Everyone is looking for a side hustle these days, from people making items to sell on Etsy to those who are rideshare drivers. However, could gaming ever be someone’s side hustle? There’s certainly tons of money to earn from gaming, but you generally have to be a top-tier player or someone with hundreds of thousands of followers. That is, unless Stakester has a say in it.
Stakester is a platform that allows for all gamers to come together and compete for real cash. As Tom Fairey, the CEO of Stakester, put it, “Users shouldn’t have to be in the top one percent of players to be able to make money off of their skills and should control their own destiny, backing themselves rather than betting on others whose performance is out of their hands.”
Player.One caught up with Fairey to talk about Stakester and a recent survey the company put out to gauge interest in people making money through gaming.
The survey from Stakester asked several questions about people’s recent gaming habits, especially in the era of COVID-19. It also asked people about their interest in making money from gaming. Answers from the survey, which polled around 1,000 people, show that people are playing more video games than ever before thanks to the pandemic. Almost half of responders said they would be interested in using their gaming skills to generate extra income, and a whopping 76 percent said they would be interested in more opportunities to make money from gaming.
“The survey reinforced a lot of what we already suspect that people are always on the lookout for a good side hustle, are concerned about disruptions in the job market and lockdown definitely increased the amount of time they spent gaming,” Fairey told Player.One. “But what was surprising was the number of people who indicated they’d be interested in using their gaming chops as a legitimate money-making endeavor (46%) and the 76% of people who would like more opportunities to make money gaming.”
With all the shutdowns, traditional sports are just now getting started back up. This loss of sports betting was seen as a window of opportunity for Stakester, and Fairey didn’t pull any punches about his thoughts regarding betting on sports.
“Gambling is stupid. The reality is, in the legal infrastructure alone, Americans lost $107 billion gambling in 2017, before the sports betting rules got changed,” said Fairey. “We absolutely want to help people get a cut of the action but in a smarter way that puts them in control of the outcome, not that we don’t appreciate the sacrifice your significant other makes by sitting next to you on the couch while wearing the smelly jersey you haven’t washed since your team last won in 2014 as part of some misguided ritual.”
So how does Stakester work? After logging onto the app, players can set the terms of their bets through one of the supported games. Currently, Stakester supports Rocket League, Overwatch, Dota 2, FIFA 20, Street Fighter V, and League of Legends, and also supports play on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Once you find someone to agree to your bet (or you find a bet you can agree with), you are paired up with your opponent and the game is on.
Stakester is up and running right now, and can be downloaded on iOS and Android devices for those looking to put their money where their mouth is. Fairey says that there have already been major payouts to tournament winners through the app, and is expecting to release another survey to get even more information about how people play games and what they want in regards to making money off of gaming. “It’s just starting to really take off,” he said.
So what do you think? Are you interested in betting on your own video game skills? Will you stick to watching the pros play for money right now? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
