Sportsbook platform provider DATA.BET has released its latest Sportsbook Report, highlighting growing player interest in niche tournaments within the esports betting sphere.
According to DATA.BET, the latest results point to deepening market demand, disciplined trading operations, growing player engagement across partner platforms, and substantial revenue growth and commercial impact.
Esports delivered standout results across every major benchmark, with GGR nearly doubling and turnover growing 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 DATA.BET’s Single Page Application (iFrame), which aims to make 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, the report shows.
Niche disciplines collectively delivered a 245% increase in profit compared with 1Q25, demonstrating the depth of the company’s esports portfolio.
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.
Rocket League continues to confirm its status as one of the most promising esports disciplines for betting, the company added, with even greater potential to unlock should official data coverage expand in the future.
Despite 4Q25 hosting the FIFAe World Cup, typically the year’s headline event, Rocket League still delivered quarter-on-quarter growth with turnover up 85.3%, bet counts rising 18.7% and active players climbing 50.1%.
“High margin efficiency has been a real catalyst this quarter,” said Bohdan Holovnov, Head of Esports at DATA.BET. “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% year-on-year, with the overall event calendar climbing higher to 10.8%.
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.
“Q1 of 2026 set a new benchmark for what esports betting can deliver,” Holovnov added. “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.”
