Esport betting the intersection of gaming and gambling online

Casinos will be challenged to cater games to more female players to continue to capitalize on this revenue opportunity. Increased mobile gaming Mobile games are on the rise as consumers demand convenient, on-the-go entertainment. This trend not only encompasses traditional video games, but also online gambling.

Mobile casinos are gaining market share around the world. Mobile app developers will be in high demand as the industry responds to customers who wish to gamble and play anytime, anywhere. VR and AR in betting Virtual reality VR and augmented reality AR are already popping up in mobile gaming apps, but have yet to proliferate the world of betting. In , we expect casinos to increase their use of VR and AR to provide a better player experience. The trend is expected to take over the online casino industry during the near future, and soon online gamblers will be able to play face-to-face with their opponents, throw dices, and interact with other players just by putting on their VR Headset.

Players will be able to see their surroundings, tables, dealers, staff, and other players. Crypto-based betting and casinos Crypto-based betting is that which allows gamblers to place bets using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This type of betting will continue to gain momentum, and we expect to see more Blockchain casinos open their doors.

Initially, FC Schalke had simply wanted to host an esports tournament at their staduim. By the time they had finished consulting with Tim Reichert, a professional footballer and esports pioneer, they had established their own team—Reichert selling them on the brand reach esports would provide.

In sports, brand expansion and brand maintenance is a vital part of the economic model and FC Schalke hit on a novel way to reach a younger target audience. Others have opted for the more traditional sponsorship route. Big name brands such as Red Bull, Renault, Honda, Gucci and Verizon along with more endemic companies, to name but a few, sponsor different esports teams. And now that esports has huge international reach, this opportunity has not gone unnoticed by the betting operators.

Whilst mainstream attention has been focused on the increasingly symbiotic relationship between traditional sports and gambling sponsorship e. Of the top ten esports teams, Footnote 5 three now have sponsorship link ups with gambling companies. Like other global sporting conglomerates, ENCE along with others is more than just an esports team.

You can buy branded merchandise, they have their own YouTube channels and have their own media channels: ENCE TV, reportedly with over 4 million views. Whilst the nature of this sponsorship with NitroCasino remains to be developed, it is not inconceivable to imagine ENCE-based slot games joining the ranks of Brittany Spears or Elvis whose slot games proliferate Las Vegas casinos. Likewise, personal endorsements may follow and most importantly, sponsorship ties ins, give gambling companies like NitroCasino access to a massive network of fans at whom to market their products.

Interestingly, NitroCasino is a relatively new entrant to the online casino market, which is notoriously competitive, relying on volume and player turnover to maintain market share. In a world when attracting the next generation of gamblers has mainstream gambling companies concerned, links with esports teams are an effective way to reach prime target markets.

ENCE has already started publishing marketing material for NitroCasino, with one YouTube clip released on 17 July already garnering over 40, views. Of course, this is not a new development—though perhaps is one of the more interesting recent moves with a brand ostensibly focused on casino and slots hitching their wagon to esports. Other sponsorship deals started around the mids—with Betway most notably entering into a major sponsorship deal with the high-ranking Swedish team Ninjas in Pyjamas NiP.

At the time, this was a considered a bold move, purely in financial terms. Such sponsorship does not come cheap. The partnership, initially commencing in , was reported to pay each player a notable sum per month. Its renewal in was said to be for a seven-figure value Fitch, Of course, this gives Betway access to NiP fanbase for marketing.

Betway have also established themselves as global leaders in offering betting on esports. On the day of writing 8am on a Monday morning there were three live esports tournaments happening right now that I could bet on; all of which I could watch through the Betway website, via a live stream. On a Thursday afternoon, there were over different esports bets on offer.

Not only do Betway sponsor teams they have expanded out from NiP to include a range of different teams in different leagues for different games , they also sponsor tournaments, being the primary sponsors of the ESL formerly the Electronic Sports League CS:GO tournaments.

Key drivers which set esports apart from other more traditional sponsorship and marketing opportunities are both its reach in terms of audience profile and the technological ecosystem in which it is embedded. Esports fans tend to be younger and male, making them an extremely attractive target audience for betting and gambling companies.

However, it is the technological ecosystem in which esports are embedded that really sets esports apart in terms of marketing opportunities. Yes, as Betway have shown, you can sponsor teams, have your logos on shirts, sponsor tournaments but the action for esports is in the streaming. They do this through the streaming chat functions, through Twitter or by connecting with friends using specific communication software such as Discord.

