Playing Dirty: Research Reveals The Nationalities That Cheat The Most At Video Games
Many people use video game cheat codes to boost their chances of winning, but which nation is home to the world’s biggest cheaters? Uswitch did the research to find out, and it’s revealed Russia, Italy, Israel, Japan and Sweden are the top five countries where gamers cheat the most.
The World’s Biggest Gaming Cheaters
By analysing Google search volume data, Uswitch calculated how many people were actively seeking ‘cheat codes’, ‘cheats’ and cheat codes for specific games, in every country around the world, along with every state in the US.
The search volumes were then adjusted to account for each country’s population to create an index score, to make sure the data compared like for like. The results expose the top 20 countries most likely to cheat while playing video games.
The top 20 countries that cheat the most at video games (and the cheating index score):
| Position | Country | Index ranking score |
| 1 | Russia | 18.40 |
| 2 | Italy | 16.58 |
| 3 | Israel | 4.87 |
| 4 | Japan | 4.48 |
| 5 | Sweden | 4.03 |
| 6 | Romania | 3.13 |
| 7 | Portugal | 2.36 |
| 8 | Turkey | 2.34 |
| 9 | Brazil | 2.32 |
| 10 | Denmark | 2.28 |
| 11 | United States | 2.10 |
| 12 | Ireland | 2.00 |
| 13 | Argentina | 1.92 |
| 14 | Poland | 1.77 |
| 15 | Croatia | 1.52 |
| 16 | United Kingdom | 1.43 |
| 17 | New Zealand | 1.41 |
| 18 | Canada | 1.35 |
| 19 | Australia | 1.28 |
| 20 | Bulgaria | 1.13 |
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A
Half the countries in the top 20 are in Europe – Italy, Sweden, Romania, Portugal and Denmark all make the top 10, and gamers in the United Kingdom ranked as the 16th most notorious cheaters.
The US falls just outside of the top 10, in 11thposition. Close behind in 12th is Ireland, Canada comes in in 18th and Bulgaria rounds off the list in 20th position.
From Minecraft to Mario Kart – Which countries cheat the most at different games?
The study also looked into more than 50 of the world’s most popular video games to discover which country cheated the most at each game. Interestingly, Iceland features a massive 18 times – being found to cheat the most for a wide array of games, from the stealthy Assassin’s Creed series to beloved titles like Super Mario.
Malta clocks up eight appearances for games including the classic Resident Evil and Tomb Raider franchises, along with Borderlands and Crash Bandicoot. Turkey, Germany and Ireland all have three mentions and the UK appears twice, coming in as the biggest cheaters at Animal Crossing and LEGO Marvel Superheroes.
