October 2023 delivered a mixed month of esports gambling news. Whilst some stakeholders announced partnerships and activations, two notable companies stepped away from the esports betting scene.
To keep you updated with the scene, Esports Insider has created a list of the top esports gambling-related stories for the month of October. To find out more click the titles of the stories.
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Spotlighted story:
Amid the so-called esports winter and a global economic slowdown, many organisations are on the hunt for ways to boost revenue.
Esports Insider journalist Riccardo Lichene discusses how alcohol partnerships have started to become more and more prominent in esports. Partnerships make up the majority of esports teams’ revenue, and one area in which there’s arguably unexplored potential is alcoholic beverage sponsorships.
Esports bookmaker unikrn will scale back its B2C operations after its parent company Entain announced a ‘repositioning’ of its esports offering.
The esports betting brand was acquired by Entain in 2021 for a reported £50m. After going offline to restructure the business, unikrn relaunched in Canada and Brazil in December 2022. Entain issued a statement to associated media earlier this week highlighting that it intends to leverage unikrn’s esports betting capabilities across its existing brands.
Esports betting company Rivalry has collaborated with ex-professional Brazilian esports player Gustavo ‘Baiano’ Gomes to launch a new League of Legends-focused advertising campaign.
The campaign in particular will focus on the League of Legends World Championship, a tournament that Rivalry claimed generated 40% of the company’s total sportsbook handle during the period it ran last year. The story of the campaign sees Gomes search for ways, such as ‘dark magic’, to help his native team LOUD survive the tournament.
Betting platform Luckbox, owned by Real Luck Group, has suspended all betting and player registrations, effective immediately, the company disclosed in a corporate release.
Real Luck Group said the shutdown was due to a lack of new funding as well as a proposed merger or acquisition not going through. The group said it was “unable to secure the required capital injection due to challenging conditions in the capital markets.”
Digital esports trading platform ENDX has continued to strengthen its partnership portfolio by securing a deal with German esports organisation BIG (Berlin International Gaming).
Details surrounding the partnership are minimal. However, the deal seems to follow suit with ENDX’s previous agreements, which see the trading platform incorporate its partnered esports organisation’s players into its platform. Founded in 2019, ENDX is an esports player-focused virtual trading platform. The company partners with various esports teams and organisations to add their players into a tradable pool.
Esports tournament organiser Relog Media and German esports data company Bayes Esports have joined forces for the Roobet Cup 2023.
As a result of the deal, Bayes Esports will become the Official Data Supplier of the Counter-Strike 2 tournament taking place on October 25th. Organised by Relog Media, the 2023 Roobet Cup will feature a $250,000 (~£205,347) prize pool and will include the likes of Fnatic, Heroic and Astralis competing.
Bookmaker PARI creates esports company, appoints CEO for venture
Russian betting company PARI has announced that it will create its own separately operated esports and gaming organisation called Pari Entertainment.
The project will be led by Sergey Glamazda, the former CEO of Armenian-based Russian esports organisation Virtus.pro. In a release, the Russian company announced that Pari Entertainment will be based in Belgrade, Serbia and will operate as a separate international division.