Esports spectatorship is rarely a solitary, passive experience. These streamers themselves have become powerful influencers, using their platform and profiles to connect consumers and brands Miachon, The interconnected use of multiple different platforms for esports fandom and its highly digitally engaged fan base gives rise to innumerable opportunities for marketing.

The opportunities this affords have not gone unnoticed by betting and gambling companies and their marketing affiliates. Though this is not without controversy. Most recently, British research into gambling advertising, marketing and youth noted particular issues around esports. In their analysis, using a sample of data collected in , researchers identified 44 Twitter accounts promoting esports betting which were responsible for sending out nearly 50, tweets, half of which were directly related to gambling and betting.

Within their sample, the esports tweet which garnered most traffic was one from Betway advertising giveaway bundles for CS:GO. Notably, they affirmed that esports marketing should not feature anyone who looks under 25—a challenge for a sporting sector where champions can be in their teens.

Betway were not the first bookmaker to offer esports betting but they were, arguably, the first to capitalise on the unique marketing and branding opportunities offered by esports. Where they started, others have followed. Unibet became the official betting partner for team Astralis in and though there is debate within the esports community as to whether such sponsorship should be allowed, it seems likely that this process will continue.

Whilst the benefits for the gambling companies are clear, so too are the benefits for esports teams. Sponsorship funding has clearly enabled some to help grow the sport and, sometimes, continued sponsorship is contingent on this occurring. As is evident in traditional sports, it appears there are increasingly co-dependent relationships between some gambling companies and the development of esports teams as global brands and enterprises.

Yet again, whilst most mainstream regulators, academics and politicians have been focused on football, and on the attendant normalisation of gambling that this may bring, these same processes have been embedding themselves into esports communities, with little mainstream comment. Given the projected growth of esports and esports betting, this is likely to attract increased regulatory and policy attention. This is already starting.

The designation of COVID as a worldwide pandemic precipitated unprecedented changes in behaviours, the effect of which is we are still experiencing and may be long lasting. The initial COVID lockdown saw the cancellation of many major sports events worldwide and bookmakers braced themselves for a major downturn.

A noted side effect, however, was an increased interest in esports. Yes, esports too had to adapt—no longer could tournaments be held in arenas with players sitting side by side, but with some adaptation, teams could and did compete. Mainstream recognition of esports came with the likes of F1 and Nascar creating esports races to replace the real thing. In Britain, at least, the bookmakers were quick to seize the opportunity. I sat watching the first F1 virtual race on March 22 , monitoring the odds offered on the race by a major British bookmaker who previously had little to no portfolio for esports.

Their odds tracked performance as the race progressed and updated accordingly. This was really an entry-level introduction to esports, a way to continue to engage F1 fans when nothing else was available but, of course, the standard esports tournaments also kept on going. With an emerging sector like esports, consideration naturally turns to who these bettors are. Empirical investigation is nascent and there are few estimates about which we can be confident.

Studies have tended to show that esports bettors are more likely to be male, to be heavily engaged in esports and video gaming, and to be heavily engaged in other forms of gambling. To many that may seem a very low number, and that esports betting is a niche activity. But it is not when considered in context. Only buying scratchcards, lottery tickets and sports betting reached double-digit figures for participation.

Furthermore, these esports bettors had a very particular demographic profile—they were more likely to be male and to be from non-white ethnic backgrounds. They were also far, far more likely to experience problem gambling and to be very engaged in digital games, especially gambling-like practices that are embedded within digital games like loot box purchases or skin betting.

This is just one preliminary study but there appears to be a whole ecosystem in which esports bettors are embedded which may encourage or facilitate certain forms of gambling and gambling-like practices. These practices themselves are increasingly associated with harms. Traditional bricks and mortar casinos have also jumped on the esports bandwagon.

Footnote 6 Sitting in the audience, I was staggered that two industry professionals would be quite so brazen. I asked them to repeat this, which they did, and queried whether they thought this was OK given that so many esports fans attending tournaments were not of legal age to gamble. These two industry executives, working for the same company, were selling a product.

Their product was running and placing esports tournaments within traditional bricks and mortar casinos as a way for casinos, especially US-based casinos, to stay relevant to the younger generation. Their comments were part of their sales pitch and should be viewed in this context—though when they spoke about the benefits of children attending esports tournaments in casinos as a way to evoke positive brand associations between the casino and the child, you got the impression they meant it.

