An entrepreneur who runs a company that allows people to bet on video games told a casino industry audience today that he has seen firsthand its problem with attracting young gamblers.
Rahul Sood, chief executive of the eSports betting business Unikrn, said during a keynote address at the Global Gaming Expo, or G2E, that he has witnessed a much-discussed fact about casino floors: young people often seem to pass right through them.
“The younger people seem to be cutting through the fastest way possible to get out of the casino, so that they can go straight to the nightclub,” Sood said. “It’s almost like in order to build a successful casino, you have to build a nightclub.”
Sood knows a thing or two about another type of gaming that has been popular with the younger crowd — and he’s building a company based on gambling on that. He used much of his G2E speech to explain Unikrn, which lets individuals gamble on the competitive video gaming world known as eSports.
Sood described Unikrn as a kind of virtual “theme park” where people can bet with real money on eSports in some specific places where such activity is legal. In other places, such as the United States, however, fans earn a virtual currency called Unikoin that they can use to boost their chances of winning certain prizes.
Unikrn has attracted some high-profile financial attention, raising at least $10 million from investors who include Mark Cuban and Ashton Kutcher. And betting on eSports, in general, is a popular activity: a recent Eilers Research report estimated that fans will wager upwards of a quarter billion dollars on eSports this year. That number could grow to more than $23 billion by 2020, the report said.
One day, Sood predicted, colleges may even offer scholarships to students who prove exceptionally talented at eSports. That’s because success at eSports requires developing attractive skills, such as good collaboration and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure, he said.
Sood also shared his views on some trends related to the casino industry.
He said he hoped to see sports betting legalized throughout the country one day, likened daily fantasy sports to gambling and encouraged more innovative approaches to skill-based slot machines. He indicated that those machines need to strongly diverge from the traditional chance-based games.
“In order to change the game, you really have to think outside the box,” Sood said.