Judging by the skyrocketing popularity of cybersports tournaments, esports betting is preparing to compete with traditional sports. The average bet on Counter-Strike is already five times the amount bet on football. In an exclusive interview for SiGMA News, Vitalii Semeniuk, BETER’s Esports Product Manager, shared his experience of creating the largest B2B esports content provider and also spoke about the present and future of one of the most promising areas in the world of iGaming.
The story of how to become BETER
Tell us about the journey from 1 employee 7 years ago to today’s 500+ team. How was the BETER team formed?
The history of BETER is inextricably linked with two of our most famous brands – Setka Cup table tennis tournaments and ESportsBattle tournaments.
The first Setka Cup matches took place in early 2018 in a small venue on the outskirts of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Since then, the tournaments have gone through a big stage of development: we opened new locations in different cities and countries, including Moldova, the Czech Republic, and India. The number of matches has grown from 3,000 in the first year to over 11,000 per month as of now. Combined with our other sports product – the BSKT Cup basketball league, we host more than 175,000 sports matches every year.
On the esports side, our ESportsBattle tournaments launched in 2019, one year after the launch of Setka Cup. Seeing the high demand from operators and their bettors, we started to scale aggressively, adding new disciplines and formats and increasing the number of matches. From organising 43,000 matches in 2019, we have grown to around 400,000 per year, and this year we plan to surpass the 500,000 mark. Our esports tournaments already cover all the most popular disciplines: eFootball, eBasketball, eHockey, and we plan to launch eCricket and eTennis soon. BETER’s teams are located in Serbia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.
An organisation of this scale requires continuous improvement of operational processes. Today, more than 800 athletes participate in all our tournaments. Teams of traders, technicians, administrators, integrity specialists, marketers, financiers, lawyers, and other professionals work on the final product that our clients receive.
A strategy based on a deep understanding of esports
BETER’s growth reflects the growing demand for cybersports in the iGaming industry. What market insights are helping you shape your strategy for the future, and what have been tipping points in the past?
Our strategy is based on a deep understanding of both esport and the iGaming industry as a whole. The BETER team is made up of cybersport experts and enthusiasts with years of experience in organising large-scale tournaments and leagues. This approach allows us to stay at the centre of events, quickly receive relevant insights, and clearly understand the direction of ecosystem development.
has recently joined our team as General Manager of the Esports Business Division. With over 20 years of experience in launching and managing successful products and trading, he has a unique vision that will significantly enhance our position as a leading global provider of cybersports solutions.
Combined with the expertise of colleagues who deeply understand the needs of the betting market, we build a balanced approach to creating our products. System analytics also plays an important role: we actively apply market monitoring tools and analyse user behaviour, content effectiveness, and the competitive environment.
In addition, we regularly participate in the leading exhibitions of the iGaming industry, where we actively communicate with key stakeholders and clients, demonstrate our new products and solutions, and receive feedback.
bet365, Kaizen Gaming, and Codere among BETER’s global partners
Vitalii, tell us about BETER’s global partners and how their relationship has developed.
Today, the company has more than 30 partner companies in its portfolio, from South America to Asia, and the list is growing. Partners are our pride and the best evidence of the quality of our products. Among them are leading bookmakers, aggregators, and solution providers for the iGaming industry.
In particular, we cooperate with such companies as Betsson Group, BVGroup, Kaizen Gaming, Altenar, bet365, Novibet, Superbet, and Codere. We have been working with most of them for many years, and many of them are eagerly adopting all the new BETER products. This level of trust demonstrates both the high quality of the content produced and the understanding of the customer.
The company has recently entered the US market, and the bet365 partner helped us considerably in this. Now, we are actively working on making BETER’s esports products available to the American audience.
500,000 esports matches per year
You plan to organise about 500,000 esports matches per year. Would you say that this way, you are nurturing a new audience for operators?
We don’t just aim to organise 500,000 of our exclusive matches per year. The trading team also provides odds for over 400 tournaments in the most popular esports disciplines around the world, including CS2, Dota 2, LoL, and Valorant. This process allows us to build a broad, stable, and relevant content offering for bettors.
We do not aim to ‘nurture’ an audience in the classical sense. Instead, BETER creates an infrastructure that allows operators to expand the offer for existing users and attract new audiences from the esports environment.
I am referring to a systematic approach to providing quality, continuous, and dynamic content that meets the expectations of both traditional bettors and the new generation of digital competition fans, namely millennials and Generation Z. In this way, operators can effectively reach both audience segments.
Features of the esports audience
A stable interest of bettors characterises Cybersport, but how profitable can this audience be for bookmakers?
The esports audience is made up of millions of active online users, primarily young people, who are used to fast-paced, short formats, high levels of engagement, and fast betting with instant payouts.?
Experience confirms that esports disciplines exhibit high betting frequency, good margins, and a longer user lifetime compared to many classic verticals. According to my observations, in some cases, up to 10-12% of the total GGR of bookmakers is formed precisely at the expense of esports content. In addition, hundreds of millions of bets are placed annually on cybersports products, including eFootball and eBasketball – disciplines popular among young people.
For bookmakers, this is not just a new segment but a real opportunity to attract a new generation of users without compromising on profitability or stability.
Responsible gambling measures at BETER
Tell us about the partnership with the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) and the responsible gaming measures you adhere to as a content provider.
The partnership with the Esports Integrity Commission (ESIC) is mutually beneficial and confirms that BETER’s commitment to fair play, transparency, and integrity meets the highest industry standards. We provide ESIC with valuable expertise to ensure integrity in esports disciplines and tournaments. Actively support their mission to combat match-fixing and betting fraud by participating in monitoring and analytical initiatives, as well as identifying and investigating suspicious activity.
In addition, ESportsBattle’s branded tournaments, which already count up to 40,000 events per month, are overseen by a dedicated Integrity team to ensure the integrity of the competition. Integrity is the foundation of our products and technology solutions, with a team working around the clock to maintain high standards of fair play at all levels.
The company’s integrity strategy stands on six pillars: onboarding, education/prevention, regulations, monitoring, investigation, and prosecution. These principles underpin our corporate governance framework, multilingual education programme, incident database, Integrity Operation Centre, and proprietary whistleblowing platform.
We also work closely with law enforcement agencies and sports federations, in particular the Table Tennis Federation of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Cybersport Federation. We have recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the , a globally recognised organisation for jointly identifying and responding to suspicious bets, as well as sharing expertise and best practices.
Another critical element is Integrity BOOTCAMP, a simulation project that gives attendees the opportunity to practically apply the knowledge from BETER’s educational programmes in a real-life setting.
Thanks to this comprehensive approach, only 0.01% of matches are flagged as suspicious by the team. All of these measures have helped us gain industry recognition, including winning the Safer Gambling category at the European iGaming Awards 2025.
Three nominations for the SiGMA Asia Awards
What categories have you been nominated for at the SiGMA Asia Awards?
We are delighted to be shortlisted for SiGMA Asia in three categories: 라이브 바카라 Esport Provider 2025, 라이브 바카라 Sportsbook Provider 2025, and Most Innovative Sportsbook Feature 2025. These nominations recognise expertise in esports, betting innovation and the implementation of high-quality standards.
Last year, the team won the 라이브 바카라 Esport Provider category, confirming its leadership status in this area. It hopes to repeat its success this year. Behind this is the 24/7 work to create the best product, confirmed by numerous partnerships, a large number of organised matches and a constant spirit of innovation and improvement.
This article was first published in Russian on 23 May 2025.
