New service grants bookmakers overview of esports athletes’ ages

Esports betting operators can now minimize the risk of taking bets on matches with too many under-18 athletes with the help of a new service.

Kyle Giersdorf was only 16 years old when he won the Fortnite World Cup and Yu “JackeyLove” Wen-Bo 17 when his team Invictus won the League of Legends World Championship. The number of under-18 esports athletes is growing, making it increasingly important for betting operators to ensure compliance with regulation concerning the age of the athletes.

This made GameScorekeeper, a Danish company dedicated to providing solutions for esports betting, take a closer look at the challenge:

– In football, it’s relatively easy to pinpoint most under-18 teams. But in esports, many teams field a mix of under-18 and 18+ athletes which has made our clients increasingly interested in a service that makes the athletes’ age transparent and actionable, says founder and CEO of GameScorekeeper Felix Klastrup.

According to GameScorekeeper, two of the top five teams on the Counter-Strike world ranking have starting players under 18 and the number of under-18 players is likely to grow with the same speed as the esports industry.

Accordingly, Felix Klastrup’s company has developed a new product to make his clients’ lives easier:

– We have developed a new service that covers more than 95 percent of all CS:GO teams and their age majorities. Any operator can use the service to manually or automatically suspend bets with teams with a majority of players under 18. The betting industry will go a long way to ensure compliance and with this service it’s relatively easy for them.

The first operator to make use of GameScorekeeper’s service is Betway. Adam Savinson, Head of Esports at Betway Group, explains:

– We are committed to providing the widest selection of markets on esports while at the same time ensuring all bets live up to our strict responsible policies and comply with regulation on athletes’ age. The Player Age Service from GameScorekeeper ensures that we can maintain this efficiently.

Sweden and Spain have imposed regulation barring betting on under-18 players or teams with an under-18 majority and other countries are likely to follow suit. GameScorekeeper’s ‘Player Age Service’ is based on a register of the age of the esports athletes which is linked to the players’ team making it possible for operators to exclude under-18 athletes or teams when using the new service.