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DATA.BET, a trusted sportsbook solution supplier, announces a significant acceleration in esports betting. Building on the trends shared in the Sportsbook Report, which highlighted growing player interest in niche tournaments, Q1 2026 confirms the vertical's continued upward trajectory.
The latest results point to:
- Deepening market demand
- Disciplined trading operations
- Growing player engagement across partner platforms
- Substantial revenue growth and commercial impact
Esports delivered standout results across every major benchmark. Compared to Q1 2025, GGR nearly doubled, and turnover grew sharply by 70,6%, supported by a meaningful improvement in margin efficiency.
Player activity strengthened across the board, with placed bets climbing 33,2% and combo bets posting an even more pronounced jump of 72,1% — a clear signal that users are shifting toward more sophisticated betting behavior. The active player base expanded substantially, and the average single bet size also grew, pointing to higher confidence and deeper involvement from users. Combo bet growth was reinforced by recent UX improvements to our Single Page Application (iFrame), which now makes building multiples easier and improves the display and presentation of available events, while higher-value bets from premium-segment partner platforms contributed meaningfully to the rise in average bet size.
Across major esports titles, performance dynamics show how player preferences and event calendars shaped the quarter. The top four disciplines – CS2, Dota 2, League of Legends, and Valorant – all posted strong double-digit growth across profit, turnover, bet counts, and active users.
Niche disciplines collectively delivered a striking 245% increase in profit compared with Q1 2025, demonstrating the depth of the company’s esports portfolio. This is a trend we first spotted while preparing the Sportsbook Report and one that continues to surprise the wider market, which still tends to underestimate the commercial potential of disciplines outside the established top tier. Rainbow Six stood out as a particular success story, driven by the addition of new markets, including combined Total Over + Win and Win First Half + Win Map, alongside a sharp expansion in match coverage. The discipline has found its audience in Latin America, where DATA.BET has solidified its position as a premium sportsbook solution supplier.
Rocket League continues to confirm its status as one of the most promising esports disciplines for betting, with even greater potential to unlock should official data coverage expand in the future. Despite Q4 2025 hosting the FIFAe World Cup, typically the year's headline event, Rocket League still delivered QoQ growth with turnover up 85,3%, bet counts rising 18,7%, and active players climbing 50,1%. This was driven primarily by the largest and almost unique market offering in the industry, alongside a 94% live coverage conversion rate.
Between the regional VCT Kickoff and Masters Santiago, Riot Games experimented with a new format – Valorant EMEA Clash 2026, inviting teams that missed out on Santiago qualification, alongside second-tier squads from regional Challenger leagues. By filling a short gap in the calendar, the tournament posted strong YoY growth across core metrics and emerged as a notable driver of new-player acquisition, with newcomers making up 68.6% of all new players and 55.4% of total bets placed.
According to Bohdan Holovnov, Head of Esports at DATA.BET, this performance reflects deliberate product and trading enhancements aligned with player behavior:
High margin efficiency has been a real catalyst this quarter. Partners have increasingly recognized that esports can deliver meaningful commercial returns, encouraging them to scale up promotional campaigns and drive more traffic into the vertical. That feeds directly into more new users, higher turnover, and stronger margins. At the same time, we continue to offer the broadest match and discipline coverage on the market, and the impact is also reflected in the rapid growth of combo bets across our partner platforms.
The official data events were up 5.2% YoY, with the overall event calendar climbing even higher to 10.8%, reinforcing the breadth of DATA.BET's coverage. Top-tier events outperformed low-tier events by a wide margin in turnover, profit, and bet count, yet the volume of low-tier events also grew, particularly in CS2, as Valve's restructured Major qualification system has prompted tournament organizers to fill the calendar with new qualifying events.
Bohdan Holovnov, Head of Esports at DATA.BET, added:
Q1 of 2026 set a new benchmark for what esports betting can deliver. GGR nearly doubling year over year, combined with a player base growing by more than 56% and increasingly sophisticated betting patterns, suggests the vertical is maturing in exactly the right direction. We're entering the rest of 2026 with strong momentum, an expanding market portfolio, and partners who are seeing tangible commercial impact quarter after quarter.