With many companies experiencing fluctuating business fortunes during the COVID-19 lockdown, while some have been forced to change plans, others have seen their current business model need to be accelerated.
One such company who have seen their KPI’s grow in recent weeks are Luckbox, an esports betting site that is now preparing to go public on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) after the first half of 2020 has given them an unexpected platform to build quicker.
Esports betting has grown during the COVID-19 lockdown largely due to the postponement of ‘IRL’ sports such as football and tennis. During this period, millions of pounds, dollars and euros would usually have been spent on sporting occasions such as the English Premier League title race, the Wimbledon Championships or international cricket.
Instead, many of the world’s population have taken a sudden and vested interest in esports such as Dota2 or League of Legends. Even FIFA tournaments between Premier League footballers such as James Maddison and Diogo Jota (both men winning the first two ePL Invitational events) have been hugely popular with fans and sportsbettors alike.
Luckbox have seen the total bets placed on their website grow by 500% since lockdown began, with Chief Executive Officer of Luckbox Quentin Martin commenting:
“All of our key performance indicators have been through the roof in the past three months. We’ve seen a huge uptick in KPIs across the board. Clearly, these are challenging times for many people across the world but, for many, esports and gaming is a welcome distraction.”
That is borne out by the activity and interest in esports. Games such as Dota2 and League of Legends are just two examples of games that have had professional games taking place on streams every week during the Coronavirus crisis, with many game donating to help victims of COVID-19 by hosting charity events. Luckbox themselves have made sure they are providing a helping hand to charity drives in this time of crisis, too. Martin has seen interest in Luckbox grow.
“As well as an increase in customers and betting activity, we’ve seen a huge level of interest from potential investors,” he said. “[They’re] realising that esports is resilient to many of the forces that affect traditional sports, not least COVD-19 and a potential recession.”
All gaming platform and esports betting sites seem to have reported massive growth during this period, with Twitch alone seeing an increase of 80% in viewership since January. Steam has seen record numbers downloading games via their digital store, while poker sites such as partypoker and GG Poker have welcomed more players, with live games able to transition online comfortably in most territories.
Based in the Isle of Man, Luckbox have provided a fully licenced esports betting platform to more than 100 territories for over a year and offer odds on gams such as CS:GO, League of Legends, Dota 2, Overwatch, FIFA and NBA2K.
As Quentin Martin says, the potential of esports betting is ‘well documented’ and in recent months, figures have reflected that.
“Many fans of traditional sports have been exposed to the excitement of esports for the first time,” he said. “Hopefully, they like what they see and will be sticking around.”
You can bet on esports and watch live streams today on Luckbox.