Of course, these tournaments are not held in the casino itself, but in the conference centres or ballrooms. Back in , Downtown Casino on the Las Vegas Strip was the first casino to take wagers on esports events and set up a dedicated esports lounge. Other casinos followed suit, opening dedicated esports arenas. Casinos executives have long been worried about the trend for millennials to display less interest in gambling than their predecessors, and particularly less interest in slot machines, one of their most profitable products.

According to one US-based report, gambling was seen as less important to millennials than other generations, and crucially, the generation who had grown up with digital games perceived traditional slots as dull compared with the type of immersive games they were used to Bokunewicz, Where was the element of skill, of control, where was the narrative and the immersive experience? Slots have changed little and findings like this give casino executives, and slots manufacturers, cause for concern.

But part of the reaction has also been to focus on activities that this generation, and the next, are highly engaged in—and that means a focus on esports. It requires sustained investment and cultivation of partnerships—a one off tournament is unlikely to bring the kind of rewards that industry executives seek. Footnote 7 The rewards, though, are potentially significant, if indeed esports are a training ground for future wagerers.

Given this, it is likely that partnerships between land-based casinos and esports may continue to grow. What the example of esports shows is how interconnected gaming and gambling corporations can and have become. Like social casino and daily fantasy sports, they are a way for gambling corporations to engage with and to identify large segments of the population who may be interested in their products and to market to them, or to reach large numbers people who could be cultivated to become interested in their products.

This is the ultimate in cross-selling—identifying people with an interest in esports and attempting to get them interested in betting on this too, reframing fandom through the lens of gambling. Or an attempt to reach notoriously difficult age groups to pitch them the excitement of the casino and build brand loyalty. Many of the connections already made between sport fandom, clubs and gambling companies for football are equally evident for esports. If national governments are concerned about this for football, they should be equally so for esports—given the huge audiences this commands and demographic profile of these fans.

Yet much of this exists under the radar—the place in which esports is conducted and watched is not visible to most, and certainly not to non-fans. This shields these developments from the view of many but the same processes are at play. There is the potential for esports and gambling to develop a level of co-dependency currently and controversially witnessed within mainstream sports, and evidence of gambling corporations capitalising on the access that esports offers to typically hard to reach groups for their own business needs.

But money is not the only collateral that can be used to bet on esports. This is where we turn our attention to skin betting and gambling. Skins are a commodity unique, though not without parallel, to the world of digital games. Whilst skins exist for a variety of games, it was their addition to the Counter-Strike titles that heralded the start of a new economic market for them. A skin, quite simply, is a decorative item which players use to customise their weapons or characters.

In some respects, it is not dissimilar to children dressing Barbie or Action Man with different accessories. Except that it is so much more than this. Some of the skins are rare, exceptionally rare, and that gives them enormous value. Along with this value comes prestige, where players within a community want to demonstrate their skills and build esteem by owning the most valuable skin.

And the values are astonishing. Being shown around an esports tournament by a colleague, she pointed out the skins possessed by each competitor displayed on the screen. Of course, not all skins command this value, but some are worth thousands and it is not uncommon for some players to have hundreds of pounds invested in skin inventories. All of this has been enabled by the growth of an economic ecosystem for the buying, selling and trading of skins. Very simply, alongside the CS:GO games there sits another website where people can purchase skins and other in-game items and transfer them to their CS:GO characters.

This interface is called the Steam Community Market and, just as the name implies, it works like an online marketplace. Whilst there is a limit on the value of skins that can be traded on this marketplace, it has an open Application Planning Interface, which means that other websites can link up with Steam and skins can be digitally transferred from one marketplace to another.

Instinctively, this invites parallels with the trading of other commodities, like the so-called Tulip Bubble of the mids where fortunes were spent procuring and trading future contracts on the most decorative and rare tulip bulbs. Fortunes were made and lost—spectacularly so when in the price of tulips dropped dramatically and unexpectedly. It is tempting to view the trading of skins in a similar way—as a bubble which may yet burst.

Yet, another way of thinking about skins is as a form of electronic art. Few skins are completely original, but like limited edition artworks, they maintain a monetary value dictated by supply and demand, underpinned by communal values of worth. Without the community subscribing to a common set of values that are given to individual skins, the market would not exist. Within gaming communities, skins are culturally important artefacts.

The possession of them confers status. Within these highly competitive worlds, this gives them an intrinsic value, of which public display is an important component. I first noticed skins when playing Stick Hero, a super simple game the purpose of which was to successfully get my character from A to B.

