The eSports industry is blowing up, and the sector that once seemed a trendy novelty is now looking set to challenge traditional sports in the future. eSports is one of the biggest offshoots of online gaming, but there is another mammoth sector that it hasn’t been able to successfully tap into just yet: the iGaming industry.
Over the last decade, in particular, the iGaming industry has grown exponentially and eSports businesses can learn a lot from it. That’s why there is potential for a crossover between the two.
iGaming is a Sector that eSports Could Integrate With
The iGaming sector was one of the first major gaming branches that cropped up in the internet era, and it predates the emergence of eSports by around a decade. Therefore, it’s had much more time to develop and become the behemoth it is today. Sites are now packed full of various options for players, and the games are highly advanced.
Take the online casino at Paddy Power, for instance. It has numerous state-of-the-art slot games like Doggy Riches Megaways and Wild Wild Riches: Luck of the Irish, and it also offers live casino classics like blackjack and roulette. Sites in the iGaming industry appeal to large, diverse audiences because they possess a variety of products to suit everybody and constantly improve the quality of their games so that they’re more immersive and alluring to players.
Competitive Gaming Sector Expected to Boom over next Decade
The eSports industry is already worth around $1.8 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $3.5 billion by 2025, according to PR News Wire. The question is, what will drive this enormous increase? One of the biggest factors will be the investment of major corporations into the industry. Some global brands have already started to back eSports teams and events and have helped to boost mainstream awareness of competitive gaming. Some of the best-known names to get involved include the likes of Red Bull, Coca-Cola, and BMW.
This spike in revenue could also come from an integration with other flourishing sectors, with iGaming being a potential avenue. The two sectors share many similarities, such as being popular categories for streaming on Twitch. There have also been cases of well-known eSports players enjoying success in the iGaming scene as well.
How Likely is a Crossover Between the Two?
The iGaming and eSports industries have existed closely alongside one another for more than a decade, attracting a lot of the same people thanks to their prominence on platforms like Twitch. Still, there could be more integration between the two sectors. Many real-world casinos have started to build eSports stadiums, as acknowledged by The eSports Observer online, with a lot of these located in the world’s top entertainment hubs of Macao and Las Vegas.
This suggests that iGaming sites and eSports events could easily enjoy the same sort of crossovers. With the competition in the iGaming industry growing fiercer by the year, there’s a good chance that some operators will look to eSports as a source for marketing their offerings outside of traditional promotions.
The eSports industry is booming at such a rate that it’s acting like a magnet for interest from other sectors. It doesn’t seem to need to go out of its way to integrate with any other industries, but these other industries do need to work out ways to leverage their power. Therefore, businesses in the iGaming sector may investigate ways to jump on the allure of eSports.
