The Luxor casino in Las Vegas recently built a 30,000-square-foot (2,800-square-meter) esports arena to host events and tournaments.
The conference came as the casino industry is taking tentative steps to try to integrate esports into its gambling offerings, with varying degrees of success. The games themselves will generate $1.38 billion in economic activity worldwide, a third of it coming from China, according to the company. Newzoo, the research company that tracks the world of competitive video games, also known as esports, says the global audience for these games will increase by 8.7% this year to 532 million. 'Esports is only going to get bigger,' said Seth Schorr, chairman of Las Vegas' Downtown Grand casino. Speaking at the Casino Esport Conference in Atlantic City, executives with video game companies and casinos agreed there is a vast upside to getting the hundreds of millions of people who play online video games interested in the casino industry.