And the number of these cherries sometimes increased of their own accord I later found out it was linked to how often I played. Curious, I looked up what the cherries gave me—it was access to a marketplace where I could use the cherries to buy new outfits for my character or change my character altogether. But this was a game that only I played. To my mind, there was no one else to see him, so really what was the point?

But other games, especially multiplayer action games, are specifically designed for players, their avatars and their weapons to see and be seen. These games are a spectacle and it is the embedded nature of this spectacle from which skins both derive and confer value.

They may be pieces of electronic art, they may confer power, prestige and status but they are also a form of currency. Once skins were launched, a whole network of secondary marketplaces for them quickly developed. Interestingly, the skin itself is still technically the property of the game producer, but trades of these items are perfectly possible. These secondary marketplaces included websites which allowed people to sell skins for the currency of their choice.

But also, a whole range of gambling sites sprung up, where the skin itself could be used as collateral for betting. This included lotteries, casinos games and betting on esports itself. All unregulated, all accessible to minors. And popular. But quickly became infamous for other reasons: the year of the skin gambling controversy. As a completely unregulated industry, a raft of shady practices were brought to light. This included YouTube influencers revealing how skin betting websites altered their chances of winning when filming promotional videos so that their products would seem more attractive.

Other influencers were recommending skin betting websites without disclosing that they actually owned the websites they were promoting some of these videos were reportedly viewed over 5 million times. And an entire esports team bet against themselves on the skin betting market, throwing their match. As with social casino, regulatory, policy and legal interest was piqued.

In , class action lawsuits against Valve were issued for sustaining illegal gambling markets and, yet again, Washington State led the clampdown, issuing a letter to Valve stating that they needed to stop facilitating the skin gambling market. However, Valve did then send cease and desist notifications to over 40 skin gambling websites, though it was not entirely successful. As with social casino, the question centred on whether a skin was a thing of value. The owners were prosecuted for running an unlicensed gambling website which was taking bets from minors.

In summarising the case, the District Judge said he was horrified to see footage of children as young as 12 betting on their website Gambling Commission, b. The basic operation was that players bought FutGalaxy coins, a virtual currency, on this website. These could then be wagered on a whole range of gambling products offered by the website. Winnings were paid back in virtual currency.

These could then be exchanged for FIFA coins, which in turn could be converted into real money by trading FIFA coins on another third party website a website that one of the owners of FutGalaxy also had a financial interest in and to which the original website directed you. What this episode demonstrates is the speed with which new markets and products can emerge and the complexity of the ecosystems in which these transactions are embedded. Valve denied that they had, or have, any role in facilitating these gambling markets and to be clear, they and their products were not involved in the FutGalaxy case.

Perhaps sensing the needed to, at least, be seen to do more, Valve took further action and in implemented a seven-day trading ban on skins, meaning that people had to wait seven days before skins could be re-traded. This was announced as a crackdown on scams and fraud, but it had the effect of cooling the skins gambling market too, which relied on fast and high volume turnover. Many in the CS:GO community were aghast, especially those traders who made their money trading skins.

Just like any market shock, there was an initial period of panic as some sold off their inventory, whereas others implored people to hold firm and ride it out. As colleagues Abarbanel and Macey have traced, a new form of skin market termed VGO skins has emerged, that is devised and distinct from the games producers and underpinned by blockchain technology.

These types of skins are already being accepted as collateral for gambling by specialist websites, including firms like the Polish start-up Thunderpick. Footnote 10 Whilst the trading ban may have cooled the skin betting and gambling market, it has not decimated it. The market still operates, still unregulated, still subject to few age-verification checks and still popular. The young people who bet skins had a very particular profile: they were much more likely to be male, though around a quarter were women.

They were more likely to be aged under 21 than over and were somewhat more likely to be from non-White ethnic groups. But these people were not just skin bettors alone, they were deeply engaged with a whole range other gambling-like mechanics within games: the majority reported buying loot boxes for money, with around one in three saying they did this often; they gambled skins privately between themselves and others and they used in-game items to open loot boxes also.

Over a third had also bet on esports in the past year. In short, young adults who gambled with skins were very, very engaged in a range of gambling-like features associated with digital games. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, given how engaged in gambling and gambling-like products these people seemed to be, the proportion of them experiencing problems with gambling was exceedingly high: two out of five skin bettors displayed problem gambling behaviours. Equivalent estimates among those who did not bet skins were one out of fifty—a marked difference Wardle, In the past, there have been entire campaigns launched against particular products where a strong association between engagement in that product and problem gambling has been shown.

