How Much Do You Really Know About Esports Betting?

Ready to test your esports knowledge?

How old is the average esports bettor? Older than you think. Which title pulls the highest stakes? Probably not the one you’d guess. How much of the action happens live? More than many sportsbooks expect.

We put together a quick knowledge check: four common questions, real data from our network and partners, and a few assumptions that are overdue for an update.

Who is the typical esports bettor?

This is the one almost everyone gets wrong. Ask a room full of sportsbook operators to describe the typical esports bettor demographic, and without a doubt, someone will say it: “they’re kids”. 

The widely held misperceptions: They’re too young to bet legally. They’re too young to matter commercially. These are some of the most persistent assumptions in the industry, and they fall apart the moment you look at the data.

Globally, 87% of all esports betting activity comes from people aged 18 to 43, split almost evenly between Gen Z (44%) and millennials (43%). 

Younger than the average traditional sports bettor? Sure. Underage? Not even close.

And when you look at individual markets, the betting population looks even more commercially relevant than that global split suggests. Our partner data from the Czech Republic shows the average age of esports bettors ranges from around 34 for eFootball and Counter-Strike 2 up to 41 for Starcraft 2 and Halo. Dota 2 averages 35. League of Legends and Valorant sit around the same mark. This is a bettor base in its peak spending years, digitally native, and deeply familiar with the games they bet on.

So if your mental model of the esports bettor is a teenager in a hoodie sneaking bets on a school laptop, it’s time to update it. The people betting on esports are old enough, engaged enough, and spending enough to deserve the same attention you give any other high-value segment.

Which esports titles attract the most betting interest?

You probably know the names: Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Dota 2, VALORANT, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. But knowing the names and understanding how they perform commercially are two very different things.

All five of these titles recorded double-digit betting volume growth in 2025, according to our 2025 Esports Betting Review. But the scale of that growth varied significantly. CS2 grew 30% year-over-year. League of Legends jumped 46%. And mobile title MLBB led the field at 62%.

Each title plays a different role, too. CS2 remains the most commercially mature, with 24 Tier-1 tournaments and more than 55 Tier-2 events creating a near-constant calendar throughout the year. League of Legends has one of the most structured global ecosystems, with Riot’s addition of a third international event in 2025 creating more meaningful betting windows across the season. MLBB, meanwhile, is the fastest-growing of the five, driven by strong regional leagues across Southeast Asia and record-breaking viewership: MPL Indonesia Season 15 hit 4.13 million peak viewers.

The point for operators is that “esports” is not one product. Each title has its own audience, calendar, and commercial profile. Treating them as interchangeable is a fast way to leave handle on the table.

What title gets the highest average stake?

This is where the data gets fun.

League of Legends: the average bet at Worlds 2025 hit €77, a 166% year-over-year increase. VALORANT Champions came in at €47 (+21% YoY), CS2’s StarLadder Budapest Major averaged €41, and Dota 2’s The International sat at €28 (+17% YoY). MLBB’s M6 World Championship averaged €16 per bet.

Those are flagship event numbers, so they skew higher than everyday league play. But the direction across every title is the same: average stakes are climbing, and they’re climbing fast. Our partner data also shows that esports bettors stake approximately 7x more per first bet than traditional sports bettors. 

What does that tell you? It suggests esports bettors are not arriving as cautious, low-value experimenters. Many already understand the games, the teams, and the betting context before they place their first wager. For operators, that changes the math around acquisition, early engagement, and long-term value.

How much esports betting happens live?

More than most people expect.

Across the five most popular esports titles in 2025, in-play betting accounted for between 72% and 86% of all activity, depending on the game. Dota 2 led at 86%. League of Legends came in at 79%. CS2 and VALORANT sat at 75% and 73%, and MLBB rounded things out at 72%. 

And when that much of the action happens live, the product experience around the match becomes much more important. A basic scoreboard and a long list of markets may work for some traditional sports contexts, but esports bettors often need more immediate visual context: what’s happening, why it matters, and how the match is shifting in real time.

That’s where Esports Widgets come in. Real-time match data, momentum visuals, player and team information, and dynamic in-game updates help bettors follow the action quickly enough to make live decisions.

But data is only half the picture. BetPeek, our interactive esports viewing and betting product, goes a step further. Rather than just showing bettors what’s happening, it lets them control how they follow the match, switching views and interacting with the action on their own terms. It’s a fundamentally different approach to esports betting engagement, and it reflects where this audience’s expectations are heading: not just real-time data, but real-time control over the experience itself.

Wrapping up

If you got through all of that without any surprises, you’re ahead of most of the market. But if a few of those answers caught you off guard, that’s kind of the point. 

The good news is that none of this requires a completely new playbook. You likely already manage a portfolio of sports with different audiences, calendars, betting behaviors, and product needs. Esports works the same way; the titles are maturing into distinct verticals, and the operational thinking you apply to traditional sports translates directly.

If you’re ready to talk about what esports could look like on your sportsbook, reach out to us. It’s what we do.

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