UK Survey: Is eSports Betting The Future?

The last month has provided a wealth of evidence that eSports is already a major cultural phenomenon. Between the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba sinking $15m into a new eSports site, ESL creating an eSports Hall of Fame and the University of California offering scholarships to League of Legends players, this is as hot a phenomenon as any in the entertainment industry.

Or so the eSports companies and industry media would have you believe. As our specially commissioned eSports survey revealed, the business with a cumulative worth of several billion dollars still remains much of a mystery to the man in the street. If you want to learn more in order to understand the survey better take a look at our free esports betting guide.

RightCasino.com eSports Betting Survey:

Via YouGov, we asked 2006 people i) whether they were familiar with eSports, and ii) if they had or would consider on betting on eSports.

Of those surveyed, only 16% had heard of the new craze. That means a remarkable 84% of UK residents are completely unaware of the eSports phenomenon that’s growing so quickly, there’s even serious talk of it becoming an Olympic discipline.

Perhaps not surprisingly, men were more au fait with eSports than women; 32% of males were familiar with the sport compared with only 8% of females. And as is demonstrated below, the young were more savvy than any other demographic…

Chart 1 – Are you familiar with eSports? (Breakdown by Age)

YouGov also found that those familiar with eSports could be found in equal numbers the width and breadth of the country…

Chart 2 – Are you familiar with eSports? (Breakdown by Region)

… while employment statistics revealed a similar spread, with only retirees more unlikely than most to have encountered the pastime…

Chart 3 – Are you familiar with eSports? (Breakdown by Field of Employment)

Given that eSports were such a mystery to most of those surveyed, the idea of gambling on the practice was all but unheard of. Indeed, 87% of respondents had never betted on eSports and had no intention of doing so in the future.

Chart 4 – Have you or will you in the future be interested in gambling on eSports? (Breakdown by Age)

Furthermore, only 2% of the 2008 people surveyed had ever bet on eSports and of those only 1% was resolved to doing so again.

Yet again, younger people were the most aware that betting on eSports is a practice, with 12 % of 18-24 year-olds having either gambled or expressed an interest in gambling in the future.

Chart 5 – Are you interested in gambling on eSports?

In the final balance, however, we can but conclude that, while the gambling community might be all too familiar with the eSports juggernaut, your average Brit is still at the stage familiar to those of us old enough to remember the 1970s when we had yet to encounter the delights of Pong.

For more on eSports and its history, check out our extensive infographic.