ICO & Esports: Is there a safe bet?

Esports is booming, Esports betting is booming, and everyone wants a piece of the pie.

With the rise of Esports and online gambling comes the rise of the decentralized betting solution. Several ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) have popped up. But are we looking at a revolution in altcoin and cryptobetting or another proverbial "shitcoin"?

Before we look at the crypto side, lets take a look at where Esports betting stands as of now and the current issues it has.

Major betting companies are faced with a big problem: most people who are attracted to Esports are minors, meaning that these minors aren’t of legal age to participate in gambling, whether it be in real life or online. But as most sites are anonymous and you can be over the age of 13 or 18 with the click of a box, this doesn't stop most of them.

Another appeal of Esports betting is Steam in-game item market. The item drops (skins, cosmetics) are popular among the popular gaming platform, they have real world value (much like WoW gold) and are used as currency among many gambling sites.

Popular eSports games for gambling:

• Heroes of the Storm
• Rocket League
• Counter Strike: Global Offensive
• World of Tanks
• Overwatch
• Smite
• Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
• Dota 2
• Call of Duty
• Starcraft II
• League of Legends

The Dark Side of Esports Betting

Esports betting and online gambling has gotten alot of negative attention in the last few years. Mostly due to minors participating and addiction.

Scamming is another large concern in Esports betting, phishing and other scam sites are a dime a dozen to part the unaware better from his precious skins (or fiat depending on the scammer). If there are people pumping money into it, there are people looking to scam them out of it. This hold true especially in a gambling world whose market is mostly minors. Due to scams involving betting sites for in-game items, gaming platform giant Valve (Steam) had to change trading policies to protect themselves and users. Valve has also had alot of media about Esports gambling:

• The Washington State Gambling Commission has ordered game maker Valve Corporation to stop the transfer of skins via its Steam API
• Valve Takes Another Swing At Closing Skin Betting
• Valve’s skin gambling ban and how it affects the esports industry
• Inside The Unregulated And Scam-Filled World Of Video Game Betting

Common Esports Scams
Common Item/Account Scams

Does Blockchain and ICOs have a place in Esports Betting?

With skin bettings future up in the air it may be time to move from skin betting to another form. This is where we are seeing new Esports betting sites start-up in the form of ICOs.

A list of ICOs aimed at Esports:

• https://unikoingold.com/
• https://skincoin.org/
• https://www.herocoin.io/
• https://gimli.io/

The Good

Decentralized and anonymous these systems would offer betting services in the hole left by the decline of skin trading. It brings a new audience to cryptocurrencies and to Esports as well. The system would help lessen some scams as funds would be visible on blockchain and not relying on a 3rd party or Trade Bot to deal with funds.
When aimed towards a more adult, this could gain momentum and be a viable use of cryptocurrency.

The Bad

Over saturation, there is currently a ton of Esports betting sites and with that a ton of Esports betting scam sites. I listed just 4 ICOs coming up, there are more likely more out there and more in talks. This could be a good system, hell a great system if we had 1-2 main sites on a crypto system, but as more will jump chain and therefore more scams will follow suit, the Crypto Esports betting sites with their own currency will flood the net and it will take a while for a king to be crowned and the shitcoins to be flushed out.

The Ugly

The current market for Esports betting is currently minors, teens and young adults. This will not change until the market grows older. This market is a prime target for scamming. Cryptocurrency requires a higher level of responsibility. The amount of spam flooding gaming forums with referral codes when a new betting site offers incentive, the amount of support tickets the accumulate when an account gets hijacked, phished or scammed out of items is higher with a younger crowd. These are factors that may not be considered by new ICOs for this market. A quick browse of the forums and reddits of this culture should provide more insight of the fallback.

Conclusion

A great concept that will fall flat as the market becomes saturated while the target market ages. The legalization of Online Betting and Esports betting is still up in the air in most countries which causes more issues and can reflect negatively on cryptos. I will be keeping an eye on them, but my money could be better invested elsewhere. The pump will eventually dump.