There was a sustained and ultimately successful campaign to change these machines and reduce the maximum stake that could be bet on them. A similar campaign has now been launched for online slot games. Yet, in Britain at least, we appear to have some emerging evidence that among young people skin betting is more popular and more strongly associated with problem gambling than either FOBTS or online casino games.

Yet very little policy attention has or is being paid to this issue. A recent Select Committee report by the House of Lords was dismissive on this topic, stating that skin gambling is regulated by the Gambling Commission and as such that was sufficient House of Lords, b. There was no further discussion of it as an entity or as something specifically worthy of concern.

Loot Boxes That is what we look at as surprise mechanics. It is important to look at this. They enjoy surprises. If she thought this would take the heat out of the debate, she was wrong. Her statements made headlines the world over. People lined up to talk to journalists about just how wrong this comparison was.

Not least, because the prize within a kinder egg is fixed at the point of manufacture—not so with loot boxes, whose content can be algorithmically generated and thus changed at the point of purchase. But quite how did we get here? Where a function within a video game ended up be hotly debated among Members of Parliament, who at times were clearly struggling to comprehend the complexity of the gaming ecosystems they were charged with investigating.

How did we get to a point where a gaming executive thought a good way out of a tricky situation was to draw parallels with other toys one somewhat suspects that if you told the average gamer that they were just playing with toys they may seriously object to this classification and where both mainstream and social media lined up to tell EA games quite how wrong they were. But since then, loot boxes have become front-page news and regularly make headlines.

A game so maligned in testing for its seemingly cynical use of loot boxes that the developers, EA games, dropped this aspect before the game was even launched. EA games may have removed these features but the damage was done, and this proved to be the lightening rod around which growing disquiet about some of these products made it into mainstream attention.

Yet loot boxes are not new. In Asian games, loot box mechanics were introduced in some games from the mids. In Western jurisdictions, the first popular loot box is generally accredited to the game Team Fortress 2, where Valve introduced the ability to open crates containing unknown rewards using purchased keys. At the same time, FIFA released its Ultimate Team title, in which success broadly relied on purchasing packs to put together your ultimate team. But what are loot boxes?

This, however, masks a deep variety of loot boxes, which are embedded into games in different ways. In some games, the contents of the loot box can either be won or purchased. Others, you can only pay for. In some games, the items you win are just cosmetic—something to add to your inventory of skins—or include certain modifications you can add to your character, like poses or something to adorn your profile, none of which affects your game play.

And, of course, in some games there is a whole secondary network which facilitates the trading of these items. Some other games, however, compensate people if they open a loot box and it contains an item they already have. In other games, the content of the loot box can give you in-game advantages. These mechanics have led to a whole host of controversies among gaming communities—are they fair?

Are they ethical? And among more mainstream commentators—are they gambling? This latter debate focuses on the fundamental mechanics that underpin loot boxes: someone pays to open a box or crate for the chance of winning something of value.

What you get for your money is utterly uncertain: you may get a skin or card that is really valuable or you may get something that is nearly worthless. You do, however, get something. Crucially, the probability of getting rare items is often not the same as the probability of getting common items. The probabilities are controlled and determined by the game producer and often are not made clear to the gamer. Until recently, the game Overwatch has been relatively unique in making the odds of obtaining common, rare, epic or legendary prizes their classification transparent, with the odds of receiving a common prize being slightly less than 1 in 2 and of obtaining a legendary prize being around 1 in Footnote 11 In some games, you open the same loot box over and over in the hope of obtaining the item that you want.

It is not always clear how game developers control these choices and if the reward algorithms operate in a fair and transparent way. A recent study in Australia which reviewed patents pending for a variety of digital games found evidence of game developers using machine learning to encourage repeat in-game purchasing King et al. From a consumer protection point of view, this is concerning. Because of the variety of loot boxes available and the different ways they have been embedded into games, regulators and researchers alike have tied themselves in knots trying to identify the set of circumstances under which loot boxes may constitute gambling.

The Dutch did the same but for a different reason—here it was the fact that the prize had a market value and could be traded that made the difference. A recent European Commission report stated that to be defined as gambling, loot boxes must involve the outlay of money Cerulli-Harms et al.

And when looking at the potential impact of loot boxes, this does appear to be a distinguishing feature. In a recent British study of 16—year-olds, it was people who purchased loot boxes with money rather than those who obtained them through game play or in-game items who were more likely to experience problem gambling. This association between paying real money to open loot boxes and gambling problems has been replicated in other studies, conducted in a range of countries.

