Will Esports Gambling Make A Comeback?

There has rapid increase in esports betting over the past few years following changes to the esports market, and with more viewers and more players than ever before, esports as a whole is certainly on the way up. Many of the biggest bookmakers are now largely represent through sites such as https://esportsbetting.site, but things didn’t always start off in the betting market, and things were very different seven years ago when opportunities for players to start wagering on esports games first came around.

The first approach came around back in 2013 when popular esports title Counter-Strike released an update that allowed players to receive cosmetic items from in-game loot boxes, with a dedicated market that assigned a real-world value to many of these cosmetic skins, the market erupted and led to the development of an industry that in just a few short years was able to reach a suggested value of $8 billion through trading, sales, and gambling. This also helped push for a huge launch of the loot box market which is now prevalent in many of the world’s biggest games too, but the approach wasn’t to last – just a few years later in 2016, the developer of Counter-Strike would seek change given the volatile nature of the skin market and the sites that were popping up to take advantage of inexperienced players, and with restrictions added to trading and the marketplace, it would make skin trading much more difficult.

(Image from casino.org)

This change did launch the more familiar betting market, but at the same time signalled a big slow in the skin gambling market, whilst there are still some sites available and options for players to bet skins rather than money, or gamble skins against each other, it is much smaller than it ever was – but the question is now whether or not the skin gambling market can make a comeback, or if it seems to be on its way out more permanently. The big crux will come as changes to loot boxes are certainly on the way as a many countries are starting to look to change the practice in a big way, if they have to be removed or undergo big changes that make it more expensive or more difficult, it may not be worth it at all for operators to continue to offer the service, and with the price of collectors items in these cosmetics only increasing, it will become more difficult for lower value items to make up a large part – but that doesn’t mean other forms of gambling can’t emerge in other esports.

Richie Flynn

Richie Flynn

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