Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has published a patent for a fiat currency, Bitcoin, or in-game items enabled platform to allow live-streaming e-sport viewers to place live bets on ongoing matches. According to the listing on PatentScope, Sony filed the initial patent request for the E-Sports Betting Platform on November 8 2019, but only published it in May 2021.
Using the platform, viewers of various e-sport matches would be able to place bets on the matches while viewing the outcomes as they happen. Documenting Bitcoin wrote on Twitter:
“It suggests a system where viewers of live streamed esports would be able to bet on the outcome of matches while watching the action play out in real time.”
The live betting platform will accept bets in the form of physical currency, virtual currency like btc and in-game credits.
“Wagers might be pecuniary e.g. money or bitcoin, or maybe non-pecuniary e.g. game assets, digital rights, and virtual currency.”
Sony’s E-sport Betting Platform
The betting platform will offer odds for both pecuniary and non-pecuniary wagering purposes, through a user interface overlay that could be featured over the stream for users to place their wagering assets.
“The odds may be determined using past game analytics or may be determined parimutuelly.”
In Parimutuel betting, all the placed bets are bundled together in a pool to allow for tax and house deductions, before distributing the remaining funds to all the winning bets.
The application further explains that when wagers are pecuniary (related to money), the available odds offered will be subjected to proper taxation rules, which also applies to bets placed via crypto wallets.
“When wages are pecuniary, the odds offered may account for government take out .e.g, if the odds are 5-1, the offered odds may be reduced to 4-1 to allow for some wagering assets to remain after the payouts for the purpose of paying government take out.”
Sony’s Patent Related to Its EVO Acquisition.
Sony’s decision adds to the solidifying collaboration trend between multiple and well-established major players in the billion dollar gaming industry and virtual currency integration developers. The announcement also comes shortly after Sony’s joint-acquisition of the world’s largest fighting game tournament, EVO, which could be one of SIE’s plans for the patent.
Every year, gaming companies including SIE file multiple patents for new inventions but most of them have remained just that, ideas. However, with increasing interest and recognition of the virtual currency industry, gamers might be ushering a new era in esports.
The patent application puts down Michael Chow as the idea’s inventor but does not clarify whether the fintech system will be a blockchain-based or a hybrid platform.