Welcome to the Strange World of Betting on E-Sports

The betting industry keeps moving forward with innovative offers. The latest to hit the market? E-sports.

Tech advances over the past two decades like the internet and mobile devices have changed the face of betting significantly. These days almost everyone can have a full betting shop in the palm of their hand, and that has led people to demand a lot more choice than they had in the past.

Popular offers on online sportsbooks in the UK, North America and Asia include live prop bets, odds on reality television results, and political outcomes. In 2013 millions of people worldwide placed wagers on the gender of the royal baby.

But it doesn’t end there. A new form of betting has taken hold, and it combines the new tech innovations of real-time betting with the ever more sophisticated videogame industry. What are we talking about? Betting on e-sports.

What are e-sports?

Placing wagers on e-sports is essentially the same as doing so on Premier League matches or NBA games. The only difference is that the athletes are a lot less muscular, and they’re sitting in front of a computer not unlike the one you’re using to place bets.

• E-sports is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the sportsbetting industry

• Fans wager on competitors in League of Legends and Starcraft II

• There have been high-profile allegations of match-fixing

They’re playing video games, or, as fans and participants prefer to call them, e-sports. The patron of the movement is the “Electronic Sports League” (ESL), which organizes e-sports competitions involving such popular games as “Dota 2,” “League of Legends” and “Counterstrike.”

Earlier this year 45,000 fans packed into a stadium in Seoul to watch Samsung White compete against Star Horn Royal Club in League of Legends, in an event that was covered live on ESPN. Fans tuned into a jumbotron showing the game as the players huddled over computers on the stadium’s ground floor.

While the organization itself doesn’t condone betting on its events, e-sports fanatics all over the world have taken to placing wagers on their favorite e-athletes using internet and mobile betting sites.

Controversy and match-fixing allegations

ESL is a relatively new organization, and it doesn’t have the experience guarding itself against corruption and illegal betting that traditional sports leagues do. League officials have laid out regulations preventing players from betting on games in which they themselves partake, but enforcement hasn’t been so easy.

Earlier this year celebrity League of Legends player Cheon Min-Ki attempting suicide by jumping out of a 12-story window. In a lengthy suicide note he posted on social media, Min-Ki admitted that he and members of his e-sports team, AHQ Korea, had intentionally lost competitions against other teams.

While the story may sound fanciful to those not familiar with the e-sports subculture, Min-Ki’s note tells a story that has been heard many times before in traditional sports:

Our matches versus KTB (game 1&2) and versus CJF (game 1&2) were supposed to be fixed. If you look at all four games, you'll see that we gave first blood every time. We were losing in game 1 against KT, but then we came back. We knew at that point we could win the game, but in my mind we had to lose.

The Min-Ki incident isn’t the first case of alleged match-fixing; in 2010 South Korean police were asked to investigate alleged match-fixing incidents. These scandals have given e-gaming negative publicity, but often that is better than no publicity at all, especially for a growing industry.

Where to bet on e-sports

Where there’s demand, supply will soon follow, and several major international sportsbooks have started putting out odds on e-sporting events in recent years. Providers catering to bettors in Asia and Eastern Europe are paying special attention to this growing industry.

Pinnacle first began accepting wagers on e-sports in 2011 and has seen the amount of wagers double every year since. In 2013 e-sporting events received 35,000 wagers on the website, making it the 8th most popular sport offered by Pinnacle, surpassing golf.

The highest-profile online bookmaker to delve into the growing e-sports market is Bet365, a company known for always standing on the cutting edge. Visitors to the website as well as users of the mobile app have the opportunity to play Starcraft II as well as League of Legends and Dota 2.

An eye to the future

Are e-sports a passing fad, or are they bound to become a legitimate mainstay in the world of sportsbetting? Few have put it better than American gambling law expert I. Nelson Rose: “once the sport is established, I think the world changes.”

The Min-Ki scandal put e-sports on the map, even if not for the right reasons. It has also alerted league officials and gaming regulators in South Korea and elsewhere of the growing need to ensure the integrity of e-sporting events. Better regulation should make it more attractive to sportsbooks.

Given that there are now millions of people worldwide with an interest in e-sports, it looks likely that more and more bookmakers will begin accepting bets on e-sports. It’s just another sign of the changing times, and the betting industry is one that has always had to adapt to survive. We expect more of the same in the future.