I had the opportunity to sit in on two betting panels at eSports Conference Europe, an intimate London-based event dedicated to the eSports industry. I learned the bigger flagship eSports Conference takes place in LA later this year (register using code “RET25” to take advantage of the 25% discount for CalvinAyre.com readers), but the European event is growing, especially as more betting companies start to get involved.

The first thing I noticed during these panels, especially during the Q&A portions, is how little the eSports and sports betting industries know about each other.  Both are aware of the other, but that’s about as deep as it goes at this point.

“Anyone in the betting industry knows what eSports is now, it’s the new buzzword”, said panellist Adam Savinson, eSports Manager of Betway Group.  However, he continued, “the betting industry doesn’t know enough about it, they’re not in the loop”.

Panellist James Watson, Product Manager eSports for Sportradar agreed and added that eSports games like Counter-Strike are easy for the betting industry to understand but complex games like LOL and DOTA are a different story.  “There is a lot of hunger to be a part of eSports, but still a huge lack of knowledge”, he said.