Entain's unikrn dabble with Team Liquid is a smart one

A small note on the recent announcement around unikrn x Team Liquid.

After Bolsonaro failed to sign a regulatory decree to implement sports betting into law, the Brazilian sports betting market is a proverbial free-for-all.

It’s undoubtedly a gray-market of huge significance, as seen through numerous passing comments from the industry’s behemoth operators in recent years.

With Bolsonaro no longer in office and analysts expecting it to be… a while before a decree is signed, Entain has looked to bolster its esports presence with a ‘clever’ sponsorship specifically with Team Liquid in Brazil.

unikrn, a £50m acquisition back in August 2021 was to be at the ‘spearhead’ of Entain’s new digital strategy - combining social gaming, esports (etc, I’ll spare you the whole spiel). At the tail-end of last year, unikrn relaunched with, I must concede, a slick looking sportsbook. The two markets outlined by unikrn/Entain were Canada and Brazil.

As I wrote this post - I went into a bit of a ramble about the relaunch of unikrn and the product, which I’ve now shuffled to the bottom of the post.

Team Liquid is a well established presence across multiple game titles; it holds a LCS spot in North America, has a well-known Dota 2 team competing at the Lima Major, and a decent CS:GO roster by NA standards.

None of the players in any of the above rosters are Brazilian, nor is the partnership going to see any shirt sponsorship. I’d suggest, tentatively, that the Valorant roster (all Brazilian) that’s enjoying great success and is the ‘rising esport’ will likely be the ‘players and influencers’ utilised during this activation.

Riot don’t allow sponsorship (shirt) from betting companies, so this ‘outside of the game’ type-activation is clever, and I’d imagine would drive good numbers for both the betting brand. Plus it’s an excuse for Team Liquid to wheel out their Brazilian roster and solidify their BR footprint.

Shirt sponsorship and on-screen time is obviously a very well-known and established marketing strategy. How much value is actually derived from seeing the occasional player's shirt when you’re largely watching in-game avatars remains to be seen, however.

Brazilian’s are esports fanatics (as shown from other scenes) so having a successful Brazilian roster activating in a fun manner with fans in Sao Paolo is a smart marketing strategy that also will provide Entain and unikrn with an instant CPA figure based on sign-ups and the like. It also does not tie the brand into multi-year shirt sponsorship deals (etc). Of course this is just speculation.

As a first marketing dabble, I think it’s a sound one.

My thoughts on the ‘social’ aspects of unikrn’s product below:

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The site has a nice UX and feel overall and serves its purpose. This post is not a critique of the services offered, but I’ll happily say that whoever greenlighted UMode as a feasible betting concept is completely bonkers. Allowing a player to bet on their own performance in a ranked game opens up approx. 20,000 integrity rabbit holes, risk of smurfing, account abuse and so on.

Entain won’t ever feel the sting here, a smurf will be easy to notice, and the low limits at odds, one would assume, no greater than EVS, will barely touch the bottom line. Once a smurf’s noticed, the account can be limited immediately, the bet can probably be voided under T&Cs and all’s good back in the mystical world of unikrns. There are protections in place (one account linked per customer) etc to guard against it, too.

That’s not to say that by offering monetary incentive to.. get your better friend to play a game for you, even for a cheap $10, is ruining the ranked gaming experience for at least 4 other players. It’s more anti-social gaming than social gaming. Oh, and I tell you what’s responsible - when a player is on a ranked losing streak, keep offering them bigger odds to win a game - so they keep playing. Ranked games, even at the lowest level, can have a detrimental impact on people’s mental health and adding a wagering component certainly won’t help. UMode is an ill-thought out concept pushed by someone who thought ‘gamers would love to bet on themselves’.

Moneymatch is peer-to-peer gaming which we’ve seen hundreds of times before, but with a unikrn label and a handy 5% rake. It’ll be a nice novelty for some people occasionally, but it’s hardly the astonishing new product it claims to be. GameBattles and Virgin Gaming were doing it 10 years ago with fairly similar infrastructure.