reach, Duel loses its primary marketing channel at a critical growth phase. CSGOEmpire, meanwhile, has operated successfully for nearly a decade and maintains its own audience through direct traffic and community channels, but the ban will still hurt.

Is this a coordinated attack by threatened competitors? Or is the consequences of years of inflammatory behavior? That depends on who you ask. What’s certain is that Monarch’s 100% RTP casino experiment has rattled enough cages to draw a response.