If it is so easy to become a guru, then the rules for becoming a guru need to be improved.
I also do not think that a majority of gurus need to get involved. BGA could restrict cheat reporting to Arena games and make it possible only for Premium players (this will make false accusations from multiple accounts a lot harder) to limit the number of cheat reports coming in. Then it could be possible to have enough people volunteering for cheat policing in each game (at least for the mid- to high-popular games). This can still be a minority of gurus. And if cheaters are gurus themselves, it should usually become obvious to the other gurus after a while.
Maybe this is not the optimal solution. But it is something that could be applied to all games and would certainly improve the current situation of effectively no cheat policing.
I also want to point out that having a dedicated group of volunteer experts caring for the integrity of a competition is the usual way how niche competitions are done. Take speedrunning for instance. They are making use of technical tools but still there need to be dedicated experts of the games doing the job. Maybe BGA should look at or contact speedrunning communities and see how they manage their leaderboards. I'd say there is something to be learned and there are quite some similaritiers between competetive speedruning and competetive online boardgaming:
** There is usually only a small but dedicated group of people actively competing each other.
** There are very popular games and categories and very niche ones.
** There is not really money to be earned, people participate for fun and honor.
** It is an ever-growing field of games and growing popularity.
If speedrunning communities can largely manage to keep their competition clean, why shouldn't boardgaming communities also be able to?
I also do not think that a majority of gurus need to get involved. BGA could restrict cheat reporting to Arena games and make it possible only for Premium players (this will make false accusations from multiple accounts a lot harder) to limit the number of cheat reports coming in. Then it could be possible to have enough people volunteering for cheat policing in each game (at least for the mid- to high-popular games). This can still be a minority of gurus. And if cheaters are gurus themselves, it should usually become obvious to the other gurus after a while.
Maybe this is not the optimal solution. But it is something that could be applied to all games and would certainly improve the current situation of effectively no cheat policing.
I also want to point out that having a dedicated group of volunteer experts caring for the integrity of a competition is the usual way how niche competitions are done. Take speedrunning for instance. They are making use of technical tools but still there need to be dedicated experts of the games doing the job. Maybe BGA should look at or contact speedrunning communities and see how they manage their leaderboards. I'd say there is something to be learned and there are quite some similaritiers between competetive speedruning and competetive online boardgaming:
** There is usually only a small but dedicated group of people actively competing each other.
** There are very popular games and categories and very niche ones.
** There is not really money to be earned, people participate for fun and honor.
** It is an ever-growing field of games and growing popularity.
If speedrunning communities can largely manage to keep their competition clean, why shouldn't boardgaming communities also be able to?