We’re looking at in play betting again, and today our eyes are on the UK Gambling Commission. Even though they recognize in play betting as a form of gambling, they consider it not to be as harmful as other forms of betting, marking an actual significant low risk.
Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about this
“Exchanges allow bets to be made in-running or in-play (i.e. to make bets while a race or match is in progress). This feature is generally restricted to the most popular events for which widespread, live television coverage is available.
Whereas non-in-play bets are entered into the system immediately after being placed by the customer, when betting in-play a time delay might be instituted so as to make it somewhat more difficult for unscrupulous customers to accept offers for bets that for whatever reason have suddenly become highly favorable. Markets may also be actively managed by the operator. In this case, betting will be briefly halted after each occurrence likely to cause a substantial change in the odds (for example, in association football matches goals, penalty kicks and sendings off would warrant such suspensions), so that unmatched bets can be cancelled.”
Though it is expected to be monitored for openness and fairness, this new form of gambling is attracting people as young as 12 years old. What they do, except placing bets over the favorite team, is they practice a sort of exchange between in-game players, some exchanges being made with other skins/crates etc. while others can consist in real-life-currency. And even though skins do not have any kind of impact on the actual gameplay (meaning you won’t get any game advantage over others) it’s cosmetic appearance, the types if knife available or even a crate containing a surprise item, some of them are worth thousands of dollars or even more.
The good news is that players won’t be that much bothered by anyone regarding the regulation, even though some risks do exist, so both types of gambling will continue to exist long enough (in-play betting and skin gambling). But it’s not always just good news. First of all, it’s not always fairness when it comes to the other players, so if you don’t know for sure where the link from the other player takes you, might give it a second thought. Secondly, if you don’t have good negotiations skills, you might end up buying a cheap item, at an overpriced rate. Some web sites offer a written guarantee on the front page that “everything’s gonna be OK” and try to assure all visitors that it’s transparency and fairness is subjected to moral ground and it will be respected.This is skin-betting. Lack of regulation can make it difficult for some to actually compete on a licensed platform, with terms and conditions, thus making it 100% safe for all players.
And even more, such platforms might keep underaged children from engaging in social-gambling activities. Because at a younger age, who could actually understand what gambling is and what it involves? Furthermore, children might develop addictions quicker than others, and are also at risk to gamble money that doesn’t belong to them.
But we should also give them credit for not prohibiting such acts. It’s still a big responsibility for any parent to watch over his child, so considering this is happening, there shouldn’t be any children at risk to develop any kind of form of gambling addiction. Furthermore, such in-game exchanges could actually be hard to stop. In a recent article, we talked about the fact that the whole new “skin” craze, has actually made the game a bit more popular, as it added something new to it’s never-ending-shooting-at-each-other type of game. The skins, the way they’ve been edited, the themes have literally added “more color” to the game, and in-play betting was a bonus that followed.
Enough with skin-betting.
What about the people betting on live games? In other words, changing your preferences based on how the game is actually happening, as you look. And yes, counter-strike can also be included. But let’s not forget the “old classic” horse-racing bets, or even on virtual football games. The proportion of betting while the game is actually happening has been described by Eric Roberts from sbo.net as:
“One of the largest gaming festivals in the world is the DreamHack digital festival – a bi-annual Local Area Network event which runs for four days and features a whole range of eSports tournaments. Both summer and winter CSGO tournaments were won by Swedish team Fnatic, who also went on to win the ESL One CSGO Major tournament, which was held in Cologne in August 2015 and had a total prize pool of $250,000. That particular competition was watched by around 27 million fans, with a high of 1.3 million concurrent viewers.”
As some video games are now included in the “sports” area, we can definitely say it’s an industry. For some, pretty sums of money can come out, while for others it can only take the shape of experience.
