William Hill recognises eSports potential with £150,000 investment for startup
FTSE 250 listed William Hill has plunged £150,000 of investment into eSports startup BetGame, which won the betting giant's competition for new innovative tech companies.
William Hill's startup accelerator programme was won by BetGame for the "innovative and exciting experience" it has created for gamers by developing a product which online gamers to bet on games with their friends with a "seamless" betting app overlay compatible with consoles, PC games, Facebook and Twitch, the streaming service popular with eSports events.
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BetGame will launch its product for Fifa 2016 in the first quarter of the year before following up with other titles.
"With such initiatives, we really wanted to actively seek out innovation and help bring those ideas to commercial fruition, rather than waiting for this technology to appear a few years down the line," explained interim managing director of William Hill Crispin Nieboer.
"BetGame is a worthy winner of our first accelerator programme, providing a unique opportunity to disrupt the booming eSports market, and we are looking forward to working together."
The eSports market is estimated to generate over $1bn in 2017, but before it can grab its slice of the pie BetGame will have to prove its worth over competitors such as Unikrn which launched a betting platform for eSports in the UK last May.