Esports has been growing in popularity at a tremendous rate over the past decade, and online gaming has risen to new heights in today’s technologically advanced world. Games like Fortnight allow players from across the world to play one another like they were sitting right next to each other in the same room. And because of this growth and large-scale competitions that take gaming to the professional level, betting on Esports has also grown at a fast pace.
Now, Esports betting is not as popular as betting on the NFL lines, but it is growing in intensity, especially with younger demographics. And although there are some different circumstances that prevent direct betting on professional Esports competitions, there is a niche in Esports betting that is slowly gaining popularity and allowing more players to grow their skills while attempting to make money at gaming.
Player versus player betting is and should be growing in popularity in years to come. It seems that this is the natural course of betting on Esports, which will spread like roots from the professional leagues down to the daily players who quietly play at home.
Monetizing Gaming
Let’s face it, those who game take it very seriously and are highly competitive about their matches. Video games were once all about bragging rights and beating the game, but now as online play has exceedingly improved, it has allowed players to gain recognition globally, monetize their personal brand through social media, and begin to make a living at it. But it all has to start somewhere, right?
Money is making its way into gaming in large droves. Tournaments are being held where gamers show up individually or with teams to compete for prize money. There are serious events that have some very good and elite gamers attend them, but not just any casual, upstart gamer is going to have the skill to compete for that kind of prize money.
Lower-level gamers need the ability to develop their skills but also have the ability to make some money off of their current ability that scales properly. Players want to wager money on their skills as they compete against other players with similar skill capabilities, but there are few options for them to do this both securely and legally.
Current Betting Options
Players need safe and legal means in which to place bets on their own gameplay, and there is an opportunity out there to make this happen. But right now, the options are limited. Sure, friends who live close could place a friendly wager on a match, and then Venmo or PayPal the wager to the winner. But in the globalized playing field of gaming, that is not a safe and secure form of placing a bet with someone on the other side of the world.
A safe platform or app needs to be able to take bets from both players and hold it safely and legally while the individuals have their match. Then when the match is over, the platform pays out the money to the winner. This would provide a safe and secure transfer of bets between players without the risk of fraud.
This would also allow this type of gambling to be regulated just as other forms of gambling are. Doing backdoor deals while betting on Esports is not only unsafe and insecure but also illegal. Why not make something legal that is so widely popular, not harmful in any way?
The Future
There will no doubt be more platforms and apps that will start heading in this direction as this niche part of the gambling market continues to grow. But legality and options have to continue to catch up to the enormous growth of Esports and the route that it is taking globally.
We will continue to see growth and innovation, be it through apps or platforms, but it needs to come quickly and securely. But the roadblocks there might be a hurdle. How does a company integrate an app into a gaming console to track these things?
Perhaps the future of this lies in the hands of the game console manufacturers or in the manufacturers of the games themselves who operate the online, player to player segments of the games. The future holds possibilities. Will the possibilities become a reality?
