One of the most rapidly growing areas of the online gambling industry is without doubt eSports. As a pastime they are increasing in popularity and that has correlated with their boom with the bookmakers. That said, it is still limited in relative terms.
Many of the most popular bookmakers in a range of countries including UK, USA and nations across Africa now have dedicated eSports sections to their website. In some cases bookmakers simply include eSports within the ‘Specials’ section of their sites where you will also find the opportunity to bet on Politics and Television shows.
Please be aware that due to eSports being a somewhat burgeoning business some bookmakers are yet to join the party. There is little doubt that at some point they all will. eSports are here to stay.
As is regularly the case with new additions to the online gambling industry, markets on eSports are to this point relatively limited. The bookies currently focus on the major games and events that include FIFA, League of Legends and StarCraft II.
In some rare instances you may find bookmakers that offer markets on the qualifying events. These are typically found with the gambling powerhouses.
The type of markets are also quite basic to this point. Match Betting and Outright Winner are the usual markets that you find at this moment in time.
Electronic Sports, or eSports as they are more commonly known, are now a big part of wider society and have now filtered into the online gambling industry.
Gaming is big business with prize pools often attracting in excess of $10,000,000. With that they have become major viewing spectacles and due to that people now desire to predict the outcome of proceedings.
eSports is quite simply when people compete against each other in video games. The variation of video games on offer mean a diverse range of spectators for any given eSport event. Players of FIFA or League of Legends get to see the best gamers in the world take each other on at their favourite video game.
It has been ascertained that over 70 million people worldwide watch eSports so it is not hard to see why the gambling industry has jumped on this.
It may surprise you to hear that that origins of eSports actually date back to a competition in Standford University in 1972. The game was Spacewar and the winner received an annual subscription to the magazine Rolling Stone. Needless to say opportunities to bet on this online were not possible but that is not to say people were not having bets at the venue.
It grew at a rate of knots with a Space Invaders Championship attracting 10,000 competitors. These events became more frequent in the 80’s and by 1988 games were creeping into the internet. By 2000 the games were in some way similar to what we see today and much of that was the establishment of Major League Gaming who to this day still hold major tournaments.
The popularity has grown hand in hand with major TV Broadcasters such as ESPN and Amazon buying rights to broadcast major events.
The most notable events in the eSports world are the International, Smite World Championships and League of Legends World Championships. The latter is run over the course of a month and had over 11 million concurrent viewers at one point.
It is now a seriously robust product with humungous viewing figures, major jackpots and continuously increasing gambling opportunities.
When you bet on eSports you should go about it in exactly the same way as placing any other sport. This means you need to do your research. This has become increasingly possible in recent years with it receiving more coverage in the media.
