The gaming revenue has been increasing immensely over the past few years. According to Esports Insider reports, the gaming revenue is increasing 10 percent every year since 2018. The reports also predicted that by 2022, the gaming market would reach around $200 billion. Little did they know what the year 2020 has kept for them. As the pandemic arrived, a lot of dead gamers returned to gaming. The revised estimate for esports revenue went upwards to 11 percent annually. With that much growth in just one year, the esports betting market also witnessed a rise of 39 percent to reach $343 million.
Similar to Sports Betting
The good thing about esports betting is that it is exactly similar to sports betting. A fan of real football can also bet the same way for a FIFA match. The wager and betting markets work exactly the same for normal sports or an esports match. Whilst the restrictions around the world kept on increasing in the year 2020, the new interest in esports betting continues to increase among the people. Multiple sports broadcasters like ESPN started offering esports betting. These betting giants started offering several markets for games like League of Legends, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty, Valorant, and many more.
While the list is full of multiple games, these betting giants still keep their places on top including Dota 2, League of Legends, and CSGO.
More Esports Betting Websites
The year 2020 is famous for lacking traditional sports events. The absence of multiple famous events encouraged people to move towards esports and still make money out of betting. Several esports enthusiasts predicted that the esports betting scene will stay on its rise even after the pandemic ends. The license authorities started issuing more applications to serve the high demand. Most of the esports betting websites are now targeting the boomers as they used to play betting for traditional sports before. The global betting percentage in 2019 was 1.6. However, due to the year 2020, it is now expected to have a drastic increase and reach 3.2 by the year 2024.
Multiple huge sports betting websites are now opening their esports branches or have just started offering esports betting in it.
The disappearance of Traditional Sports Betting
The esports betting scene has been increasing significantly over the past few years. Besides this, multiple sports betting websites did not offer real money betting for the esports section. However, as the 2020 pandemic forced the cancellation of traditional sports events, most people turned towards esports and started putting money into esports betting. Along with NBA events and several European Football leagues getting canceled, the world did not witness a single sports event. Therefore, esports betting witnessed a huge increase in its demand and almost every betting website started offering huge esports names to keep the audience coming.
More Means of Betting
Mobile betting has also played a vital role in increasing the demand for esports betting throughout. As land-based bookies had to shut down their offices due to the 2020 pandemic, mobile betting took around 80 percent of the betting market. People are more friendly with the mobile betting procedures as they can easily start playing through their mobile browsers.
Smartphones have also made people lazy. People now tend to stay at home and place their bettings through mobile phones instead of going to a real bookie.
Future of Esports Betting
With the current growth rate of esports betting, the future looks very exciting. Most people are switching from normal sports betting to esports betting as esports is becoming a huge market. Also, the 2020 pandemic helped to boost up the esports scene a lot. As the governments forced people to stay at home, tons of sleeping gamers came back to the gaming world and started their betting career as well. A lot of esports professional analysts say that due to this 2020 pandemic, the esports betting scene is getting famous and people are loving it. The brighter side to it is that this popularity would not die even after the pandemic ends. Therefore, it seems like the future of esports betting is in safe hands as the world is moving closer and closer to faster technologies.