Tag: esports betting

EveryMatrix Expands Offer with New Esports Markets

Posted on by Sophia Rojas
  • OddsMatrix expands its involvement in the esports betting markets
  • The sportsbook provides parent company EveryMatrix with perfect opportunity to launch into new verticals, comments CEO Ebbe Groes

Esports betting continues to be a large part of the betting industry, which is only know beginning to seriously consider expanding more determinedly into the sector. EveryMatrix has added improvements to its OddsMatrix sportsbook to now accept esports bets.

EveryMatrix Expands Across the US with Esports

Enjoying a relatively sweet spot from a legal standpoint, esports are in a position where bookmakers offering odds on the outcome of video games can cover multiple domestic and international events.

Unikrn, one of the leading companies in the United States, recently acquired a license from Isle of Man effectively allowing it to service esports fans from across the entire country.

Black Ridge Acquisition forms Allied Esports Entertainment

EveryMatrix is following in these steps by streamlining its own offer. Presently, the OddsMatrix sportsbook accepts bets on 50 major esports events, which includes 1,200 pre-match bets and 400 live bets every month. OddsMatrix first expanded in 2013 when it focused on sports exclusively.

Talking about the involvement of his company with esports betting, EveryMatrix CEO Ebbe Groes had the following to say:

The esports revolution has finally begun, and we are pleased to join the commercial breakthrough of esports betting with our newly released esports services.

OddsMatrix, Mr. Groes has explained, has increased Matrix’s ability to expand into new sports and betting markets.

What’s Esports Betting Exactly?

EveryMatrix has become one of the latest betting agencies to actually expand into this new segment. Esports betting works like traditional sports contests, with the slight wrinkle that the disciplines competed in are video games.

There is a number of high-demanding and skill-based video games that people spend mastering months, if not years, with hours of rigorous play day in and day out. Presently, the market for esports on OddsMatrix, includes Dota 2, League of Legends, StarCraft, Fortnite, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, Call of Duty, and others.

With OddsMatrix, we’ve increased our ability to easily add new betting markets and sports. – Ebbe Groes

There are multiple other markets and developing games which are also often featured at the largest sportsbooks, but the size and offer depend solely on the betting agency. Nevada officially signed an esports betting bill in May, 2017.

Esports Betting – New Opportunities, New Challenges

While esports is considered a great market because of the size of the esports industry (expected to be worth over $1 billion in 2019), there are inherent challenges to providing winning betting odds. Here’re several facts that make the undertaking even more complicated:

  • Around 97% of all esports bet are won in favour of the customer
  • Sportsbooks are not as of yet prepared to offer well-balanced odds
  • Gamers are much smarter, as they’ve played the games they bet on for years

Thankfully, esports betting is not a no-man’s land, with an established regulatory body, the Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC). However, the regulator is now as well funded properly to address every concern across the board.

Meanwhile, Unikrn is pushing out with exciting new developments, including “skill betting” or “betting on one’s self”. Luckbox, a blockchain-based company, is preparing to launch its official sportsbook in March.

Sophia Rojas

Growing up around law firms, Sophia keeps our team of reporters atop any legislative developments to follow up with a welcomed dose of positive news as our house trivia nut!

Denmark Limits the Scope of Illegal Online Operators

Posted on by George Hansen
  • Denmark successfully narrows down scope of illegal gambling
  • Danish operators are the EU’s safest
  • Esports betting is also targeted

Denmark is a model gambling market. It’s hailed as the only place in the European Union where all standards are kept to ensure the safety and security of customers. Now, the country has announced that it has been successful in narrowing down the scope of operation of illegal actors.

Denmark Cracks Down on Illegal Gambling

Denmark has done it – cleaning its online space from illegal gaming operators, or at least coming remarkably close. Hailed as one of the only jurisdictions in the European Union where gaming laws truly consider the well-being of customers and gamers, Denmark has just reported a “limited” market for illegal online casinos.

Denmark has been recognized as a safe harbor for casino lovers with the country having been mentioned in a report by the European Gaming & Betting Association, which evaluated all EU Member States’ laws insufficient to protect their customers, bar Denmark, where safety gaming measures were working fine.

GVC Holdings and Danske Spil Renew Content Deal

Meanwhile, Denmark’s Spillemyndigheden, the gaming watch dog, has produced a new report in which it outlined the fight against illegal actors as successful due to the “continually falling numbers of such operators” (paraphrased by Casino Classic). The measures targeted:

  • Casino operators
  • Card rooms
  • Esports betting websites

In December 2018, the Spillemyndigheden initiated three separate searches trying to pinpoint the online venues of unregulated gambling websites. The tally included 742 websites that were either deemed dangerous or with not an entirely established legal status.

The watchdog admitted that the organization had intentionally broaden the search parameters to make sure that it wouldn’t miss any potentially dangerous actor. At the same time, Denmark has been adding to the numbers of legal operators.

