![]() ![]() According to research firm Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, more than 3 million people wagered $2.3 billion worth of skins on the outcome of e-sports matches in 2015. ![]() This kind of betting is far from mainstream, but plenty of people are figuring it out. Valve has sold 21 million copies of the game and made $567 million in total revenue from the title since it debuted almost four years ago, according to research firm SuperData, and a range of websites now let players trade or sell skins, or use them to gamble. Because there’s a liquid market to convert each gun or knife back into cash, laying a bet in skins is essentially the same as betting with real money.ĬS:GO’s popularity skyrocketed along with the skins gambling markets. People buy skins for cash, then use the skins to place online bets on pro CS:GO matches. For CS:GO, the introduction of skins led to a thriving gambling market. Reasonable people can debate whether competitive video gaming is a sport, but it has at least one thing in common with football, basketball, and soccer: People like to bet on the outcome. But the reference to black markets was prescient. When it introduced the skins, Valve said in an announcement that the online arms bazaar would let Counter-Strike players “experience all the thrills of black-market weapons trafficking without any of the hanging around in darkened warehouses getting knifed to death.” It was supposed to be a joke. Today, there are 380,000 people around the world playing the game at any given time. Within two years, the number of people playing CS:GO had grown 1,500 percent. In-game purchases weren’t new, but the cash trade was Valve’s special twist. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |