African people have always been passionate about sports. That is the reason why sports betting is becoming more and more popular on this continent. However, eSports and eSports betting, which tend to be on the rise among many traditional sports fans around the world, are far behind classic betting on the continent and there are no lot of bookies offering them. Even despite many Kenyan betting companies reporting on the rising interest on the subject from punters during COVID-19 pandemic, there are still factors preventing this niche from rising to the competition.

Growing interest

In the last 10 years, eSports became a real thing. The betting lines on CS:GO and DoTA 2 attract youth from all corners of the internet. Hence, betting on eSports is a gambling industry worth millions of dollars. However, Africa is behind the rest of the world when it comes to the popularity of eSport betting. This may stem from the subdivision of eSports betting, as it’s generally divided into two main categories: cash betting and skins betting (skin are virtual items that can be used within video games betting and their purposes are usually cosmetic).

In skins betting, players trade skins via betting sites and use them as virtual casino tokens. Skin betting has been more popular from cash betting for a long time. However, not many Africans have PCs, let alone the internet, which limits their ability to play the game and see the abundance of skins up for grabs. In fact, even sports betting is still done primarily through land-based betting shops and mobile phones.

Nevertheless, African potential in the eSports betting industry is a real thing. More computerized nations like Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and South Africa saw an increase in eSports betting correlate with the rise in activity with online video game stores, such as Steam. In the years to come, serious changes in this untapped sector in Africa can be expected.

Money Flow Rising

Numbers that present the worth of the industry are constantly growing. Steaks on eSports betting are steadily rising, starting from 315 million USD back in 2015 to 7 billion in 2018 worldwide. Some predictions for 2021 projected that the number of consumers placing bets on eSports will be more than 6,5 million people. In this whole story, Africa is considered to have a great potential for the future growth of the market, thanks to the youngest population in the world, as well as rapidly growing urbanisation.

The most popular game on the eSports gambling market in recent years has been The League of Legends (30% of market value) followed by Counter Strike Global Offensive (2% of market value). Some predictions say that when it comes to money, eSports betting will soon be at the same level as betting on football, the most-beloved sport in Africa.