Gambling money is moving into games and the platforms around them
Esports teams and streamers have few sponsors willing to pay, and betting companies are among them. The companies that run games and streaming sites now decide which gambling money comes in, and governments are starting to decide for them.
What is skin gambling?
Skins are cosmetic items in a game, such as a new look for a weapon or character. They do not change how the game plays. Some games let players trade them, which gives them real value. Skin gambling is betting with those items instead of cash. That effectively turns decorations into a currency, which is why several countries regulate it as gambling.
Where it stands
Betting money is reaching games and where people watch them. Riot Games let bookmakers sponsor its top teams in 2025, and in 2026 talked with the prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi. Esports Charts counts a betting brand as title sponsor of nine of the top ten Counter-Strike teams in the Americas. The streaming site Kick is backed by Stake, an online casino. Brazil and India have banned ads for betting and money games, and California has banned sweepstakes casinos and those who knowingly promote them.
Timeline
2018
Italy bans all gambling advertising, esports included
Italy's Dignity Decree bans gambling advertising and sponsorship across all media, which covers esports teams and events. National advertising law, not the game publisher, is often the first limit a team meets.
2024
Riot tells teams it will allow betting sponsors
At the end of 2024 Riot Games, which makes League of Legends and Valorant and runs their leagues, tells teams they will be allowed betting partners, kept off its broadcasts and off jerseys. Counter-Strike and Dota teams had long relied on betting sponsors. Riot's had been barred from them.
2025
Riot opens betting sponsorship to its top teams
Riot formally opens betting sponsorship to top-tier League of Legends and Valorant teams in the Americas and in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Riot vets each bookmaker. Its own broadcasts stay free of betting brands, and no betting logos go on jerseys. Riot says $10.7 billion was bet on its two games in 2024, about 70% of it with unregulated operators.
A Brazilian team signs the first betting deal Riot approves
MIBR's Valorant team and the bookmaker 1xBet announce the first betting sponsorship approved anywhere in Riot's leagues. The value of the deal is not disclosed.
Valve bars skin-gambling sites from Counter-Strike jerseys and broadcasts
Valve, which makes Counter-Strike, updates the rules tournament organizers must follow. Skins are cosmetic items in the game that can be traded for real money, and a whole class of websites takes them as betting chips or sells randomized cases of them. Those sites may no longer appear on jerseys or anything visible on a broadcast. The same rules still allow betting sponsors that are licensed by the authorities where they operate.
India bans money-game advertising and bars bets from esports
India's online gaming law of August 2025 bans any advertisement that directly or indirectly promotes an online game played for money. It defines an e-sport as a registered competition that may charge entry fees and pay prize money but involves no bets or stakes by anyone, player or not.
Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025 (India), sections 2 and 6
Los Angeles sues Stake.us, Kick and their founders
Los Angeles's City Attorney sues Stake.us, which calls itself a social casino, along with its owner Easygo, the streaming site Kick, founders Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, and companies that supply its games. The suit says Stake.us is an unlicensed casino operating illegally in California. It says Stake earned about $4.7 billion in gross revenue in 2024.
California bans sweepstakes casinos and those who promote them
Governor Newsom signs AB 831, which makes it unlawful to offer an online sweepstakes game, a casino-style game played with two currencies in which players can win prizes or cash equivalents. It also makes it unlawful for a platform provider or media affiliate, among others, to knowingly and willfully support or promote one.
2026
Betting brands hold the title sponsorship of most top Counter-Strike teams
Esports Charts counts the title sponsors, the brand in a team's name or on the front of its shirt, of the top-ranked Counter-Strike teams. Nine of the top ten teams in the Americas carry a betting, crypto casino or poker brand. So do twelve of the top twenty in Europe, where only four have a title sponsor from outside gambling.
Winamax adds a second team and says its logo sits at the center of the jersey
Winamax announces deals with G2 for League of Legends and Team Heretics for Valorant. Its announcement says its red W sits at the center of the teams' jerseys and will be visible in the background of streams. Riot's rule says no betting logos on jerseys.
Brazil bans betting and betting sponsorship
A provisional measure signed by President Lula on 25 September 2026 bans fixed-odds betting in Brazil, on sports and on online games of chance alike, and every form of betting advertising and sponsorship. Licensed operators must go offline within ten days, and sponsors' signs must come down in the same period.
