As the COVID-19 pandemic escalates and life as we know it is entering a hopefully brief hiatus, the millions of individuals across the country that normally plan their week around the sporting schedule are at a loss; how will they spend their Saturday afternoons? No longer is the usual vast array of sports and submarkets available, with the number of events taking place around the globe reducing day by day. If you are after 2nd division Belarusian football, you may be in luck, but the majority of individuals are struggling to find a new activity to occupy their time whilst the majority of sporting events are postponed indefinitely.
Operators who are looking to retain their audience during this challenging time may offer their customers an alternative to their usual sporting mix. Enter virtual sports, and its younger, more attractive and genetically superior cousin, esports.
Your customers have probably come across some version of virtual sports before, be it a virtual horse race in a bookie’s just before the 19:15 at Tampa Bay Downs or when browsing on a gambling app late at night. They’re something a little different, but unlike a ‘real’ sporting event have a pre-determined ROI which is likely to perturb even the most hardened of Saturday afternoon 10-fold acca glory chasers. There’s even going to be a televised virtual Grand National to fill the gap left by the cancellation of the real race.
On the other hand, with an organic result and multiple markets, esports can be seen to more closely echo the patterns of betting on ‘real’ sport. You may have heard of esports in some form, such as your neighbour’s 13-year-old son who watches people playing competitive computer games on YouTube and Twitch. Just last week, F1 announced that they would be running an esports tournament to replace the Bahrain Grand Prix, with F1 drivers and fans competing against each other. An esports revolution has been mooted for a while now but has yet to make a real mainstream impact. Still, in 2019 the global esports market generated about $1.1 billion in revenue, with projections of that hitting $1.8 billion by 2022.
Whilst we’re all experiencing unprecedented impacts on our daily lives, the clamour for normality seems to be something that we’re all going through, and esports are comparable on a surprising number of levels to ‘real’ sport. Customers can choose a team to get behind and matches can turn on a single brilliant move or calamitous error, all whilst conforming to the ‘stay home’ mantra currently being adopted by the nation.
For bookmakers, adding esports to your offering, is a great way of diversifying your portfolio and has the potential to attract a new audience. Your customer base could be exposed to a world they previously didn’t know existed and as esports can be streamed around the world (without a premium TV subscription!), they are easily accessible to many. Furthermore, the tactics employed by the players of dota2 are fascinating, opening bettors’ eyes to a whole new level of skill required in computer games. A further positive is that competitors are also able to compete from the confines of their own quarantine zone. Gambling operators that want to offer esports and virtual sports should work with a payment partner that offers fast and secure payment processing to ensure a seamless user journey. Providing your customers with a range of local payment methods, such as digital wallets, is also important for optimising conversion rates.
It’s yet to be seen if the esport alternatives to the real McCoy will stand the test of time once the incumbents emerge from their temporary slumber, but for this moment, it’s the only rodeo in town so watch this space.
By Matthew Woodley, Relationship Manager at emerchantpay
By Matthew Woodley, Relationship Manager at emerchantpay