2020 Esports: Is The Year For Esports Betting To Shine?

The early part of 2020 has come to an end thankfully, and the world is beginning to slowly return to normality. 

During the first few months, sporting events around the globe were cancelled during the Coronavirus pandemic. It was at the height of this that bookmakers had very little to promote to their customers. Virtual events were created but the only sporting action on a regular basis was the eSports competitions that were played from home. 

We saw many days where eSports dominated the front pages of many bookmaker websites, as well as being the only option for in-play gamblers. But what happens next? Can eSports build on the small period of dominance they have and become a force in the betting world, or at least grow further than we have seen before? 

For the small period when they had no competition, in 2020 eSports came to the fore and a combination of the organisers creating events and using players at home with the bookmakers offering more betting markets than ever before saw a great service. 

When it came to the betting markets on offer from bookmakers, we saw an increase in 2020 esport betting. Those who didn’t offer many eSports betting markets in the past were offering as many as they could create during this time, just to put something out there for people to bet on. Click here if you want to know best crypto bookmakers 2024 .

We saw alternative ways to bet come to the fore, such as handicap betting, choosing who will wink individual maps, which players will score the most kills or points and much more. This gave regular eSports gamblers a chance to expand what they normally bet on, while it also gave as many options as possible to those who were new to betting on eSports, so they could try and find a market they liked. 

What the eSports industry had in place, which really benefitted them, was their players at home. Normally this means that sports cannot take place, but with eSports, the players were all able to take each other on in an online competition. 

This was the only small change, though there are many tournaments who play online as standard anyway, so it wasn’t that much of a change. With life pretty much coming to a standstill for many people around the world, it didn’t matter where the eSports players were based and what was happening in their specific country. We saw many players taking others on from across the globe. 

One of the main features of eSports is that you can go online to places such as Twitch and watch the esports stream online. The people behind the events know that the majority of their customers are gamers, and are used to platforms like Twitch, so putting their product on there is how they get in front of fans. 

With betting on the rise, eSports also needs to offer these esports live streaming to bookmakers and this is something that we saw many bookmakers using during the pandemic. 

Those who bet on eSports can now watch a esports live stream of the action directly from their bookmaker. This will be in the esports live betting section, so you can have one screen open which will give you a live stream of the game and it will also be home to the latest live betting odds for that game, so if you see something you like you can place a bet. 

You can do all of this without moving away from the esports streaming, so you don’t miss a second of the action. It is great to see bookmakers getting behind eSports in this way, and hopefully, the live streams can remain in place for events even though other sports are now back and offering competition. 

eSports have had their moment, now they need to build on the exposure they received. Many people were betting on eSports because there was nothing else to do, but some of those will have enjoyed it and these are key, these people need to be kept on board. 

In terms of what the bookmakers can do for them, this is really simple, keep the betting markets and streaming service exactly as it is right now. We have never had an eSports betting service as good as the one we have available for players right now. The new people that have joined in with eSports and enjoyed it over the past few weeks are all more than likely as a result of betting, so this side of things needs extra attention. 

The addition of regular live streaming from bookmakers gives eSports another platform in which people can tune into the action taking place. As the year goes on and the events we have move out of homes and back into eSports arenas, these are going to look great to those watching live eSports battles for the first time. 

The start of the year presented a very unique opportunity to eSports and they have so far taken it well. The next step is to keep people interested, even if that is through betting only and gain more customers. 

What could happen in the near future is that bookmakers could be tempted to offer more to the industry in terms of sponsorship if they have a lot of people betting with them and they want to increase their profile. 

We see bookmakers sponsoring many different sporting events and teams all over the world, but this has not really taken off in eSports. If someone is going to do this, the end of this year or in 2021 may be the best time to do so, with a continued focus and rise on those betting on eSports.

This is a very big period for the industry and it will be interesting to see how eSports and bookmakers work together to push things forward, something that would be beneficial to them both not just one-sided.

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