Esports is big, but it needs to a better payment system.
Esports is big.
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Prize Payments aims to simplify esport tournament prizes

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

Prize Payments is launching a service to simplify the payment of cash prizes for esports tournament winners.

This business opportunity exists because prize pools for esports are could surpass $300 million in 2019, but paying winners is harder than it should be, given the complicated rules for international payments and rules for fighting money laundering. The global esports viewing audience is projected to grow to 454 million viewers by the end of 2019 with the value of the market exceeding $1 billion in 2019 and up to $1.6 billion by 2021, according to market researcher Newzoo. Figuring out how to pay out prize pools will be an important aspect of this growth.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.