Smurfing – Meaning, Origin and Usage

The word “smurfing” is known to have caused confusion at times. This is partly because it has nothing to do with The Smurfs, which are blue cartoon characters, and partly because the word has two different meanings.

That’s why we put together this article, to explain what these two meanings are and give you their origin story, along with explaining how the word is used through the use of examples. To make this article easier to understand, it’s split into two halves after this point, one for each meaning. And without further ado, let’s get straight to it!

Smurfing in Gaming

What does “smurfing” mean in gaming?

In gaming, a highly skilled player creates a new account, usually under a different (and deliberately misleading) name to play against people with less experience. This is usually done to inflate that account’s win rate and dominate games at the lower levels. It is also a way for the highly skilled player to play without the pressure that would generally be attributed to the smurf’s main account.

Smurfing generally has a negative impact on the experience of new players because it disrupts the balance of the game, making the game much harder than it should be for beginner players at the early stages of a game. For these reasons, smurfing in gaming is often seen as cheating because it’s so unfair for newcomers to the game playing for the first time.

Consequently, smurfing is generally frowned upon in many gaming communities. Some gaming services choose to take a hard stance on this - for example by issuing permanent account bans on identified smurfs. Meanwhile other gaming communities are more relaxed about it, simply just discouraging it rather than labelling it as illegal game play.

How did the word “smurfing” originate in gaming?

The word “smurfing” in gaming is relatively old, dating back to the year 1990, when it was first used in the online multiplayer game Warcraft II, when players with a high level of skill, who happened to be called “Papa Smurf” and “Smurfette” wanted to avoid recognition and hide their high level of skill from their opponents and compete against much lower-ranked opponents.

How you can use the word “smurfing” in gaming - featuring examples

Here are some simple examples of the word “smurfing” being used in gaming contexts:

• I need a break from playing like this. I think I’ll do a bit of smurfing instead, and take it easy.
• I’m gonna create a new account and do some smurfing, show the newbies what they’re really up against in this game.
• This guy keeps killing me. No-one’s supposed to be this good at this level. He must be smurfing me. I wish there was a way to stop smurfs doing this.

Smurfing in Finance

What does “smurfing” mean in finance?

In finance the word “smurfing” refers to a specific money laundering technique, which is used to avoid the detection of illegally obtained money by the authorities. It involves breaking a large sum of money down into much smaller sums and transactions.

This may involve, for example, deposits of this money into many different accounts, usually with differently named account holders. The people who hold these accounts are known as smurfs. This way, financial crimes can often go undetected by financial institutions because they don’t arouse suspicion, since the transactions are designed to always remain below the reporting thresholds (like $10,000 in the United States). This is an easy way for criminals to avoid any scrutiny from government agencies, and their anti-money laundering (AML) regulations.

Then, if an illegally obtained note is eventually identified by the law, it can be really hard to determine the true origin and nature of these funds. Having money deposited into lots of different accounts may seem fine on the surface, for example when a legally sound company pays many employees. However, it’s important to note at this point that smurfing is an illegal activity that can have serious consequences.

The term smurfing in finance may be linked to hiding the proceeds of various crimes, including the likes of drug trafficking, fraud, or tax evasion. Getting away with moving the funds around in this way means that more funds can then go into making even more money illegally.

How did the word “smurfing” originate in finance?

In the case of the word “smurfing” in finance, this does in fact come from the cartoon Smurfs, which first aired as far back as 1958. The Smurfs always broke down big projects into smaller tasks or actions for each individual. Money launderers saw an opportunity in doing this with illegally obtained money, using the analogy, to have lots of Smurf accounts, while keeping their underhand deeds wholly undetected.

How you can use the word “smurfing” in finance - featuring examples

Here are some examples of the words “smurf” and “smurfing” in a financial context:

• Pablo Escobar must have known everything there is to know about smurfing.
• Leave the money laundering to mean, I’ve got plenty of smurf accounts to set to receive deposits.

Final Word

So, to summarise, the word “smurfing” can mean different things in different contexts. In gaming, “smurfing” is when a highly skilled player creates a new account to boost their win rate. Meanwhile, in finance, the word “smurfing” describes a technique in the money laundering of illegally obtained money.

However, what these two meanings have in common is that in both circumstances “smurfing” is generally looked down upon because they both involve deceptive practices, and therefore can both be described as fraudulent schemes. Similarly, in both cases, “smurfing” and “smurf” are colloquial terms.

Crucially, the main difference between the two meanings is that while smurfing isn’t illegal in gaming (unless there’s an exception in esports) it is illegal in money laundering.

Incidentally, there happen to be many other definitions of smurfs and smurfing in the online Urban Dictionary. They’re usually analogous to the Smurfs cartoon. These usually have negative connotations as well. However, the meanings described here are the most prominently used ones.