The eSports industry is reaching incredible heights and is bound to become even bigger in the future. In July 2019, the very first Fortnite World Cup took place. This inaugural tournament of the hugely popular online video game brought together players and fans from across the world. It was held at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in the Flushing neighbourhood in Queens, New York, and had all 23,700 tickets sold out for its three days of events, with over two million people watching live streams online. Remarkably, most of the tournament’s competitors were teenage boys, with a staggering $30 million in prize funds shared out and the top player earning a cool $3 million payout.
This is just one example of how big eSports have become. There are lots of other hugely popular games, such as Counter Strike, League of Legends and Overwatch, which have millions of players around the world and huge tournaments with winners taking home life-changing sums of money. Simply put, eSports are organized competitions or tournaments where people play online video games; they can do as soloists or in teams of two or more. Depending on the game, there are various rules and ways to determine who wins and how much money the winners get to keep. ESports are basically just like physical, real-world sports, except it is just people playing video games.
So how are eSports and gambling merging? The answer’s simple: just like with real-world sports tournaments, people love betting on who they think will win eSports tournaments. What a lot of professional players do is they build up a following on social media using various platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like. The content they post is pretty much all to do with the game they’re playing; many will broadcast live streams of themselves playing the game, for example.
If you want to bet on eSports tournaments, there are many opportunities to do so at live casinos online. Lots of casinos have sports-books where you can place wagers not only on dozens of real-world sports, but also on major esports tournaments. Most of them let you place bets on tournaments as they’re taking place – this is known as in-play or live betting. Online sports-books typically cover the major eSports tournaments only. You won’t find betting opportunities for the lesser eSports, though you’ll find more than enough for the biggest ones. It’s common for sports-books to cover around half a dozen or so of the biggest eSports, for example.
Do some research to find out what the top Canadian online casinos and sports-books are. Sign up to one that’s licensed, has a good reputation and offers plenty of opportunities for eSports betting. You should also take into account things like the customer support system, the accepted payment methods, how long withdrawals take and whether there are any fees. Lastly, there are the bonuses. Pretty much every online casino and sportsbook has bonuses to claim – for sports betting, for example, common ones include free bets, cashback and enhanced odds. Compare what different sites have to offer and sign up to the one that appeals to you the most.
It’s been estimated that in 2019, over USD 8 billion was spent on eSports betting. This figure is surely going to increase over the next few years as the popularity of eSports shows no signs of slowing down just yet. Over the next few years, we can expect more sites to offer eSports betting as they look to capitalize on this fast-growing market.
