Sony Entertainment enters the esports betting industry

Sony Entertainment has just gone public with an application for a betting platform patent. The explanation of the patent and the application is very interesting and it seems like we can expect something unique from Sony.

The application was filed at the end of 2019

The application for the betting platform patent was already filed in November 2019, and Sony has really managed to keep the lid on the project. However, since all patent applications are made public after 18 months, Sony had no choice but to accept that their plans went public.

In short, the application describes that the platform will be created to offer wagering on games, and it seems that the odds will be set by Sony themselves.

“Odds for various propositions concerning the play of a computer simulation are determined and presented to a viewer for pecuniary or non-pecuniary wagering purposes. The odds may be determined using past game analytics, or may be determined parimutuel.”

About the betting platform

Reading more closely in the patent application, Sony seems to implement the betting platform into the Playstation consoles. But it also describes the intention of offering the odds through computers, other consoles, and mobile devices.

The odds will be offered on various esports events, that will also be live-streamed directly on the platform. This means that the platform most likely will support live esports betting features. Technically, odds will be determined from historical match data and a pari-mutuel system, but it also seems like Sony will create an exchange system, where people can bet against each other.

Highly competitive features

It seems like we can expect a quite comprehensive selection of odds markets, where bets can be placed on not only the match outcomes but also on action bets, also called, prop bets. This means that the user can bet on various happenings within x-time, like that a specific player kills another player within the next 2 minutes.

Cash-out options will be offered, which is a great feature, especially for those who combine odds and create accumulators, and it’s a feature that is actually not available on quite a few esports betting sites. The application mentions player retention tools, which seem to be meant to be used for tracking the users betting history so that the user gets statistics of historical bets.

It’s exciting that Sony Entertainment seems to go all out on this project, to create a highly competitive betting platform.

Crypto and virtual currencies

Reading the detailed description, there is one sentence that is highly interesting, that says:

“Wagers may be pecuniary, e.g., money or bitcoin, or may be non-pecuniary, e.g., game assets, digital rights, and virtual currency.”

This gives indications that Sony wants to offer wagering with cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. There will also be a virtual currency for those who don’t want to put real money or the value of their crypto wallets at stake. However, virtual currencies tend to create some kind of monetary value, which could create a trend of trading with the currency, for real money.

Sources:
Igamingbusiness.com

Playstationlifestyle.net

Written by Jarhead

Jarhead is the founder of Eportsbetting.gg and works as a marketing specialist within iGaming. This guy grew up with gaming and experienced the very first hits on iconic SEGA, Nintendo NES, Commodore 64/128, Atari, Amiga 500 and gaming on his very first PC - a 286 beast where he ruled in Ultima V. Jarhead's favourite games and skills are in Overwatch, Rocket League and Hearthstone.