SickOdds co-founder Tom Wade is hopeful a significant percentage of new esports bettors will stay with the vertical, once live sports resumes following the coronavirus pandemic.

Wade, of the esports odds comparison platform, estimates up to 40% of the new audience will continue to bet on esports, suggesting even a lower percentage would be a huge boost for the vertical.

Wade was speaking about an unprecedented opportunity for esports at AffiliateCon Virtually Live, where he said statistics show the industry has boomed with a x40 growth in esports betting with crossover titles such as Fifa.

Wade said: "I see it as 'why wouldn’t people stay and watch esports?' because of my background but people will probably transcend back to live sports.

"I think what we will see over the next six months is some of the benefits esports has over traditional sports, such as the fact publishing and broadcasting rights are on Youtube and Twitch, so people don’t have to pay to watch matches.

"My hopeful estimate is we will see 30% or 40% of the new audience stay with esports in some capacity, a pessimistic view would be 10-20%, which would still be a massive rise.

"We’ve seen our traffic double across a number of esports titles and seen an outstanding interest in some crossover sports titles, such as Fifa and NBA 2K20.

"They are titles that are very easy for users to come along and understand esports, where players from traditional sports betting can still recognise players."