The allure of betting sponsors is becoming difficult for esports to ignore but caution remains

One of the world’s biggest esports league operators is opening up a sponsorship category for betting companies after years of lobbying from its teams.

Riot Games, which operates the League of Legends esports and Valorant Champions Tour, plans to open up a betting sponsor category for its tier-one teams in the Americas and EMAA region.

With a global audience estimated to be well in excess of 600 million and value of around $3bn in 2023, according to GlobalData’s Esports report, the esports sector has been going from strength to strength in recent years.

Unsurprisingly, betting on the vertical has accompanied this growth. Further estimates from Statista put the number of people betting on esports in 2024 at over 74 million people, driving $2.5bn in esports betting revenue across a range of operators. Riot itself has cited stats from Sportradar showing esports betting turnover of $10.7bn in 2024.

The value and potential esports poses has not been lost on bookmakers, with some like Rivalry basing their business model on esports betting, with a particular focus on connecting with the Gen Z and millennial audiences which engage with esports the most.

It seems now that the teams competing under Riot Games, which has previously hinted at the possibility of opening up its sponsorship activity to betting, are now finding the allure of betting revenue too irresistible. The company has noted, however, that some concerns around social responsibility and player protection linger.

“We know sports betting isn’t for everyone, and that some fans have strong feelings about it, and we respect that,” said John Needham, President of Publishing & Esports at Riot Games, in a recent blog post.

“However, the reality is that betting activity already exists around our sports and will continue whether we engage with it or not. Historically, this has been a restricted sponsorship category, and Riot has not engaged with betting companies.

“Teams have asked us to reconsider our stance, and after years of analysis to ensure we got it right, we agreed it was time to open up this category to create more revenue opportunities for teams.”

Laying down the ground rules

Riot Games’ teams may be keen to cash in on the revenue opportunities that betting sponsors offer, but the company itself is proceeding with caution. Widespread concerns over consumer protection in recent years, from markets as geographically broad as to the UK to the US and Brazil, have likely stoked some caution.

Additionally, the prospect of athletes facing online abuse as a result of betting has also been brought to the forefront lately. Tennis players in particular have expressed the view that by granting more visibility to betting companies, sponsorships have in some way contributed to the online vitriol many athletes have faced.

Riot Games aims to create what it calls a ‘well researched sports betting partner programme’ which will be guided by three key pillars. Revenue generation is the first of these, sitting alongside development of regulations, monitoring of best practices, and educational initiatives to protect the integrity of ‘esports teams, pros, fans, and events’, Needham explained.

Describing the third and final pillar, Needham outlined that Riot Games wants a partner programme that ‘strengthens and reinforces the competitive integrity standards of our esports competitions by improving our ability to monitor betting activity for violations of our policies’.

The company also intends to vet and approve all potential sports betting partners and build on its official partnership with GRID – a tech company which provides esports data for commercial partners like betting operators.

It will also introduce mandatory integrity checks for its teams. Riot Games’ esports teams will be required to ensure competitive integrity, safeguard players and young audiences, and uphold responsible betting practices.

“Integrity isn’t something Riot can uphold alone; it’s a shared responsibility across the entire ecosystem,” said Needham. “Teams pursuing betting partnerships must have established an integrity program inclusive of policy development, monitoring, and education. They must also assess if this, like all other partnerships, makes sense for their brand and fans.”

Finally, Riot Games also wants to ensure that the value of betting sponsorships is felt throughout its entire ecosystem, and not just by the tier one teams. A portion of tier-one sponsorship revenues will therefore be invested into the tier two level of teams.

The roadmap outlined by Riot Games is indicative of two things – firstly, as outlined above, the fact that the sheer value of esports betting is being recognised by more and more stakeholders across the wider esports space.

The second thing is that Riot Games and others have clearly been observing developments in other sports, and want to ensure that sponsorship is carried out with responsibility, an overarching theme.

The controversies around betting’s visibility in sports like football, particularly in EnglandRiot Games, which operates the League of Legends esports and Valorant Champions Tour, plans to open up a betting sponsor category for its tier-one team, and the growing visibility of betting in US sports since the repeal of PASPA in 2018, may well have given Riot some food for thought.

“We believe that showing up in this space — responsibly — is better than letting others define it for us,” Needham’s blog concluded.

“We’ve said before that Riot is all in for the long term on our esports, and that means stepping into arenas like sports betting with an objective to both guide and protect our brands from bad actors by establishing what good looks like, while also providing an avenue for teams to benefit financially.”