Esports Betting in 2026: Riot's U-Turn, ESIC Bans and Korea's Toto Debate

In 2024, according to betting data company Sportradar, people wagered about $10.7 billion on League of Legends and Valorant esports events alone. One industry estimate suggests roughly 70% of that went through unregulated operators. For years publishers pretended this money did not exist. In June 2025, the biggest of them stopped pretending.

On 26 June 2025, Riot Games announced that top-tier League of Legends and Valorant teams in the Americas and EMEA could, for the first time, sign betting companies as sponsors, under strict rules. A year later, integrity investigators are handing out record numbers of match-fixing bans, and Korea, where esports' first big betting scandal happened, is debating whether to legalise esports betting at home. Here is where the rules stand in November 2026.

Riot's U-turn: what is now allowed

Riot first floated the idea in December 2024, and the June 2025 rules were narrower than many fans feared. The key points:

• Only Tier 1 teams in Riot's Americas and EMEA leagues can take betting sponsors. The announcement did not cover the LCK or Riot's other Asian leagues.
• Riot vets every partner before a deal can go ahead, aiming to steer teams toward regulated operators.
• Sponsors must use official match data from GRID, Riot's data partner since 2023.
• Each sponsored team must run its own internal integrity programme, covering competitive integrity, protection of players and young audiences, and responsible gambling.
• Riot's own channels stay betting-free: no betting adverts or sponsored segments on its broadcasts and social accounts, and no betting logos on team jerseys.
• A share of the revenue goes back to Tier 2 esports through prize pools, new tournaments and training.

The logic is financial as much as ethical. Western esports organisations have spent years cutting costs; 100 Thieves alone went through several rounds of layoffs between 2022 and 2023. Betting brands are eager sponsors, and Riot's bet is that a regulated, visible market is safer than an invisible one.

The other side: a record year for bans

Integrity bodies have rarely been busier. The Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC), which works across Counter-Strike, Dota 2 and other titles, confirmed 14 disciplinary actions in April 2026 alone, most of them for match manipulation linked to betting:

• A Counter-Strike 2 player, Dmytro "nifee" Tediashvili, received a four-year ban for match-fixing.
• Two Dota 2 players, Alexandr "Sensibility" Filatov and Tommy "Taiga" Le, were banned for life.
• Team Senza was fined $20,000 after a six-month investigation; one player received a two-year ban, another a five-year ban for cheating plus an extra year for refusing to cooperate, and five more were banned for a year for not cooperating.
• The whole roster of CS2 team NOMERCY was provisionally suspended, with ESIC alleging deliberate underperformance to win bets on results and round margins.

Is fixing getting worse, or are investigators just better at finding it? The data disagree. Sportradar reported a fall in suspected match-fixing cases, while the International Betting Integrity Association reported a rise. ESIC has also expanded its partnerships with betting companies, including licensed sportsbooks and, controversially, offshore crypto platforms, which may simply mean more suspicious bets are being flagged.

Why fixing happens where it does

The ESIC cases share a profile: lower-tier teams, small prize pools, online matches and players who earn little. The same pattern showed up in Korea's three big StarCraft cases. In 2010 brokers paid players 2 million to 6.5 million won a match to lose. In 2015 a StarCraft II coach and players were arrested for fixing five matches. In 2016 Lee "Life" Seung-hyun, a former world champion, was given a suspended prison sentence and a 70 million won fine for fixing two games. You can read the full story in our feature on the 2010 scandal.

The lesson integrity experts draw is that bans alone are not enough. Fixers target players who are underpaid or in debt, matches that few people are watching, and markets where bets cannot be traced. That is why Riot tied its sponsorship opening to integrity programmes and to funding Tier 2.

Korea: still illegal, still debated

In South Korea the situation is simpler and stricter. The only legal sports betting product is Sports Toto, the state-licensed lottery-style system. It covers football, baseball, basketball, volleyball and golf, but not esports. About a third of Toto's revenue goes to the National Sports Promotion Fund. Any esports betting site serving Korean players operates outside that system.

The Korea e-Sports Association (KeSPA) wants to change that. In a 150-page report delivered in December 2025 and presented in February 2026, it proposed:

• Adding esports to Sports Toto, so part of the fund's money could support second-division leagues, regional teams and programmes for retiring players.
• A dedicated integrity body, nicknamed "K-ESIC," to educate and monitor players.
• A 1-2% royalty on esports betting revenue for game publishers, reinvested in Korean esports.

KeSPA's argument is that legal betting would pull money away from foreign and illegal sites whose revenue never reaches the public fund. The government is not convinced. It rejected a League of Legends betting proposal in April 2024, citing the risk of gambling among young people, and a renewed push in May 2025 did not win a firm commitment from lawmakers.

The sponsor question elsewhere

Outside Riot's leagues, betting and casino brands are already common shirt sponsors. Valve's Counter-Strike scene and many third-party tournaments have long carried betting partners. 100 Thieves, for example, returned to Counter-Strike 2 in November 2025 with the crypto casino brand Roobet as its title sponsor. Fans regularly criticise these deals, especially given esports' young audience, and the criticism is one reason Riot kept betting off its own broadcasts.

Why it matters

Esports betting is not going away; the question is where it happens and who is watching it. Regulated markets give integrity bodies data to spot suspicious patterns, and sponsorship money can fund the lower tiers where fixing thrives. Unregulated markets do neither. Korea's caution is understandable given its history, but the illegal sites never left, and they still pay nothing toward integrity or player welfare.

By the numbers

• $10.7 billion: wagered on LoL and Valorant esports in 2024 (Sportradar)
• About 70%: estimated share through unregulated operators
• 26 June 2025: Riot announces its betting sponsor rules
• 14: ESIC disciplinary actions in April 2026
• 1-2%: publisher royalty KeSPA proposes on esports betting revenue
• 287.2 billion won: Korea's esports industry in 2024

What to watch next

Watch for the first wave of approved betting sponsors in the LCS, CBLOL and LEC, ESIC's monthly sanction notices, and any movement on KeSPA's Toto proposal in the National Assembly. For how Korean players are paid and protected, see our guide to esports careers in Korea.

WGC's take: This is not investment or betting advice, and we do not recommend betting on esports. But the debate is worth following: the rules being written now will decide whether esports' next scandal is caught early or found too late.