Esports Betting Growing In Absence Of Live Sporting Events
The NBA 2K Players Tournament will be going early April 2020, with BetMGM offering a f2p game to engage its users, a sign of the e-sports betting gaining ground in the absence of live sporting events due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Betting on e-sports is a sign of the times, with questions like ‘What does against the spread mean’ being put alongside questions about e-sports and virtual events.
The NBA 2K Players Tournament’s deadline is Sunday, with the tournament running throughout the the first two weeks of April, with a $20,000 prize to be split among the winners, with the winning prize to be matched by a donation to the New Jersey Pandemic Relief Refund.
A BetMGM spokeswoman stated on the matter, saying that the NBA 2K bracket is as bit of good entertainment during a difficult time in sports industry and the world, and they hope it’s the start of more e-sports offerings as they work closely with regulators in order to provide more options for e-sports platforms in the future.
NYU School of Professional Studies Preston Robert Tisch Institute for Global Sports’s Academic Director of Graduate Programs, Clinical Associate Professor Daniel Kelly, says the easing regulations on e-sports betting in the US could be a good thing for the sports betting industry, and would work nicely with current conditions in the market, which have led to questions like ‘What does against the spread mean’ being put in the backburner thanks to the coronavirus.
Kelly says that the e-sports market, which is expected to grow about US$30bn in 2020, will change how the world enjoys sports. He says that it now might be the only opportunity to grasp the e-sports market, with the investment that people are making into the industry.
Kelly notes that, while e-sports have been dominated by games like League of Legends or DotA 2, games like NBA 2K could do much in bridging the gap between traditional sports and e-sports, and the associated industries.
People in the industry have taken note, with people turning to e-sports due to being stuck at home, with lots of time in their hands, and a need to engage with something with the absence of traditional sports. In turn, while this might lead to some decline in the interest in e-sports when traditional sports return, their growing popularity has led people in the e-sports betting industry to say that they’re on good footing, in terms of future interest.
