How the League of Legends World Championship is redefining online betting trends in e-sports

The days when video games in general, and e-sports in particular, were regarded by most as niche pursuits, not to be taken seriously. Video game championships now attract millions of fans, while betting on their results is reaching ever higher levels.

One of the advantages of e-sport is that it is naturally well suited to modern betting methods. A few minutes, or even a few seconds and a few clicks, can make all the difference, which means you can play fast and make deposits in a matter of moments. So e-sport punters prefer casinos with fast withdrawals because, as we know, players don't like to wait, do they?

The famous League of Legends is a perfect illustration of this, and that's why we're going to take a look in this article at what innovations the game's biggest league has brought.

1. The growing popularity of e-sports betting

To tackle this first point properly, we need to differentiate between the regions of the world. In some countries (South Korea in particular, but also Asian countries in general), e-sport was already firmly established, while in others it was still regarded as an oddity.

But things have changed: just look at the number of players in France, for example (a country where the practice was introduced late): nearly 10 million online players and 2 million competitors at all levels.

Worldwide, betting on e-sports is now worth more than 15 billion dollars a year, and analysts are predicting an annual growth rate of at least 9%.

2. The role of the League of Legends World Championship

The League of Legends World Championship (more commonly known as LoL Worlds) attracts almost 100 million spectators worldwide every year.

LoL is therefore a figurehead for e-sports, which is why bookmakers are counting heavily on it to boost the popularity of the genre... and thus increase betting opportunities. Because it's a kind of virtuous circle: the more demand there is for betting on e-sport, the more betting sites will offer it, and therefore the more demand there will be, and so on.

3. Types of bets popular during LoL Worlds

As with more traditional sports, betting on e-sports can be done in several ways, thus multiplying the strategies and ways of winning. The example of League of Legends and feedback from championships have identified three major trends.

• Betting on the winner. This is betting in the most traditional sense of the term, where you bet on the team that will win the match or tournament.

• Live betting. New technologies mean that it is now possible to place bets in real time, based on the events of the match. While this option is already very popular in traditional sports, it naturally takes on an even greater dimension in a game like League of Legends, where decisive actions can occur in a fraction of a second.

• Betting on player performance. This involves betting on individual statistics, such as the number of eliminations a player will make in a given match.

4. The growth of e-sport betting platforms around LoL Worlds

All punters have noticed, even those who are least interested in e-sport: the place of this new practice on betting sites is growing all the time. From the most traditional bookmakers to those most specialised in e-sport, they are all stepping up their betting offers in this area.

This trend is also bringing about a fundamental change within these sites. As we have said, the speed of deposits is essential in e-sport: generally speaking, all bookmakers are therefore having to speed up their services in order to remain competitive. While this dynamic is aimed primarily at e-sport, it obviously has repercussions for all types of betting, much to the delight of players.

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5. The future of e-sport betting

Needless to say, the future looks bright. We have seen that the industry's turnover projections are breathtaking. This is reinforced by the fact that e-sport is a truly globalised sport: all traditional sports, even football, have geographical and cultural limits, but e-sport is spread all over the world. It's true that video games, which are one of the avatars of pop culture, are played on every continent.

The number of events linked to League of Legends is, once again, a very good barometer of the market: in addition to LoL Worlds, there are the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) and the LPL (Chinese Professional League), to name but a few. And each of them is likely to appeal to a worldwide audience, not just a local one. And yet we have only mentioned a pinch of examples here to illustrate a success that, let us repeat, is only growing everywhere.

Conclusion

As you can see, talking about the League of Legends World Championship is not just about a particular game. It's about measuring a fundamental trend.

And nothing is more revealing than the way the market is adapting. The market never lies, in that it always moves towards the most likely profitability: analysts predict that this market of over 2 billion dollars will increase 5 or 6-fold between now and 2030. The effort made to enhance the value of LoL Worlds is a perfect illustration of this: with them, the entire e-sports industry is in the process of finding its place in sports betting.