The Next Years in Esports Betting Potential

Esports is an established part of the online casino landscape in the digital age. The relationship between electronic betting and electronic gaming is a natural fit, so online casinos exploring such potential was inevitable. With esports increasingly in the mainstream consciousness, this trajectory has nowhere to go but up. Questions remain about the forms of integration this might take in the future, however, with considerable potential still left unexplored.

The Current State of Esports Betting

Reports following the history of esports betting have shown immense growth over the last few years. The market size in 2021 was reported at USD 9,748, with a CAGR of 13.7% expected to bring its value to USD 25,556 by 2031. Such growth lags slightly behind the expected CAGR of online casinos (14.71%), but given video gaming’s slightly more niche appeal than traditional betting, esports expansion is still impressive.

For online casinos, integration with esports betting is often quite simple. Like traditional sports, it involves betting on teams and individual performance, usually covering the big official tournaments. This offers significant flexibility for titles and series like DOTA, LoL, and Counter-Strike, but representation of smaller games can still be quite rare. Just as importantly, online casinos can struggle to link to upcoming and active tournaments. This isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s more the nature of decentralised video game tournament streaming coming out to play.

Building a Brighter Future

The next steps in esports betting won’t come as a revolution, but rather as an expansion of existing systems.

Consider online casinos, which have exploded in popularity owing to the use of clever marketing ploys such as promotions and offers, the bonus without deposit option being a prime example. Free spins from high-profile brands like InterCasino and PlayOJO build on classic styles of welcome bonuses, which appeal to prospective players because they’re a way of getting value for money, or often games for free. By providing bonuses without deposits, online casinos have exponentially expanded player choice, and this could illustrate the path forward for online esports betting, too.

An improved range of game coverage is the most obvious form of next-gen esports integration we’ll see on the big websites. Eternal classics like Smash Melee and StarCraft: BroodWar are likely candidates for exploration, but other gaming events could also see betting opportunities arise. The Games Done Quick speed-running event, for example, is hugely popular and could involve bets placed on finishing time, mistakes made, resets, donation goals, and many other components.

Improved integration with Twitch, the largest video game streaming service, could take the spectating aspect even further. Twitch is the default streaming service of most minor and major tournaments, and its potential relationships with the betting community are often untapped. Being able to stream directly from a casino website with nested video would be a huge help on its own. Going a step further and having bets contribute to prize pools in future events could also encourage Twitch staff to look at this relationship more clearly.

Though these ideas might be a few years away yet, forms of improved integration along these lines are a matter of when and not if. The potential of the betting and esports relationship is too profound to ignore, and the early adopters will undoubtedly set themselves up for a strong future position.