Why Valve’s ban on betting sites could ruin competitive gaming in South Africa

Lazygamer recently published an article mentioning that at least 95% of the people watching South African competitive games were simply tuning in to check their bets.

As such, the actual organic viewership of these events is quite poor, primarily because of a lack of advertising and the lack of consistently available streaming schedules.

This shut down could also perpetuate a negative cycle as sponsors pull out of events due to the now-limited exposure.

We spoke to DeWet “Ridditz” Lombard-Bovey, Director of local streaming site nAvTv, about what the consequences of the ban are likely to be.

This is what he had to say about the effect of betting sites on local gaming:

I feel that if CS:GO and Dota 2 Lounge close down, then it will have quite a big effect on smaller tournaments world-wide, as these tournaments grow and get recognition through sites like Lounge.

However, not all marketing gets done through lounge, in fact more than half of the marketing gets done through website, social media, 3rd party media, and that is where you still get your return and logo placements.

I would not say that 95% of local viewers are from Lounge.

I find that the local viewers for the most part (at least 50%) still tune into the game if marketing was done correctly regardless of Lounge (for Dota at least).

However you do get a big increase in viewers through Lounge, and these viewers are mostly (easy 80% est) International. Most local sponsors don’t care about this hit, as this is not their target market.

The local scene will take a hit, but not as big a hit as the smaller international tournaments that actually need the international audience.

I have seen that multiple gambling sites are busy changing the way they actually handle business to conform to Valve’s New TOS, and I am sure that CS:GO and Dota 2 Lounge are busy looking into ways to continue and I hope that they will find a way.

Lounge has always been supporters of nAvTV and for that we are rooting for them.

NavTv