Sports-Gambling Funds Embrace the Unpredictable World of Esports
- Betting on esports is a new avenue to satisfy pent-up demand
- It’s hard to assess home-field advantage on traditional sports
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Duane Cousin is one of a handful of professional bettors seeking to turn sports gambling into an investing asset class. But when the pandemic hit, he was left with so little to wager on that he found himself dialing up bets on esports.
Cousin could have put some of the High Roller Fund’s $375,000 in assets into bets on the few other sports, such as Australian horse racing or Ukrainian table tennis, that persisted through the international lockdown. Instead, he delved into a parallel world where gamblers can bet on teams like DRX in League of Legends or Astralis in Counter-Strike.