E-sports have gained significantly on the international scene over the last few years, and this is especially visible among online bookmakers. Sports disciplines based on competition in video games turned out to be extremely attractive to younger generation Internet users, which resulted in solid occupancy among betting operators. Today, e-sports are offered by virtually all comprehensive gambling sites, as well as independent bookmakers. How did it happen that a niche sports discipline became a must-have for most operators within a few years?
The phenomenon of e-sport popularity
At the beginning, it is worth presenting the dynamic history of the development of e-sports in order to understand the source of the popularity of some games. Just a dozen or so years ago, games were not perceived as a sport, and Counter-Strike or Starcraft games were rather a curiosity for a few.
Everything changed after 2009, when League of Legends was released. The production became a worldwide hit, enjoyed by approximately 100 million players each month. Additionally, the production turned out to have huge e-sports potential, which the creators decided to quickly use. Everything was linked to the development of the Twitch platform, where you can broadcast your game, and for about 10 years it was dominated by “LoL”. Hundreds of thousands of people constantly watched broadcasts of ordinary players, and e-sports competitions attracted audiences of up to half a million and several million in China alone.
It turned out that e-sports is an incredibly attractive market and large organizations such as Fnatic or G2 quickly appeared in the industry, earning huge amounts of money and organizing teams at the highest level that you simply wanted to watch in action. Especially since they were able to compete with the Chinese and South Korean giants.
All this led to the development of other e-sports disciplines. Counter-Strike gained a lot, DOTA 2 and Fortnite quickly appeared, and a little later Valorant also joined. E-sports competitions generate huge amounts of money and attract millions of viewers.
E-sports and sports betting – the perfect combination
It quickly turned out that e-sports were a perfect fit for sports betting. Incredibly exciting matches and always available free broadcasts perfectly match the bookmaker’s assumptions. Operators who made the most important games available on their premises, along with free broadcasts, began to generate very large traffic. After all, the essence of betting is that you can watch the competition. If there is a match between your favorite team, emotions are raised to a completely new level. In this way, e-sport permanently joined the offer of all top bookmakers, and today no one can imagine that anything will change.
Bookmakers try to provide all official competitions from games such as:
- Dota 2,
- League of Legends,
- Counter-Strike,
- FIFA/FC,
- Valorant,
- Starcraft 2.
and many other. The availability of free broadcasts means that literally anything can be included in the e-sports section, and bets can even be placed on whether the streamer will manage to complete a specific stage in the game at some point. All this is accompanied by a broadcast, so the bettor can watch everything conveniently.
Esports has reached its peak
Everything indicates that e-sports, after a decade of development, has finally reached its turning point and only the games that can be betted will change. The popularity of a given title translates proportionally into interest in sports competitions, but in this world, even if a game loses its popularity, it is quickly replaced by something new. Therefore, if your favorite games are no longer regularly available at the bookmaker, check if something new – even more attractive – has appeared on the market.