Paxful has analyzed the highest-earning prizewinning esports players from around the world to see which countries have the most esports players per million and where the world’s top gamers are earning more than their country’s average monthly salary.

• China has the highest earning prizewinning esports players in the world compared to salary with gamers earning 1237% of the average wage in the country.
• UK gamers earn on average 225% of the average UK salary. 
• Belarus has the most prizewinning esports players per million with 1011.4 esports players per million people in the country.
• The UK has 51.2 prizewinning esports players per million. 
• Switzerland is the cheapest country to be a gamer when comparing popular console prices with the average national salary.

The 10 countries with the highest-earning prizewinning esports players 

• Prizewinning esports players in China take the lead with the highest earnings compared to the country’s average salary (1237%).
• UK ranks 27 with gamers there earning 225% of the average UK salary.

The 10 countries with most prizewinning esports players per million 

• We analyzed the number of prizewinning esports players per million against the population of 109 different countries.
• There are more prizewinning esports players in Belarus than anywhere else in the world.
• The UK comes in at number 24 with 51.2 prizewinning esports players per million.

The 10 cheapest countries in the world to be a gamer

• To calculate how affordable a console is, we measured the retail price of each console against the average monthly salary in each country in this study.
• Switzerland takes the top spot in our affordability ranking.
• The UK comes in at number 20 when comparing the console prices to the national average salary.

Methodology:

• The sample of esports players in our analysis consists of every prizewinning player from countries with $20,000 or more in historic tournament wins.
• Esports earnings are sourced from the top-earning players per country for 2019, with a maximum sample per country of 100 players’ earnings
• The retail prices of the products were gathered from various sources, including official brand websites and regional online stores.
• The cost of the gaming PC in our analysis is based on the cost of a Dell G5 Gaming Desktop with a GTX 1660 graphics card.
• Prices may reflect the retail price for a console that is shipped from an international retailer.
• Average monthly salary data was sourced from Numbeo.
• Index score – Countries ranked as a cumulative price ranking per gaming hardware; a lower score = more affordable country.

Source

• PayDirect, a new service from the UK’s open banking leader, TrueLayer, combines one-click verification with instant deposits and withdrawals to deliver the most complete payments experience.

• It delivers a higher-converting, lower-fraud payments approach when compared to card and bank transfer.

TrueLayer, the leading technology company building financial infrastructure that’s open to everyone today announced the launch of PayDirect, a new open banking-based payments method enabling iGaming firms to create a higher-converting, lower-fraud payments approach when compared to card and bank transfer. TrueLayer is working with a number of iGaming operators who are embracing opening banking as a more secure, cost-effective way to deliver superior player experiences.

Today, identity and verification flows and card-based payments typically generate avoidable friction along the customer journey, affecting adoption and retention rates and generating unnecessary costs. The introduction of Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) this year adds another layer of friction to cards with workarounds that deliver a poorer customer experience.

PayDirect is the answer to those issues, enabling firms to stay compliant while delivering a frictionless customer experience. Built on open banking and the fastest available bank payment rails, it provides firms with instant payments and withdrawals, while accelerating KYC and AML processes, to deliver the most complete solution on the market.

“As players experience seamless digital services in other aspects of their lives, their expectations for iGaming are also changing. PayDirect builds on our payments expertise to solve some significant issues around onboarding, deposits and withdrawals to help operators deliver an experience that is fit for the digital age,” commented Ossama Soliman, Chief Product Officer at TrueLayer. “The ability to quickly and easily verify a customer’s identity, and move money instantly in and out of an account using bank to bank payments, while automatically complying with AML regulations, is hugely beneficial to both the player and the operator.”

With PayDirect iGaming operators, can deliver new levels of services to their customers, all from within their app, in a matter of minutes, through:

• Account verification – Instantly verify account ownership based on what’s on file at a customer’s bank.

• Instant account funding – users can initiate payments or move money between accounts effortlessly using open banking.

• Seamless online payments – that reduce fraud and chargebacks at any checkout.

• Instant withdrawals – users can initiate payouts, using the same method used for deposits, automatically meet AML requirements, while avoiding manual data entry like bank account number or IBAN.

• Instant refunds – providing customers to access their money faster, compared with up to 5 days using cards.

PayDirect improves the player experience and delivers a number of significant benefits to iGaming operators, including:

• Up to 3x faster onboarding: PayDirect gets players up and running in a matter of minutes, using open banking and biometric authentication that removes the need for users to remember usernames or passwords.

