Lee Davy continues his birds eye view of the panel activity at the recent eSports Betting Summit held at The Royal Garden Hotel in London, this time, covering eSports wagering & underage gambling.
Why does your teenager want a lock on his door?
Why do dishes go in but never come out?
What is that smell?
There are many things we don’t understand about our teenagers or the shack they call home. We try. They shout. There is an invisible barrier between us. We are the in the UK; they might as well be in Japan. You were once the parent responsible for the darling child lost in the crowd and now you have been deposed – worthless, a has been, a figment of their imagination.
And so you place them on a raft, push them out into the water, and hope they don’t end up crashing down the nearest waterfall.
One of those magnificent falls is underage gambling. It’s the nuke that Sheldon Adelson and his cronies pull out of the armoury each time they want to fight online gambling advocates in the States.
As parents, we don’t want our children to gamble.
Neither do the gambling companies.
The second panel at the eSports Betting Summit, held at The Royal Garden Hotel in London, 18th May, was a presentation from Rahul Sood from Unikrn.
His chosen topic was Wagering and Underage Gambling. He could have changed the title to Skin Betting. There was passion in his voice brought on by being a father who has run into this problem head on.
Sood stood confidently behind the podium wearing his firm’s colours. Unikrn were one of the first gambling companies solely offering betting lines on eSports events. Investors included Demi Moore’s former bed mate Ashton Kutcher, and everyone’s favourite gazillionaire, Mark Cuban.
The Unikrn chief knew the importance of this summit. He had flown in from the States despite suffering a skateboarding accidents a few days prior. It was good to hear that a man who had gaming in his blood got out of the house every once in a while.
He talked about his background with VoodooPC and his General Manager’s position at Microsoft. Then he moved on to the rise of eSports and what he called ‘the perfect storm’ that has culminated in a skin betting empire that generated $800m in revenue (2015) compared to the $250m earned through traditional eSports betting lines.
“The shift I am seeing is alarming,” said Sood.
That perfect storm was brewed up by the likes of Twitch, Riot Games, and Valve allowing eSports fans the opportunity to sit and watch the star eSports athletes training and competing in our favourite games. He likened the experience to an NBA fan being able to watch Kobe Bryant practising every day for free.
“It creates a strong emotional attachment.” Said Sood.
The emotional attachment works well for eSports. It creates die hard fans who want a die hard experience. Many of them are lifers. The storm is one of the reasons eSports is being pushed north behind such a strong gale force wind.
But we also have to careful, warns Sood.
“We are on the cusp of something amazing, but we don’t want something like this to fuck it all up.” He said with passion in his voice.
The ‘this’ he was referring to was skin betting.
Sood has spoken about this problem before on his personal blog and he was here to expose those concerns in front of a more personalised audience. He talked about the birth of skin betting and its parent Valve Corporation. He spoke about the thrill and desire of players building their collection of skins on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) and how the lounges were now a breeding ground for unregulated skin betting where pots can reach upwards of $100,000 in virtual goods that carry a greenback value on the street.
“They are creating slot machines at home.” Said Sood.
He then showed us a brief video highlight reel of players streaming a skin betting system that looked like a hybrid of roulette and the Wheel of Fortune. Players were winning pots in the region of $55,000 a spin.
There is no oversight, there is limited visibility into the companies and products behind the curtains, and it’s easy to play. It also looks highly addictive. Teenagers often find the path of least resistance and skin betting seems to be the path.
“The casino business is in trouble.” Said Sood.
Why would the future generation of casino dwellers want to pull a slot machine when they have a much bigger lever in their bedroom?
Q&A
During the Q&A, Sood was asked what he would do to regulate skin betting?
“Games of chance shouldn’t be allowed to be played online.” Said Sood before someone from the audience reminded him that UK residents can play slot machines online. It was news to Sood, and he seems stunned.
Who should regulate it?
Sood is a great believer that the industry should regulate it, and Valve has a role to play. The numbers don’t lie. The customers want this form of betting, but it needs to be regulated internally, before a clumsy behemoth who knows nothing about the intricacies of eSports comes along and stomps all over it.
Summary
• Raul Sood and Unikrn are a prominent cog in the eSports betting scene.
• Skin betting is unregulated.
• Skin betting sites target prominent streamers so they can play for vast sums, luring young people into the fold.
• Skin betting is more popular than traditional odds lines betting.
• Valve Corporation unwittingly created a beast.
• Regulation needs to start from within.
• We need to stamp out underage gambling before it drags eSports down.
