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While the Super Bowl had 111.5 million viewers earlier this year, it was the League of Legends Season 3 World Championship that enjoyed the 2nd largest viewership in the sports finale category, not the NBA Finals, World Series or NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.
Hence the reason, a handful of online sportsbooks are beginning to offer betting on League of Legends and other eSports events. Others are sure to follow.
Pinnacle Sports recently began dubbing itself as the “place to bet eSports”. It’s actually one of the only places to bet on this explosive sport. Bet365, William Hill and Betway are three of the other well-known books offering eSports betting with Unikrn emerging as the first eSports-only website (though partnered with Australian bookmaker TabCorp).
In October 1998, American video game maker Blizzard Entertainment changed the history and culture of South Korea when it released StarCraft. It created the e-sports we see rising in the U.S and around the world. It was one of the first multiplayer strategy games that enabled players to compete against each other via the Internet, selling 4.5 million copies between the years1998 and 2007.
By the turn of the century, South Korea had launched the Korea Pro Gamer’s Association with more than 50 corporate-sponsored teams competing against one another in the newly formed league.
eSports has enjoyed huge success throughout Asia and now the U.S. has begun to catch on thanks in no small part to the live social media platform Twitch.
On Twitch, people play video games for a live audience, and top broadcasters can earn as much as $20,000 per month.
Twitch is evidence that the U.S. has a market of e-sports fans who are so passionate that they will watch 20 hours per week and even pay their favorite broadcasters for chat privileges, GameBeat noted back in March.
eSports is now joining forces with the 41.5 million dollar fantasy sports market in the U.S.
Gamebeat writes:
When you consider the male millennial audience, the huge hours of viewing time, the tournament circuit, and the infrastructure available via Twitch, fantasy gaming is an ideal and probably lucrative market. If someone builds it, those e-sports fans who spend 20 hours a week watching games are going to realize that they can pick winners and cash in, just like their counterparts who play fantasy football and basketball.
For gamblers and fantasy aficionados alike, the League of Legends Summer Split and Starcraft provide plenty of opportunities to hone one’s eSports skills.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
