Most people would associate betting with traditional sports such as basketball, American football, soccer and baseball. What some don’t realise is that there’s a fast-growing market for betting on video games. The term you’ll want to take away from this article is ‘eSports’. This is short for ‘elec-tronic sports’, and it refers to specially organised competitions and tournaments where multiplayer video games are played. People take part either as solo gamers or groups and participants are whit-tled down through a league-style format until there’s a winner.
For decades now, the world of betting has focused on sports. In recent years, eSports has risen up and started becoming a popular market in its own right. Most betting sites shine the spotlight on physical sports, but more and more of them are offering betting options for various eSports.
History Of ESports
Video games have long been popular, as have competitions. However, things really started to take off in the late 2000s with the arrival of live streaming. This enabled the video game competition market to reach a huge number of people around the world. Thanks to streaming, people can watch competitions as they take place and, if they wish, place bets on them – many place bets be-fore events take place, while others enjoy placing their bets as the event’s actually taking place.
Since then, the market has continued to grow and expand. There are several major streaming plat-forms that eSports fans use, such as Twitch (specially designed for gamers and pretty much the biggest eSports platform), YouTube, Mixer and Facebook Gaming, to name a few.
Believe it or not, the eSports betting market is predicted to reach $17 billion by the end of 2020. The market’s recent growth has been exponential and accelerated. Video games themselves are huge business, with the top games costing hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and generating bil-lions in revenue. So, it should come as no surprise that the amount of money that’s spent on betting on these games is so large.
To give an example of just how huge the market is, let’s have a look at Fortnite. It’s one of the big-gest video games in the world in terms of player numbers and has attracted hundreds of millions of players since its release in 2017. In both 2018 and 2019, the Fortnite World Cup was held. For the 2019 event, a hundred solo players and fifty two-player teams took part. All competitors received a minimum of $50,000 for taking part, with better-performing players earning more. The winning solo player and two-player team both took home a $3 million prize. Across the whole event, a staggering $30 million in prize money was given out. Of course, there was a flurry of betting activity for this event. People in loads of countries signed up to some of the best eSports betting sites to back their favorite players and hopefully make some money.
There are thousands upon thousands of video games out there. However, the eSports market ac-tually covers quite a small number of games in a limited range of genres. These include battle roy-ales, card games, first-person shooters and multiplayer online battle arena games. Some of the select games that you’ll find associated with the eSports market are League of Legends, Call of Duty, Heroes of the Storm, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Overwatch.
Placing Bets On ESports
If you like the idea of betting on some of your favourite eSports, go for it. There are plenty of repu-table and trustworthy gambling sites where you can get your bets placed. Many of the biggest and best known sites already offer eSports betting and there are plenty of other sites starting to offer it too. There’s a good variety of eSports betting sites available for you to sign up to – you won’t strug-gle to find some, that’s for sure.
But which ones are the best eSports betting sites? There’s no definitive answer to that, of course, because everyone’s got different tastes. There are a few in particular that are quite highly rated and seem to be very popular with punters. So, if you want to start placing bets on the likes of DOTA 2 or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the first thing to do is to find the best eSports betting site for you. Do some research and compare different sites looking at what they have to offer, then sign up to the one that appeals to you the most.
When looking through the top esports betting sites, consider what eSports you can bet on and what else the site has to offer. Some things you may want to consider include bonuses and promotions, accepted payment methods, site design, mobile compatibility, other betting opportunities (casino games and sports betting, for example), customer support and security.
The eSports betting market is exciting, fast-paced and constantly evolving. Dive in and discover the thrilling world of betting on live video game competitions!