eSports betting is actively expanding its territory in the online gaming industry. In addition to playing video games, players can now also bet on these games, thereby generating adequate opportunities to make money, literally a lot of it. If the bettor is decent enough in predicting the outcomes of eSports matches, and even whole tournaments, his/her wage can be ultra-high. For this reason we have created the whole list of the best esports betting websites here.
There are, however, doubts that lurk over players’ minds all the time. For instance: could eSports betting be safer than established sports betting games, such as football or cricket. This is why we would like to approach this question with all the directions to help you see a bigger picture.
The Length and Breadth of the eSports Betting Market
eSports betting industry is growing with a rapid pace. According to the market research conducted by Eilers, eSports bettors are likely to wager nearly $23.4 billion on various eSports titles by the year 2020. A similar study done by eSportsbooks has come up with a revenue figure of $2 billion for the same timespan.
A maximum of credit for such figures goes to the diversity with which eSports attracts the punters worldwide. These different products are:
- Betting at eSports bookmakers
- Skin Betting
- Fantasy eSports
Going by the transaction volume, both Skin Betting and Fantasy eSports are attractive the maximum numbers of punters. In the same study done by Eilers, the total skin betting volume has lately exceeded $7.5 billion in the year 2016. Krejcik Gaming and also Narus Advisors state the same figures.
Tournaments and Total Viewership
Numbers show that Twitch and Youtube attracts million of viewers when anticipated sporting events like The International and LoL World Championship breathes every year. The grand finale of the League of Legends World Championship 2016 has recorded a mind-boggling 43 million spectators, specifically also because it was aired in 18 languages. The International 2016, on the other hand, has recorded 5.8 million of unique spectators watching the last match of the final series.
It would be safe to say that these tournaments attract million of sports bettors as well, thanks to the big pools of prizes they bring. In fact, the biggest prize pool in the eSports history was in the International 2016 reaching $20 million.
Conclusion
Just to add, the figures we provided above were taken from legitimate eSports betting websites. But it would be okay to say that predicting the exact measure of eSports betting activities will be difficult, for they are also decentralised and undetected. That being said, our figures exclude black markets.
