Casinos and esports – a match made in heaven?

04 October 2016

Share

Later this month (25-26) at the SLS Las Vegas there’ll be a two day conference focused on what esports can offer casinos. 

sls-vegasOrganised by Naruscope, Esports & Casino Resorts “will provide a hands-on esports education for the commercial gambling industry. Learn what esports opportunities are available today and how esports will shape the casino floor of the future”.

It’s a fact that land based casinos are failing to attract a younger demographic, the notoriously hard to reach ‘millennial’ is not gambling at casinos anymore. So, this of course begs the question why not?

One supposed reason is that casino games don’t offer the type of excitement that this generation has grown up with and grown accustomed to. Slots based, whether they’re branded with Miley Cyrus or Elvis Presley, are ineffectual in enticing these customers and that’s due to the technology underneath.

Esports, that is to say skill based video games which can be optimised for this type of environment, could offer an antidote. The Downtown Grand in Vegas has been offering esports tournaments for some time, indeed it calls itself the ‘home of esports in Las Vegas’ but it’ll soon have competition. There is a dedicated esports arena being built by Millennial Esports on the third floor of the Neonopolis on Fremont Street. 

This is expected to be ready for mid November and will seat 400-500 people. There are currently no plans to offer esports betting at the venue but this is reportedly likely to be integrated at some point in the near future. The venue will host the Halo Championship Series Open Circuit on November 18-20, and there’s an attractive prize pool of $25,000 (£19,649) up for grabs. 

Alex Igelman, Millennial Esports
Alex Igelman, Millennial Esports

Millennial Esports CEO Alex Igelman, is one of the speakers at the Esports and Casinos conference later this month. 

The conference will explore the various opportunities esports can offer casinos as well as the practicalities of making it happen. There is, for example, one panel exploring ‘Bringing esports to the casino floor’. 

You can find out more about the schedule and the full list of speakers here

Esports Insider says: Land based casinos need to make some changes to avoid becoming prehistoric in a decade’s time. Esports are an ideal way to do so, and in a similar fashion to how VR could reinvigorate arcades, they could bring excitement back to the casino floors.