E-Sports Can Be the Next Big Online Gambling Thing

American internet casino websites still attract large crowds, but the demographics look a bit scary: about 60 percent of gamblers are over 50 years of age.

However, a growing number of young people aged between 18 and 24 years, mostly males, are interested in competitions involving video games. They arrange competitions and form leagues known as e-Sports. The genre also involves the broadcast of live and online streaming of matches in popular titles, such as StarCraft II, League of Legends, and Diablo III.

Games on social network sites, such as Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker generated a huge crowd of followers, the amount of response they create on Facebook is second only to the site itself.

E-sports and social gaming experts Alan Mcglade and Corey Wade wrote an article for Forbes about the emerging market and its possibilities in internet betting in United States.

The study emphasizes: “That does not mean wager-based entertainment is unappealing to younger people, it is only that it is manifesting itself in a new way.”

The article explains: “It represents a major cultural and economic shift from old-world, physical forms of entertainment with limited availability to easily accessible virtual entertainment in the online space. It is a shift that breaks along generational lines, aided by [PC, laptop, tablet and mobile] technology that is increasingly integrated into every aspect of our lives.”

The article goes on saying: “At first glance, a video game where Terrans and Aliens battle one another in space seems to share little in common with a card game. But not everyone sees it that way. A company called Playhem has built a social wagering and competitive gaming website offering a common platform for head-to-head game play and the streaming of matches.”

Playhem co-founder Keith Swan adds: “We see online poker as much closer to a real-time strategy video game than a physical game of table poker.”

The potential of the market is huge, but the legal background is confusing at best. The industry is eager to know whether American gambling laws will allow putting real-money bets on e-sports events. If yes, we predict a growth at an amazing speed.