Will online gambling with FansUnite (FANS.C) and Tiidal Gaming (TIDL.C) make up for esports failure to launch?

May 31, 2022 World Emerging Markets Industry Updates

Attention sportsfans, we’ve got a hard reality to face: esports as a venture has been something of a disappointment.

It was touted as the next big thing back in 2018, mostly on the backs of a strong showing in South Korea, Japan and a few other countries in Asia where this kind of thing is big business and there’s money being made on every game.

But the same enthusiasm never materialized over here. We can’t be entirely certain of the reasons why.

Maybe it’s that there’s something inappropriate about commoditizing a child’s play as labour, or maybe that it tends to raise ethical questions about power when the profit motive gets involved. Maybe it’s the idea that watching other people play video games isn’t as big as selling point as promoters thought it would be. It certainly isn’t for me.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a market for it. Esports is definitely a cash cow—as the success and prevalence of streaming sites like Twitch.tv and its many competitors can attest—but that it remains niche, and thus, underwhelming compared to what we were sold.

There’s been another unexpected beneficiary of the relatively sedate esports craze and that’s online gambling. It’s seen revenues rising and interest taking hold. So even if it doesn’t fill stadiums like it originally promised esports has definitely found a place, and now the Ontario internet gambling market has opened as of April 4, we’re starting to see the potential of this new unexpected market.