• Higher payment conversion rates: Once a player has successfully executed a deposit, payment failures tend to be four times lower with PayDirect than cards (on average cards fail up to 15% of the time vs 3.5% with PayDirect). This means more efficient deposits and, more importantly, less time managing failed payments that can ultimately lead to customer churn.

• Increased customer loyalty: Card deposits take up to 3 days to settle, whilst withdrawals can take up to 5 days. PayDirect increases retention by offering customers what they want, instant deposits and withdrawals. Recent research into the iGaming market by YouGov for TrueLayer (Q4 2020) found rapid deposits and payouts consistently topped the list of player priorities, with 8 out of 10 players rating fast payments as important – and they choose their operators accordingly.

• Lower operating costs: PayDirect saves time and reduces cost by automating otherwise manual processes such as payment reconciliation or KYC checks. PayDirect also reduces costs when processing refunds, as they are automatically issued to the same bank account that was used to make the deposit. This reduces opportunities for human error compared to cheque or manual bank transfers as well as cutting down customer support cases on lost or never issued refunds.

• Reduced risk and fraud: With PayDirect account ownership and authentication is handled by the player’s bank. No more chargebacks, no credential sharing or password storage. Service providers can also meet AML requirements by paying out via the same method used for deposits.

• A fully white labelled payment method: integrated open banking capabilities, increase customer trust by the brand owning the end-to-end customer journey, and configuring payment flows.

“The race is on to reimagine the way people pay by leveraging Open Payments architectures. We have seen in banking and ecommerce that great onboarding and payments experiences increase conversion, trust, and retention. But many payment journeys today have not been designed for a digital first world,” added Francesco Simoneschi, co-founder and CEO at TrueLayer. “With PayDirect we’re calling time on cards and their monopoly. We have used our experience and expertise as a leading open banking platform to design a digital and mobile first payment product that combines instant bank payments with instant payouts, refunds and reconciliation capabilities. PayDirect delivers an effortless way to onboard new customers and enable them to quickly initiate payments and withdraw funds. It is the easiest way to create a better, safer and lower cost payments process.”

The multi-awarded betting provider UltraPlay has announced its partnership with Mobius Interactive Ltd, an online gaming operator, which is powered by UltraPlay’s platform and eSports betting product. Through its brand Mobius.Bet, the company is focused on one of the fastest-growing betting verticals lately – eSports and its core audience – the gamers. Mobius Interactive Ltd launched its online operations together with UltraPlay in the third quarter of 2020. Since then the site is experiencing great interest from the eSports betting community of players across the globe.

Lynn Pearce, CEO at Mobius Interactive Ltd, has commented: “We are a team of gamers at heart, so when it came to deciding which esports iGaming platform provider to partner with when launching our company, it was a no-brainer for us, we knew immediately that we wanted to partner with the multiple esports award-winning UltraPlay!

In partnership with UltraPlay, we launched 3 diverse brands within 3 months, which must be a record within the iGaming industry!
We have also had the most incredible support from their ever-patient and knowledgeable B2B, Integrations, and Trading teams, who in return have learnt from our superb Customer Service team, all of whom have been in the gaming industry for many years.

I believe the strength of this partnership will stand us all in good stead going forward as we launch into new regions around the world.”

Mario Ovcharov, CEO at UltraPlay added on the latest announcement: “Mobius Interactive team is formed by industry’s peers with many years of experience. Thus, being their first-choice iGaming platform provider is great recognition for the entire team of UltraPlay. What’s even more exciting to us is their enthusiasm and commitment to the eSports betting sector. They shortly became a strong part of our network of like-minded partners heavily involved in the world of eSports. We strongly believe that together, we could further enhance the player experience in a very dynamic sector such as eSports.”

Through UltraPlay’s platform and multi-awarded eSports betting product, Mobius will provide players with access to more than 34 eSports games, as well as live and pre-match odds on a wide variety of tournaments daily.

The next level of entertainment is secured through the platform’s cutting-edge technology, a wide range of functionalities, mystery jackpots, as well as the massive choice of live events on all eSports titles, powered by UltraPlay. In addition, Mobius Interactive has an already established strategy for attracting and retaining a wide network of high-net-worth gamers worldwide through its loyalty programs, CRM, and targeted gamification.