The eSports industry is growing rapidly, both in terms of viewership and revenues. Last year, the industry welcomed over 200 new fans, totaling the number of eSports viewers to 496 million people up from 245 million in 2019.
According to research firm Newzoo, eSports will continue to grow by an average of 10.4% in the next couple of years. In turn, this will increase the sport’s fan base to nearly 700 million viewers.
The growth of eSports has been attracting attention left, right and center. But few industries have embraced eSports as hard as sports betting. All your favorite bookmakers now support eSports betting. Here’s why.
Esports is a Global Sport
Many new sports don’t attract bookies’ attention until they become international sports. Esports has been a global sport for nearly a decade. It started buzzing in the US in the early 2010s. Then it spread to Europe and Asia before becoming well-known to the rest of the world.
How famous is eSports? More than two billion people know about eSports, according to Newzoo.com. As we mentioned, nearly half a billion players identify as eSports fans, creating a solid market for sportsbooks to tap.
Vitally, eSports has also been attracting the attention of popular culture. It’s not just ardent sports fans who know about it. Celebrities and athletes have been tweeting and vlogging about it. News media have been covering it while some governments are investing in it.
It’s a Legitimate Sport
Some people argue that eSports isn’t a real sport because it doesn’t involve the use of muscles or running around a stadium. But ask any sportsbook and they will tell you eSports has all the makings of a legitimate sport.
Sure, competitors play video games while seated in specialist chairs. But eSports is competitive. Those who play these games are highly skilled and take months or years of practice to perfect their skills.
With that in mind, eSports organizers have also been working hard to legitimize the sport. They run the sport akin to football, hockey, baseball and rugby. Like these sports, eSports tournaments are professionally managed. This helps avoid match fixing in favor of a competitive environment.
Loads of Betting Options
Wondering what you can wager in eSports? Hint: it’s just like traditional sports. You can predict match winners. Or you can predict the number of points they score. Depending on the video game, you could also bet on kills, maps and other specialist bet types.
If you’re interested in betting on eSports, read a full guide here. There’s a lot to learn about the sport before you place your first wager. For example, discover the most popular video games for eSports betting. Learn about how each of these games works. Then, you decide to bet on some of them.
With that in mind, wagering on eSports isn’t difficult. After you learn about popular video games and tournaments, the biggest job is to predict outcomes. Let’s say you like to place handicap bets. In eSports, handicaps work the same way they work in football. However, you only win if you research thoroughly and the bet goes through.
Live Coverage for eSports
We’ll admit—not many cable TV networks cover eSports. In the US, you can catch live eSports coverage of ESPN, NBC Sports, Fox and CBS Sports. However, many countries lack media stations willing to cover eSports.
But that doesn’t mean most people have no place to watch eSports tournaments. Quite the contrary, nearly every fan can catch on major competitions free of charge on streaming networks like Twitch and YouTube.
According to Streamlabs.com, Twitch is the favorite platform for watching eSports games. Over 90% of fans prefer the Amazon-owned network to YouTube and Facebook Gaming. Google’s YouTube come in second at 14.5% while Facebook ranks at a distant third: 5.5%.
Interestingly, eSports viewership on streaming networks has grown tremendously since early 2020. COVID-19 pandemic has a lot to do with the growth: most people have been spending a lot of time at home.
Multiple Tournaments Every Year
Many sports are seasonal. In Europe, the club football season runs from August to May. In the US, this happens from February to October. Baseball, American Football, and Hockey seasons run from August to May as well.
But guess what? There’s an eSports competition every month, from January to December. Below are some of the most popular eSports events every year:
- Dota Asia Championships
- League of Legends World Championship
- The Frankfurt Major
- Fortnite World Cup
- The Internal
- The PUBG Global Championship
Evidently, the biggest eSports tournaments involve popular video games. As such, you don’t need to learn about the tons of video games out there. Instead, invest in the top 10 video games and grow your betting knowledge henceforth.
An Unexploited Sport
When you think about it, bookmakers support new sports for a lot of reasons. For eSports, it’s the new trending sport everyone wants to try out. As a result, having this sport on their catalogs makes betting websites more appealing.
Most sportsbooks feature soccer, basketball and boxing. But only the best bookmakers support eSports. What’s more, only a few betting sites provide betting markets on both international and regional sports.
Supporting eSports can create attention and score loads of new customers for a sports betting website. And if it offers another unique feature, like bonuses with no playthrough, they it could soar pretty quickly.
A Great Future Ahead
Nearly every prediction about eSports casts a bright future for the sport. By 2025, NewZoo expects the sport to have a fan base of nearly one billion people. Likewise, it will be known to almost half the population of the world.
That’s great news to betting websites because they can invest in it. In the usual style, the big betting brands have been splashing millions of dollars in sponsorships. Spending money on the growth of sports won’t just benefit gamers, fans and event organizers. It will also help spread awareness about betting brands and land them new clients in the long term.
