How eSports Betting is on the Rise

As technology evolves, traditional sports are also changing, and new ones are emerging. This means that new betting opportunities also become available. You can now bet not only on mainstream sports such as football, basketball, and tennis but also on electronic video games. The new generation of bettors is doing this with increasing frequency, and almost every sportsbook now has an “esports” section as well. There’s no question that esports betting is on the rise, but what exactly does that mean, and why is it happening? We’ll try to answer these questions below, but if you’re wondering what these next-generation bets look like, you can visit Vulkanbet right now.

Let’s Take a Look at the Numbers First

To grasp the popularity of esports betting, it will suffice to look at the industry figures. When we evaluate the reports of many research institutions collectively, we reach the following conclusions:

• It is estimated that there are between 20 million and 30 million esports bettors worldwide as of 2020. It can be easily assumed that this number has increased even more by 2023 because, unlike traditional sports, esports activities continued during the pandemic period.
• The sector size is expected to reach 24,190 million USD by 2028. This equates to a CAGR of 13.70%. Once again, this is because of the pandemic esports has been less impacted by quarantine conditions and has recovered more quickly post-pandemic.
• The favourite games of esports bettors have not changed for a long time: League of Legends, DOTA 2, and CSGO have been in the top three of the list for years. However, the FIFA and NBA2K series are becoming more popular – a 40x increase is observed in these two games.
• In these games, home away, correct score, over/under, and rounds handicap are the most preferred bet types.
• The age range of 26-35 makes up 45% of esports bettors. This is important data because, as we will discuss in more detail below, middle-aged bettors do not like to try their luck at electronic video games. Only 0.74% of the entire esports bettor community is over 56 years old.
• Esports betting is most common in European countries.

All this data tells us that the younger generation of bettors prefers electronic video games over traditional sports to place bets. It’s indisputable that the industry grew faster during the pandemic, but even without that, esports betting was growing in popularity – the pandemic only made that growth faster. So, what is the reason for this situation? Why does the next generation of gamblers prefer electronic video games over traditional sports?

Everyone Bets on What They Understand

The most important thing to know here is that the new generation of bettors have played all the video games they are trying their luck with. They spent their childhood playing strategy, DOTA, FPS, and card games. The previous generation grew up with games played “outside” instead. Everyone likes to try their luck at things they understand, so it’s no surprise that the next generation of bettors is opting for video games.

When they grow up, they place a bet on the games they played as kids –  it’s that simple. What’s more, they’re much better at this because they’ve probably played these games for years and become very good at them. They can understand everything they see on the screen, recognize the strategies used, and analyze the performance of the players much more efficiently. An analysis that can take old-school bettors’ days is much easier for them – their personal experience both makes the betting process more fun and allows them to make consistent predictions. For this reason, the 18-25 and 26-35 age ranges prefer esports bets, and we hardly see any esports bettors over 40+.

The types of bets they prefer don’t differ much, just the sports they try their luck at. And this difference is too much for older generation bettors to grasp. It would be very difficult to explain to someone over 50 how the League of Legends game works. For example, in the table below you can see the most popular bet types in popular video games:

GAME	MOST COMMON BET TYPES
FIFA	Over/Under (Total Goals), Home – Draw – Away, Both Teams to Score
NBA2K	Home – Away, Over/Under (Rounds), Correct Score, Asian Handicap
CSGO	Home – Away, Over/Under (Rounds), Correct Score, Asian Handicap
DOTA 2	Match Winner, Games Handicap, Game Winner, Game Total Kills

 

Every bettor knows the types of bets in this table and how they work, regardless of age. But are you sure older bettors can understand how “smurf” accounts work, for example, in CSGO? The generation gap works in favour of the new generation of bettors, and for the same reason, you can be sure that esports betting will dominate a large part of the market in the next 20 years. Sportsbooks that can keep up with this change will survive, while others will shrink considerably. This also means that we will see new operators in the market in the next 20 years. So, the current big brands may lose their dominance soon.