Whenever humans engage in competition—even if it’s just engaging animals to compete for them—we have a tendency to want to gamble on that competition. From dogs, to horses, to professional gamers, if enough people are watching, enough people will want to make it just a little more interesting.
Of course, that’s not to compare esports competitors to animals. Many people (and whole governments) are even increasingly saying esports players are athletes. But unlike gambling on ponies or greyhounds, the amount of strategy a pro-gamer has going into a hundred-thousand dollar prize competition means the outcome is anything but luck.
When you gamble at a casino, you can count cards and learn to bluff, but a lot of luck goes into casino gambling. When you gamble on animals races, you can check out their stats and try to form some sensible strategy, but unless you’re a mobster fixing races, chances are those are far more luck-based than skill, as well. I imagine at greyhound races it often just comes down to which dog wants that rabbit more, that day.
When you gamble on professional sports, you can make note of coaching decisions, player history, injuries—there are plenty of ways to bring your own strategy into your Super Bowl bet or your March Madness bracket, but it all relies on your own subjective valuation.
When it comes to betting on esports, honestly, there is still a great deal of subjective valuation. But is it more luck than skill? That’s hard to say, and honestly depends on the gambler.
Twitch streaming is a great way for pro-gamers to practice their skills while potentially making some money from their audience. However, when preparing for high-stakes tournaments, esports athletes frequently use alternative accounts so they can practice new playstyles without their competitors knowledge.
There is a common phenomenon in StarCraft where pro-players will make “barcode” practice accounts wherein their username is just a random combination of capital I’s and lowercase L’s so their username is indistinguishable and unremarkable. When a high-level, non-professional StarCraft gamer comes across a username that is something like “IIllIIllIIllIIll,” they will have no idea if it’s some random player being cute, or Rekkles himself.
There is, however, a’s the kind of inside knowledge any true gambler would want to have! It’s like being the only gambler at the horseraces to know that a horse’s owner has been illegally doping it with horse steroids. Or, well, it’s really nothing like that. But in all things, including esports, knowledge is power!
Esports has already proven to be much bigger than many people think. “Fans are projected to bet around $23.5 billion on e-sports by 2020, according to market research by Eilers.” The white paper report from Eilers states that “eSports is an extremely hospitable environment (technologically, logistically, culturally and demographically) for real-money online wagering.”
Casinos even see the writing on the wall and want in on esports betting. Rahul Sood, CEO of Unikrn, pointed out that while Evil Geniuses has 255,000 Twitter followers, and Optic Gaming has 1.3 million, MGM has 36,000. The scope of esports is much, much wider than most would think, and it is only growing. There has even been talk of casino floors being the stage for esports events. Esports may soon be the most popular form of gambling.
On a darker note, as an illustration of just how serious esports betting can be, there have been some instances of high-stakes games being fixed. “As for gambling on professional matches, similar cases of gaming the system exist. During the 2013 competitive League of Legends season, Korean pro-gamer, Cheon "Promise" Min-Ki attempted suicide with a 12-story jump after his team was caught fixing matches. Min-Ki ended up in a coma, but his suicide note pointed the blame at their team manager, who lied about team sponsorships and was indebted to members of organized crime, forcing him to fix matches and sell team gear to try and get out of debt.” That’s right, the industry is already so big that enough people want to corrupt it for personal gain that it has become a legitimate problem. Perhaps all the mob jokes are not entirely misplaced.
Because there are many gamblers from areas where there are laws restricting esports gambling (but the internet is one big community and you can appear to be logging in from anywhere with enough technical knowledge), the untraceable virtual currency Bitcoin has established itself as one of the standards in payments for esports betting websites.
If you’re interested in breaking into the intriguing world of esports betting—a way to bring extra excitement (and be warned, some extra anxiety!) to what’s already one of your favorite pastimes—check out this guide to esports betting and get started when you feel ready! You’ll never eliminate all luck from the equation, but if you’re a passionate enough follower of the esports scene, perhaps you can Moneyball your way to a decent payday.
