Desperate to avoid saying 'we want that $10 billion', League of Legends dev Riot Games tries to justify legalizing esports gambling sponsors, but players aren't buying it

(Image credit: Riot Games)

League of Legends and Valorant developer Riot Games is reversing its longstanding rules on gambling sponsorships for its esports leagues, seemingly in a thinly veiled justification to bring in that sweet, sweet betting revenue.

Yesterday, an announcement from John Needham, esports lead across Riot's entire competitive portfolio, made Riot's position clear: "We're opening betting sponsorships in esports."

Needham goes on to explain why Riot has changed its mind. The really important bit, however, is this: the global betting market for League of Legends and Valorant in 2024 was $10.7 billion, but Riot isn't really getting any of it. Needham does note that the majority of all sports betting is unlicensed, but that doesn't really change the fact that Riot clearly has its eye on a pretty large bag of money.

The response from the game's community has been swift and pretty unified. There are multiple reasons why players don't really want gambling in their League of Legends or Valorant events, ranging from sports betting's pervasiveness in traditional sports, concerns around the gambling addiction (and how little Riot seems to be addressing that aspect of this partnership in favor of focusing on the integrity of the competitions themselves), and the fact that the company doesn't exactly have the best track record with gambling.

Not only has Riot done very little to ever properly address the $10 billion market it says has been swirling around its games for years, it's also got its own murky past with gacha-based systems.

The past few years have seen an array of cosmetics make it into its games that can generally only be accessed by brute-forcing a significant amount of money through a luck-based system. Granted, you'd get a reward if you persevered beyond a certain threshold, but it's an issue that Riot has wrestled with its community over several times in recent years.

Honestly, as a player over the past few years, it's been a whole thing, but it's well summarized by one of the responses to Needham's esports betting post over on the game's official subreddit: "Riot hasn't handled gambling responsibly for nearly a decade now."

Last year, League of Legends players protested a $500 skin with a forced boycott, perma-banning Ahri to stop anyone using her new cosmetic.

CATEGORIES

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.