Riot talks to prediction markets about sponsoring its esports
Bloomberg reports that Riot Games has discussed esports sponsorship deals with Polymarket and Kalshi, prediction markets where people trade on the outcome of events, matches included. Riot says it is evaluating them, and neither company confirms the talks. Any sponsor Riot approves would have to take its betting data from GRID, the esports data company.
Esports News UK, Adam Roarty, relaying Bloomberg (11 September 2026)
Consequences
012025
Riot says the betting happens anyway
John Needham, who runs esports at Riot, argues that fans already bet billions on Riot's games, mostly with unregulated operators. Approving sponsors, he says, steers that activity to bookmakers Riot has vetted, and a share of Riot's income from it goes to lower-tier teams.
022025
The reversal shows how short of money esports is
Jack Coleman of TheGamer reads Riot's change as a symptom of what he calls esports' existential revenue problem. Teams have no ticket income or television money to speak of, and the venture capital that once paid the bills has gone.
032025
Los Angeles says Kick was built to sell Stake
The city's complaint argues that Kick built a platform designed to promote gambling at Stake's casinos, and recruited streamers, Californians among them, to gamble on Stake.us live. It says Easygo wholly owns Kick. The complaint is signed by the city and by Susman Godfrey, a private law firm acting for it, and asks for attorneys' fees.
Complaint, People v. Sweepsteaks Ltd. d/b/a Stake.us (Los Angeles Superior Court, 28 August 2025)
042026
A casino's owners run a major streaming site
Kick began in 2023, after Twitch restricted streams from unlicensed casinos in 2022, and is backed by Stake. Its co-founder Bijan Tehrani said in April 2026 that he and Ed Craven had personally put nearly $1 billion into it. Kick says it has reached 100 million users, and it keeps 5% of streamers' subscription income against Twitch's standard 50%.
Objections
Counterpoint2025
The two publishers are less far apart than they look
Valve did not ban gambling money. Its tournament license still accepts a betting sponsor that is officially licensed by the applicable authorities. Only businesses built on Valve's own item economy are out. Both publishers now allow licensed bookmakers, and differ on skins and on where a logo may appear.
Counterpoint2025
Valve banned the advertising, not the sites
Ollie Ring of The Escapist argues that Valve went after the sponsorship rather than the skin-gambling sites themselves, which run on Valve's own trading system. The sites carry on untouched, he writes, and the teams and organizers take the loss.
Counterpoint2025
States are closing the sweepstakes route
New York's law, signed on 5 December 2025 and in force at once, bans online sweepstakes games. Anyone who knowingly takes revenue from them can be barred from gaming operations in the state, and each violation carries a fine of $10,000 to $100,000.
Counterpoint2026
Nobody knows how much of the money is gambling money
No one publishes the share of esports sponsorship income that comes from betting. The terms of the first Riot-approved deal were not disclosed. Esports Charts' count covers one game in one month and only title sponsors, with no earlier year to compare it with, and it says its comparison for Asia is more limited.
What to watch
2026
Whether Congress keeps Brazil's betting ban
Congress's deliberation period on the provisional measure runs to 23 November 2026, with an urgency regime from 9 November. The thing to watch is whether Congress converts it into law, amends it or lets it lapse, and with it the ban on betting sponsorship.
2026
Oklahoma's ban reaches the promoters
1 November 2026, when Oklahoma's SB 1589 takes effect. It makes it a felony to run online casino games played with a currency that can be exchanged for prizes, or to support them as a platform provider, promoter or media affiliate. The thing to watch is whether streamers who promote such sites stop doing so there.
2027
Whether Riot widens the program
The 2027 season. Riot's post limits betting sponsorship 'initially' to top-tier teams in two regions. The next step would be an extension to Asia or to lower tiers.
Further reading
- AnalysisCS2 Sponsorship Landscape 2026: Gambling Brands Control Majority of Title Sponsorshipsescharts.com
- PrimaryLA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto Files Lawsuit Against Online Gambling Enterprise, Stake.uscityattorney.lacity.gov
- CommunityThe only companies that want to sponsor me are gambling companiestiktok.com
Where to follow it Esports Charts sponsorship analyses, Streams Charts on Kick, state legislatures' sweepstakes bills, the Los Angeles City Attorney, Esports News UK, SportBusiness
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