Esports and the sports betting industry have become fast friends, but how did this materialize?
Betting and sports have always gone hand in hand. Whether it’s the origins of professional wrestling to wacky prop bets for every Super Bowl, fans have taken sports and gamified them further. Esports, though, is something completely different.
While comparatively few adults play football unless they’re actual professionals, the overwhelming majority of people who play League of Legends or Counter-Strike 2 do so casually. Betting has helped to both legitimize esports within their in-game communities and drive engagement. This, to some degree, happened within the games themselves.
Though betting on esports pre-dates the launch of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valve’s first-person shooter popularized it in Western markets.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive offered players the ability to unlock different, more colorful versions of their guns called “skins.” Not only did this allow players to add some flair to their in-game characters, but they could also trade or even sell these skins through a dedicated marketplace. This ability to sell different skins gave each one a definite market value.
All this combined to open the door for skin betting.
Skin betting sites utilized bots to automate trades, allowing players to “deposit” skins and wager them on the outcome of esports matches. With a winning bet, players could receive their skin back with a bonus. And of course, wagering Counter-Strike skins on professional Counter-Strike matches was just a natural fit.
Over time, the skin betting industry ballooned in size. Things came crashing down in 2016 and 2017 as threats of legal action and legislation forced Counter-Strike publisher Valve Software to shut down skin betting. But by this point, esports betting had become deeply woven into the community of Counter-Strike. This seeped into basically all forms of esports, though Counter-Strike in particular has long been the most popular game when it comes to betting.
Though sports betting has had a mixed role in some esports markets, that hasn’t stopped betting sites from making their presence felt globally. Whether it’s sponsoring teams or hosting events themselves, few fans have been able to watch esports and avoid any notion of betting.
The most common example of this is sponsoring teams or individual players. In the same way a stock car is adorned with logos for snack foods, software, tool companies, and just about everything else, organizations like Team Liquid and FaZe Clan sell space on their jerseys to both endemic and non-endemic sponsors. Betting sites have consistently looked for these opportunities, and often dwarf all the other sponsors combined. The same goes for sponsoring events, with betting sites having their odds shown before matches and having ads play when the action is paused.
Sometimes, esports betting sites go a step further. With Counter-Strike and Dota 2 esports being very popular with a largely open circuit, there are opportunities to either sponsor teams directly or put together events themselves.
Some tier-two leagues are directly organized by sports betting sites, rather than companies like ESL or PGL. Meanwhile, esports betting sites have also taken to sponsoring teams directly. Rather than just slapping their logo on a team’s jersey, companies like BetBoom formed teams to compete across multiple games.
Gambling and betting face varied restrictions from market to market. Similarly, esports betting has been synonymous with some games while being largely absent in others.
Esports betting sponsors have become an integral part of Dota 2 and Counter-Strike esports at the business level. Multi-game organizations heavily rely on the income brought in from betting sponsors to maintain their presence in the games. While this is sometimes met with frustration from fans, this is a long-established norm in many cases.
For a long while, certain publishers tried to keep esports betting away from their games. The most notable example of this is Riot Games, the creator of Valorant and League of Legends. Valorant and LoL both have a large presence within esports betting, but Riot went through great pains to prevent that. The company disallowed organizations from having betting sites sponsor teams, making it more difficult to maintain a presence in either game. Riot has also traditionally rejected esports betting companies from sponsoring events.
That changed in 2024, however. Riot Games quietly loosened restrictions on teams competing in League of Legends and Valorant, allowing for esports betting sponsors. And while there isn’t comprehensive support for betting across all esports, the two industries are only growing closer with time.
Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.
