The Boom of E-Sports Betting

E-sports gambling has been booming lately, and with the rise comes a new way for gamblers to bet on their favorite teams. The e-sports trend brings new opportunities for the iGaming industry and it will probably continue to grow just as rapidly as technology does.

Unlike traditional sports where information can be delayed until an umpire updates the scoreboard, e-sports betting offers instantaneous updates because automated data extraction and distribution technology allows for it.

eSports is a Billion-Dollar Industry

Betting companies offering eSports wagers have grown at the same rate that the industry they work in has. Popular options for fans who don’t want to know all of the outcomes before placing bets are over/under bets. These bets predict how many points each team will score during an event.

Esports betting sites use social media to advertise themselves, mainly through memes and gifs shared across networks. Ads like these may draw attention from young players since they don’t look like traditional sports ads that usually come with age restrictions.

There is also the risk of addiction when playing videogames, which is particularly concerning among younger audiences. Loot boxes are virtual items that can be earned or purchased with real money in games, and they have shown more clearly in several studies (Gainsbury & Lopez-Gonzalez 2021; Hing et al 2022a and Wardle 2020) that they lead to addictive behavior among esports gamblers than traditional sports bettors.

The Covid-19 Pandemic Fueled Interest in Esports

Due to the wide array of bet types offered by esports gambling platforms, esports betting has quickly gained traction. You can place wagers on which team will win a match, what round it will happen in or even what player will make the most ridiculous play. It seems like there’s something for everyone when it comes to e-sport betting.

Reyn Kiyota, 18, has been playing Rocket League – a soccer-like video game using vehicles to score goals – since high school. When influenza struck his country last year, this became his primary source of entertainment.

The Covid-19 pandemic opened up the world to esports by pushing even more people onto their streaming platforms and increasing accessibility of games online from anywhere around the globe. This increase in users led to betting on it because of looser regulations from some game developers, like Valve, that allow bookmakers to offer bets.

U.S. State-Sanctioned Betting on Esports Esports betting has quickly gained popularity as its popularity surges; however legality varies greatly among states. PASPA was created to prevent states from legalizing sports gambling but was invalidated through a 2018 Supreme Court ruling which allowed for states to authorize sports gambling — including esports gambling.

Studies have tried to profile esports gamblers. A survey done by Hing et al. (2020) among skin gamblers found correlations between age, gender, gaming experience and subsequent gambling behavior and age, gender and gaming experience of skin gamblers.

The Aftermath of Esports Betting

Esports betting has been making a name for itself in the world of gambling, and it only seems to be getting more popular as time goes on. Various countries have already implemented measures to ensure the safety of their citizens, banning its practice due to the harm it can cause.

Many bettors use platforms such as iBetYou. It allows them to make their bets in a safe and anonymous manner while still having an opportunity to interact with other esports enthusiasts from around the world. These kind of sites give bettors an easy way into the scene, and allow them not to worry about funds.

On top of that there’s skins gambling. This form gives people the ability to use virtual in-game items known as “skins” to place bets rather than real money. Yuce et al.’s 2023 study found that during COVID-19 sports bettors tended to stick with niche football games and more obscure forms of betting rather than taking part in esports gambling because they didn’t fully understand it yet.