Yet this study took impulsivity into account and the association still held true. Perhaps, it has been suggested, that people who buy loot boxes are just really, really into gambling—they probably gamble on lots of other things and the purchase of loot boxes may simply be a further manifestation of this interest Gainsbury, ; you have to be really into games of chance to think that the purchase of loot boxes are worth it.

There are real questions about consumer protection—are they fair, are the mechanics being manipulated, are they ethical, are they necessary, are they fun, are they conditioning young children in the ways of gambling-like mechanics, are they normalising games of chance in a way that could influence subsequent behaviours? The list goes on. Most recently, the European Commission grabbled with these thorny questions, including that of whether loot boxes should be defined as gambling Cerulli-Harms et al.

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This distinction is seemingly arbitrary, and its practicality from a regulation standpoint is questionable. In Goa, one can play all casino games at established floating casinos like Casino Daddy and Deltin Royale. However, due to existing laws' ambiguity, few regulations prevent predatory tactics against consumers.

Furthermore, research indicates that gambling problems are likely to increase as sports gambling has displayed an explosive growth rate and mobile and online technologies are simultaneously evolving, creating unlimited types of wagering opportunities. The increasing rate of gambling problems that are likely to emerge must be addressed. Additional technical challenges accompany online sports betting, which must be resolved to maximise its potential given its inevitable legalisation.

The Need for Regulation Given the complicated landscape of the online betting industry, some degree of market regulation would help the government bring transparency to the sector. This would encourage additional participation from investors and consumers who can be assured of protection and stability.

Furthermore, uniform legalisation of the online betting industry would enable a more accurate valuation of services provided by online gaming portals in the context of the existing legal provisions. By extension, this means that certain transactions would be taxable within online sports betting as well, and this would greatly benefit the country's coffers. In the arena of sports betting, allegations of match-fixing are often at the forefront.

Regulated and licensed betting operators, as seen in the UK, for instance, have a robust system of checks and balances to monitor their websites and track suspicious patterns such as a sudden spike in betting for specific events. There are also other apparent benefits like employment which would be created within a legal and regulated betting regime. Policy Changes that should be made in India As mentioned before, the regulations in states like Goa and Sikkim that have resulted in a licensing regime to allow certain kinds of games could be expanded to other states.

India could also borrow from the UK's Gambling Act of and categorise the various games casual gaming, high stakes gaming, etc. Such a policy must be adopted pan-India, and leaving it for state governments to decide would prove counterproductive. New viewers flocked to lockdown tournaments, especially for sports games such as FIFA, as a way to compensate for the live events that they were missing.

Even as traditional sports betting collapsed, esports betting has proved to be a valuable revenue stream for online gambling sites during an uncertain period. Challenges to integrating esports into betting markets During the sports drought of the pandemic, events such as the Virtual Grand Prix gained new popularity. However, the majority of monetized esports are still more traditional video games such as CS:GO and League of Legends.

One major challenge facing bookmakers is how to tabulate the odds for matches and tournaments in what is a relatively new arena. Sites that specialize purely in esports betting are still seen as more reliable by these bettors. Virtual versions of real-world sports do not follow the same patterns as the leagues and teams that spectators are familiar with. Another potential issue that esports betting could be facing is how it is characterized in law. Policy makers have so far struggled to formulate legislation to manage how esports are conducted and regulated.

One argument, given particular emphasis in the UK, is that esports are fundamentally different from physical sports events and must be treated as such. Esports, the reasoning goes, are not purely skill-based games because some events are determined by a random number generator RNG. Therefore, there are grounds to classify the tournaments themselves as a kind of gambling , even without the added layer of betting on the outcome. Should this line of reasoning go forward, the future of esports in the UK is thrown into doubt.

Having the sector regulated as a form of gambling would make things much more complicated, and would cut off the possibility of having a betting market attached. With a review of the UK gambling laws imminent, this could have serious consequences not just for betting, but for esports as a whole.

Potential impact of esports on young players At this time there are several pressing questions surrounding esports and the way that younger audiences are targeted and affected. Video games, and therefore any gambling related to them, by their nature appeal to a largely younger demographic. Related advertising targets these younger people, whether by accident or design. Questions have been raised over whether betting on esports risks encouraging a new generation of compulsive or problem gamblers.

The links between esports and young gamblers are not yet well-defined.

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