xQc outlines “Revolutionary” plan for Esports Betting – Breakdown
Published: Sep 10, 2024
In his last stream, Felix “xQc” Lengyel went on a tangent, expressing his passionate opinion over the idea that esports betting is necessary for the esports industry. Let’s quickly study this and figure out whether he’s onto something.
xQc – Esports and Betting Combined
As a personality, “xQc” has experience with both esports and betting separately. Over three years, he competed as a professional Overwatch player representing Luminosity Gaming and leading team Canada to three podium finishes at the Overwatch World Cup. Ending his career on a controversial note with multiple bans, there’s no denying his experience in the esports scene.
When it comes to gambling, “xQc” hosts popular gambling streams for his viewers and has admitted in the past that he suffered from a gambling addiction to the extent that he was kicked out of a casino in Montreal.
With that context out of the way – what did he have to say about the future of esports?
What does the esports industry need acording to xQc?
In a Q&A session on Kick, a user asked “xQc” what his thoughts were on how he would fix the instability of esports after inquiring if he’d ever host a team. His reply demonstrated a desire to host a team but frustrated by costs, he vented about the current structure of esports. Here’s his solution:
- Viewership & betting – “watch parties, co-streaming and through possible live betting with live viewing“.
While he cited ‘social behavior‘ as an essential reason, his audience may have overreacted to the mention of ‘live betting‘ as a solution.
Which comes first – viewership or betting?
As we’ve discussed time and time again, viewership is essential for esports and viewers are more likely to enjoy content via their preferred content creators. Esports organizers such as Riot Games, Blizzard and the Esports World Cup are all incredibly aware of this – this is no surprise for the esports industry.
I agree with xQc on the notion of growing the culture of watch parties as they have been tremendously successful so far.
This is similar to the fact that when it comes to esports betting, users tend to have strong ties to individual players over organization names.
As the general rule, more viewers means more sponsorship opportunities which provides better funding for organizers and competitors. Some of these sponsors, as commonly seen nowadays, include betting sites partnering with organizers or esports organizations. However, the main point of contention here is the relationship between viewership and betting – does better viewership offer more betting opportunities or is it vice versa?
From xQc’s reasoning, it seems he believes that more betting opportunities could create better viewership statistics. While this may be true, in all our years of covering esports events, if a tournament or league struggles to earn viewership there is a much greater chance that betting options won’t be offered to begin with.
I don’t entirely agree with xQc’s argument that betting opportunities would increase viewerhip as the relationship tends to be the other way round.
Perhaps, when viewership reaches a consistently high level, esports betting could help maintain excitement and push for continuous viewership spikes as the industry matures.
xQc is an ‘esports outsider’
In addition, ‘xQc’ speaks of esports live betting and live viewing as if they are some new concept when they aren’t. For years, esports betting sites have been offering the opportunity for live betting together with live viewing, especially considering that esports is free to watch and accessible everywhere (compared to traditional sports).
Moreover, he references esports betting negatively as “degen”, when like any other form of betting, it’s safe and respectful as long as it’s not overdone.
Considering he admitted:
“I’m sure there’s a bunch of stuff that I don’t understand as an outsider”, we’ll let this slide. Although, his accusation that esports is growing at a “turtle pace” is questionable.
Last but not least, his opinions may not be completely unbiased considering the platform Kick is heavily associated with betting.
Regardless, the relationship between esports betting and viewership is certainly interesting and could be the key to unlocking the future of esports.
