When football sleeps, who works? Esports betting after Euros
With Manchester City and Chelsea contesting the Champions League Final this Saturday, all eyes are on the Estádio do Dragão in Porto, Portugal. But following the blockbuster clash football bettors will have to wait almost 2 weeks for their next taste of top-flight competition, the Euros. Operators will also be eagerly awaiting the ensuing Euros betting bonanza.
It’s well established that a sportsbook’s turnover is dominated by peaks and troughs, driven by big events such as the English Premier League or the Euros for football, or tennis’ Grand Slam tournaments such as Wimbledon. When operators come across big events gaps in the sporting calendar, they often ride out those periods of famine thanks to their yields in the time of plenty.
It’s built into the structure of the betting calendar as COVID-19 clearly demonstrated, and leaves operators seeking alternatives for new customers or cross-selling opportunities when sports are scarce.
The immense growth of esports betting last year was in part thanks to COVID, but since the return of sports and subsiding of sports simulation “crisis content”, it has proven itself as a valuable 5th vertical with events across all the major game titles year-round.
Be it Counter-Strike, League of Legends, Dota 2 and more, the breadth and frequency of competitions in esports position it as growing answer to mitigating the shortcomings of the sports betting calendar.
The seasonality of sports betting
With the English Premier League and most top-tier European competitions all wrapped up till mid-late August, football betting will be partially buoyed by the Euros before experiencing another turnover trough.
Potential bettors may shift to alternatives in this period. Wimbledon offers a 2 week window in late June-early July. The NBA Finals is expected to finish in July alongside the NHL, and the once every 4 years Summer Olympics has historically attracted plenty of fan attention but small returns when it comes to betting.
For bookmakers, improving the bottom line is about maximising those feast periods, those peaks in betting activity and mitigating the depths of their turnover troughs as the sports calendar rolls on.
When looking at the American market, New Jersey has been one of the earliest adopters for sports (and esports) betting, with the total revenue in the graph below reflecting the fluctuations across the betting industry more broadly, even before COVID.
With a peaks and troughs turnover cycle baked into the current structure of the betting industry, how might esports be a key vertical for additive content during those peaks and a turnover leader when sports betting sleeps?
Games might be different, but esports is evergreen
While different games run on their own tournament schedules, the overlap across the board and particularly for the big 3 — LoL, CS:GO and Dota 2 — means that there are matches on nearly every single day.
In many cases, some of the biggest esports competitions of the year fit snugly into content gaps in the sports betting calendar. Here’s a snapshot of tournaments in the 2021 June-August window:
CS:GO
- IEM Summer runs 3–13 June and features some of the best teams in the world competing in the first tournament of this season’s IEM Major circuit.
- IEM Cologne is historically considered one of the most prestigious tournaments in the pro CS calendar along with IEM Katowice. The clout alone bringing the best teams together in what is the first return to offline, LAN competition for a Major from 6–18 July.
- The ESL Pro League also kicks off in August and runs through to September.
League of Legends
The major regions across Europe, North America, China, Korea and Southeast Asia will fire up their domestic competitions in the first and second weeks of June. These leagues run through to Worlds, which generally held in the Sep-Nov period, providing games nearly 7 days a week.
Dota 2
The biggest tournament in the Dota 2 circuit, The International (TI) often grabs headlines thanks to it’s absolutely enormous prize pool. After a COVID induced hiatus the amount of cash up for grabs at The International 10 totals $40,018,195, with the tournament running 7–17 October.*
There’s also the WePlay Animajor, the 2nd Major of the Dota Pro Pro and biggest tournament in the lead up to TI10.
Fitting esports into the yearly cycle
Sportsbooks that have embraced esports via dedicated providers coupled with engaging marketing content have found it to be a valuable 5th vertical to assist the growth of those turnover peaks and fill the gaps left by the sporting calendar.
The window of opportunity to incorporate esports in time for the Champions League to Euros gap might have passed, but there’s still time to establish your esports vertical and build a key, complementary revenue stream to your sports calendar.
*The International was originally scheduled to run from August 18–23, then changed 5–15. Unfortunately due to visa issues and the pandemic, the event has now been relocated to Bucharest, Romania on the dates mentioned.