Despite the large number, only 22 websites were targeted specifically, with the Spillemyndigheden notifying the owners that they had violated the Danish Gambling Act. Out of these, 18 had to be blocked by their Internet Service Providers (ISPs) over a failure to respond to the regulatory body’s inquiries.

While the Danish authorities issued fewer petitions this year, they still blocked more operators than in the past, pointing to the more efficient measures taken by the government in targeting these specific bad apples.

Esports – A New Frontier

Esports betting (the act of placing money on the outcome of competitive video gaming) has also proven a divisive issue. Overall, 95 websites that haven’t quite met the criteria were identified. The main problem with these has been the offer of “skin betting”, i.e. staking in-game goods that led to a massive scandal back in 2016 and a class-action lawsuit for Valve, a game developer, who was accused of facilitating underage gambling.

In total, Denmark’s regulator accomplished the following:

  • Auditing 742 regular websites
  • Blocking 18 operators
  • Looking into 95 esports betting websites
  • Blocking 6 esports websites that didn’t comply with the Danish Gambling Act

The Spillemyndigheden issued 17 petitions to esports websites and subsequently requested that six of these are blocked. While esports betting has been gaining traction in the United States and Europe, skin gambling is completely off limits, though some operators have been using third-party services, using the argument that “they themselves didn’t touch the skins directly”.

More of a liability than a loophole, such attitude can lead to more restrictive actions from regulators in the future. The watchdog also cautioned about the rise of social gambling on popular platforms such as Facebook, which was another lucrative area for shady operators to turn a quick profit.

George Hansen

Taking a liking to the occasional bout of slots, George used to moonlight as a roulette dealer, giving him a unique perspective into the casino world. From there he continued his journalist education and has been with us ever since a star-aligned graduation brought him and our team together.

Blockchain Platform Unikrn Introduces Self-Betting Options

Posted on by George Hansen
  • Unikrn introduces self-betting options via UMode
  • The esports betting platforms accepts wagers from 41 states in the U.S.
  • Esports are going to be worth $1.4 billion in 2020

    • Unikrn is a blockchain-based and Isle-of-Man-licensed esports betting platform which recently introduced its “skill-based wagering” whereby gamers can stake money based on their own performance.

    Betting on Yourself and Esports with Unikrn

    Unikrn is the only operator in the United States operating in 41 states and the only blockchain esports betting operator in the world, although Luckbox, a rival service, is coming in early Spring, 2019.

    Unikrn allows you to make wagers in a specific blockchain-based currency, UnikoinGold or by placing real FIAT money instead. With the May repeal of PASPA, the sluicegates of sports betting were opened.

    The concept of betting on the outcome of video games is not at all strange. Games are excessively competitive and tournaments, such as The Dota 2 International Championship, come with prize money worth $26 million for a single event.

    Dota 2’s developer (a fantasy game that pits teams of five and allows them to choose from hundreds of unique characters with a set of distinct abilities) Valve has reportedly spent over $100 million in 2018 alone to back the industry. As an industry, esports are expected to be worth $1.4 billion by 2020.

    It’s in this context that Unikrn wants to capitalize on this promising new segment, developing a comprehensive esports betting platform available worldwide.

    UMode, the latest arrival championed by CEO Rahul Sood and his team at Unikrn, allows players to take “skill-based wagers”, meaning individual players can bet on themselves and their chances of achieving specific in-game goals (not necessarily defeating the enemy).

    It creates a heightened state of excitement when you play these games. Gaming is a great application for the blockchain, or the decentralized ledger that is secure and transparent. Sood said the company has been working on the flexible.

    Mr. Sood is quite confident in the financial and emotional gains that can be derived from developing an (esports) betting mode that puts the individual customers in the center of the experience.

    What’s Stopping Players from Cheating?

    Unikrn will ensure the safety and honesty of all bets by using comprehensive data models that can spot aberrations in the behavior of players. This way, if a professional is ‘smurfing’ (the act of playing against lower-ranked players from a dummy account), the system would know.

    Rahul Sood posing for a picture.
    Rahul Sood smiles at the future of UMode and esports betting.

    Esports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) Secretary Ian Smith has cautioned against this mode of esports betting, warning that the regulatory body doesn’t have the resources to track down potential cheaters and that the onus would be entirely on Unikrn to regulate its own markets.

    Given the reach of the platform, though, with customers from 41 states already reportedly accessing the website and operations launching across the world, Unikrn is unlike any mainstream betting operator.

    Unikrn has been expanding rapidly around the world allowing FIAT or crypto betting, based on the legislation it choose. Initially, the company was offered a chance to grow even quicker, if it were willing to operate within a loophole whereby it offered fantasy esports, but the company scrapped the idea quickly.

    Today, it’s all about the customer and Unikrn is banking on that trend quite well by the looks of it.

George Hansen

Taking a liking to the occasional bout of slots, George used to moonlight as a roulette dealer, giving him a unique perspective into the casino world. From there he continued his journalist education and has been with us ever since a star-aligned graduation brought him and our team together.