Oliver Niner: Strong start to 2023 for esports betting

Esports is arguably the fastest-growing, ever-changing space in the betting and iGaming sector. With the first half of the year in the books, 2023 looks to be another strong year of esports betting.

While the esports industry itself has seen some contractions similar to what’s been seen in the tech sector, esports betting hasn’t missed a beat. As one of the key data and odds suppliers in the sector, this year has been one for milestones.

This year has very much been a culmination of a lot of our hard work and collaboration with our clients. We’re still seeing continued growth in bet volumes for both existing and new customers, and we’re due to pass over €1 billion in all-time bet volume handled for our customers by September. Taking a long view of our product’s performance, our customers have experienced an average growth in overall turnover by 34% since switching to PandaScore.

What’s hot

Looking at the industry more broadly, it’s encouraging to see esports betting continue to gain traction in new markets like Brazil, which has enormous potential as an enormous consumer market with a proven appetite for esports. The success of events like the CS:GO Rio Major in March and the Dota 2 Major in Lima are strong indicators that South America can draw in local audiences for both fans and bettors.

This year has also seen the kinds of 24/7, sports simulation content like your esoccer or ebasketball find its place in sportsbook. The popularity of these products ebbs and flows with the sports calendar indicating that while it’s esports content for sports bettors, it’s something that can work in your portfolio alongside your core esports offering.

Another strong point for esports betting in 2023 has been the greater adoption of the vertical amongst tier-one operators. It’s not just the ‘esportsy’ tier one’s, but traditional operators are investing in it through specialist products rather than sticking to a tack-on product as part of a broader offering from the likes of Sportradar or Genius Sports.

It’s certainly moving up the priority list for these large operators, such as our announcement with Betfred in March as well as STS – a premier brand in the Polish market and one of Entain’s recent purchases – to offer deeper, more engaging markets using our odds product. Australia also continues to be another site of steady growth for PandaScore, along with our longstanding, fruitful partnership with Ladbrokes AU, we’ve recently partnered up with Dabble to scale their esports offering.

Cooler temperatures

As with every industry, growth and progress isn’t uniform – the same can be said for esports. Last year was a World Cup year, and there was understandably a large focus from operators on ensuring the biggest sports and betting event in the world was effectively leveraged.

It did mean that for a lot of operators, esports was something to tackle next year and we’re seeing that they’ve turned their attention back to it in 2023.

The US has understandably been the one to watch on the regulation front as of late, and while traditional sports betting has been an absolute rocket, we haven’t seen that big bang moment for esports. This is largely down to the differing regulatory approaches, but states like Colorado and the recent developments in Kentucky are encouraging.

Similarly, we haven’t seen those kinds of big shifts in Southern Europe yet, but markets like Spain and Italy are ones to watch.

Looking ahead

The rest of the year will be great for product innovation, and at PandaScore we plan to launch our new micro-betting feature in Q3. We’ll be kicking off the new feature with League of Legends to start out, with eyes on where else we can roll it out later. Additionally, we’ve got lots of new deals we’re yet to announce, including some big players and reseller agreements so we can continue promoting strong, sustainable growth for esports betting this year and in the years to come.

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