How Does eSports Compare to Poker?

Posted:August 2017

For those of you who don’t know what ‘esports’ is all about, think about it this way: You have a few teams of video gamers. They may have five, six, or more players per team, but they compete against one another. Sure, it sounds like fun and what the average teen or young adult does with his or her time on a Saturday afternoon when it’s raining, but now imagine that it’s more organized than that. Imagine it’s professional players competing against one another.

Now imagine you have fans who watch these competitions in real time. Suddenly you might begin to understand that esports is a lot like real-life competitions such as football, baseball, basketball, and so on.

In 2016, nearly $600 million US was wagered in esports betting as people took sides and bet on which team was going to win the battle of one video game or another. CS:GO, CoD, and so many others draw in some of the best video game players from around the world and not only do they battle for bragging rights as champion, they are also competing for big money now.

It sounds like the excuse kids gave their parents is paying off.

Back about 20 years ago, parents were often beside themselves with the amount of time kids spent on their video game consoles. Sure, it gave those parents time to themselves without worrying what their child was up to, but there were always limits. Have parents become more or less tollerant of video gaming? Whether or not it's become more accepted with the level of technology we integrate with on a day to day basis - not many parents would have seen their kids taking their gaming forward as a career.

Today it is a major industry and it’s expected that by 2020, there could very well be more than $1.5 billion bet on esports.

People who love the nature of betting and gambling are often looking for the next best bet and more and more sites are popping up offering just this.

So, how does this actually compare to poker?

When some cable sports networks began to broadcast poker tournaments, it was almost laughable to many so-called experts who didn't seem willing to give poker a chance on the televised stage. However, it became one of the highest rated programs for some of these networks. That’s because there was great allure to the idea of being able to play a card game and win millions of dollars in prize money, not to mention the endorsements that come with.

Today, no matter what people may say about esports, it’s no different. There are millions of avid gamers around the world who could envision themselves sitting there, competing for prize money, and even more who would place bets on any number of components to the games itself, including who would win, which player scored the most ‘kills,’ and more.

Poker is a game of skill, deception, and sometimes a bit of luck. Still, people love to watch the best in the business play. Esports might well just be one of the next booming indistries based on how far it's come in such a short space of time - and it’s continuing to grow in popularity. See what Logitech CEO had to say about it here.

It was recently announced that esports is coming to BBC3.