The status of something new in any financial space usually comes with a series of heralds and questions. Is something new going to prove itself valuable for its consumers and/or investors? Will it survive the test of time and stick around beyond its status as a mere trend? Is its growth sustainable?
This is why the intersection of gambling, crypto-powered digitalization, and eSports is a fortuitous occasion to think of things from such a perspective. None is particularly new; instead, they are rather recent, especially when compared to several phenomena from their broader domain.
Online betting has been around for decades, cryptocurrencies have been gaining traction for the last decade themselves, and eSports have had a dedicated audience for most of the 21st century, one that has continued to become a real market with just as real investors.
Given the fact that their convergence creates an interesting situation that is definitely worth assessing, we will use this article to track how the crypto phenomenon is breathing new life into eSports, its betting market, and the viability of this entertainment method.
Why eSports Matter in the Betting Market (Increasingly So)
As far as we can remember, video games have always had a competitive edge to them. Mastering a system, even within a single-player gaming context, can generate that specific competitive spirit that has defined the gaming community.
Naturally, the complexity and dynamism of these games has increased throughout the years, which created a more elaborate setting to competitive play. As gaming has continued to evolve side by side with the internet and adjacent technologies, its opportunities to become lucrative have split into different methodologies.
This is how the eSports market has turned into what it is today. An increased audience took gaming from a niche, nerdy activity into a widely beloved activity. With that increased audience, a professional class of players emerged, and clashed among them have become more commercially viable than ever.
Nowadays, we call this phenomenon eSports because they are organized in such a way that feels like a professional sports circuit. For each game (the equivalent of the sport), you have leagues, tournaments, rules, trends, and professional players with their own specialized training regiments and synergy objectives.
The professionalization of this phenomenon became viable because of the investments in it. Most eSports industry trends show that the market sees an influx of revenue that has attracted people with money, including Kroenke’s family ownership of eSports teams.
When there is money going in and around sports entertainment, betting becomes a viable source of revenue for the stakeholders of the biggest names in that industry.
Crypto Gambling and Further Decentralization
Online crypto gambling has become popular because it’s an evolution of the wider gambling industry. Since crypto transactions have become a popular, mass-accessible element of financial movement, online gambling platforms have started to implement them as a natural development.
This decentralization and off-the-grid status of functioning on the blockchain became very valid reasons to think of crypto gambling as a viable and scalable option. Stake has also played a role in the popularizing process of crypto gambling since its success has been resounding, especially with how efficiently it exploited the marketing opportunities provided by the internet.
The idea behind crypto gambling is to harness the visibility of its process. The processing power gives way to transactional quickness, but also the transparency that it entails. Connecting to the blockchain and using this setting for a set of gambling opportunities is definitely a good match for an evolutionary step for this industry.
Directness in the Age of Details
The idea of eSports crypto gambling sounds like a good cultural match.Stats regarding the age of eSports audiences show that the demographics are really young, and the video game aspect speaks about how tech-savvy they ought to be in this sense.
While crypto is far from being a young person’s game, it still requires a level of technological and financial literacy that is more compatible with youth. In its own way, youth in today’s world means growing up with life-long exposure to new tech and, most importantly, the internet.
This is how the direct link between being in tune with video games, their competitive scene, and the world of the blockchain seems to gain legs.
It’s also the fact that many consumers of today’s eSports viewership, but also crypto investments, are young people who’ve only recently achieved financial independence, allowing them to combine their passions into a direct outlet: crypto gambling on eSports.
Quickness is a must
Another part that is easy to see as important in the dance between online betting, crypto, and eSports is the dynamic directness of this phenomenon. We’re talking about very fast-moving games, with moments that can come and go in the blink of an eye.
Crypto gambling is especially important in this sense because its directness and quickness guarantees fast money movements — something incredibly important for in-live betting, which data suggests it’s already very popular.
Since eSports represent short bursts of gaming when compared to a physical sport, but also very fast-paced games, in-play betting requires an even faster solution. As a result, the directness and quickness of crypto transactions become really valuable for truly efficient eSports betting.
Conclusion
To conclude, eSports betting is a logical and natural partner in crypto gambling for three main reasons: the clear shift of the gambling market towards crypto, appeal to key demographics, and necessary pacing.
However, the rule that must go above every single other factor in this discussion is the universal requirement: you must always gamble responsibly!
