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Interview with VSPO CEO: How China esports differs from the West
China has long been in a leading position when it comes to the esports industry, home to many top esports players and a massive fanbase that supports them. However, China’s esports market operates substantially differently from Western markets. What is China’s esports ecosystem like, and how has it been affected by industry troubles that have plagued the West?
In an extended interview with VSPO, a major tournament organiser in China that runs some of the country’s biggest leagues, Esports Insider provides an insight into an ecosystem that is frequently heard about but rarely discussed in Western media.
In the hour-long chat, conducted in Mandarin and translated into English, Dino Ying, CEO of VSPO and Danny Tang, CFO of VSPO, discussed everything from the company’s founding story to the ‘esports winter’ that has left a chill on the shoulders of prominent stakeholders.
The original story
VSPO is an influential actor in the Chinese esports sector. Founded back in 2016 as VSPN, the company’s goal was to offer comprehensive services within esports, spanning production, operation and entertainment. The business primarily consists of three cores: the organisation and operation of esports events, commercialisation, and community management.
Since then the company has worked with top-tier professional esports competitions on game titles Honor of Kings, Peacekeeper Elite (PUBG Mobile in China), CrossFire, League of Legends and many more. VPSO also organised the latest Asian Games (which were postponed to 2023) in Hangzhou, China, which saw esports matches getting medal recognition for the first time.
According to Ying, the formation of VSPO began when he realised there was a strong demand for content and high-level competition in China, but the supply side was lacking. By building esports complexes across multiple cities around the world, the company wanted to bring a range of experiences — from online to offline — to esports fans.
Tang added: “From the very first day of our entrepreneurial journey, we had a clear vision: drive and witness esports become a more influential sport and form of entertainment. Over the past six to seven years, we have gradually seen esports unleash its impact worldwide.”
Assessing the Chinese esports market
Since its creation, the company has seen significant changes in the esports landscape, none more so than the mobile esports ecosystem. According to VSPO’s CFO, the decision to focus on the mobile gaming route has paid off in the Eastern world.
“Our judgment at that time was that mobile phones would definitely become mainstream because as more and more time was spent on mobile gaming, the demand for content and experience would naturally shift to the mobile side,” mentioned Tang.
Alongside the growth of gamers across mobile, PC and console, esports also rose in popularity, becoming part of China’s pop culture extremely quickly. Back in 2019, League of Legends professional player Jian ‘Uzi’ Zi-Hao was voted Weibo Person of the Year, beating all the other Chinese celebrities on the platform. Esports is also featured in several TV series, including ‘Crossfire’ and ‘You are my Glory’.
Paired with the development of technology and the enhancement of online and offline competitions, tournament organisers also started to make major events become ‘fan spectacles’ alongside sporting competitions.
According to Tang, the industry is entering a phase where it is trying to break previous barriers, caused by specific preferences of local markets and game titles. “I believe that in the coming years, the industry will break those barriers, truly achieving global integration”, she said.
VSPO’s investment from Savvy Games Group
VSPO came under the spotlight in the Western world when the company received a $265m (~£219m) investment by Saudi Arabian government-owned esports company Savvy Games Group, which intends to accelerate and support VSPO’s global strategy.
The news received some criticism from the esports community due to the country’s human rights record, and Saudi Arabia’s government getting increasingly involved in esports has led to a backlash within sections of the industry. Savvy Games Group has heavily integrated itself into esports over the past few years. The company formed the ESL FACEIT Group, which recently faced a round of layoffs, for $1.5bn (~£1.19bn) in 2022. This also sparked concerns over ‘esportswashing’, a term used to describe how esports is used mask the country’s rights record.
From a business perspective, though, VSPO claims that the two parties are aligned. “When we first interacted with Savvy [Games Group], everyone’s view on esports was consistent,” said Ying. “We both agreed and shared the vision of establishing a recognised and independent event system. Overall, the feeling was good.”
Has China been affected by the Esports Winter?
Despite its chilling name, the so-called esports winter has been a hot topic in recent times. Following the industry’s downturn and economic struggles, various esports companies have gone through shutdowns, layoffs, consolidations and restructurings.
Whilst there are always going to be outliers, businesses in the esports space have struggled to generate profits. Moreover, the allure of creating short-term business models in exchange for growth is slowly disappearing due to its unsustainability. While this trend is affecting the industry worldwide, Ying claims that the ‘esports winter’ has not impacted his own company.
When asked about his thoughts on the subject, the CEO gave a clear reason as to why he believes the Western world is facing such challenges: a lack of strong competitive performances and the development of higher-quality competition.
The Chinese community is known for its results-focused nature, which correlates with fanbases watching the best competitive content. Ying made an interesting comparison with traditional sports. “In football, there are leagues that are more commercialised than others. The fans worldwide end up watching the most competitive European leagues like the Premier League, whilst the Chinese domestic league doesn’t have such a great following.”
This same logic is applied to esports. He explained that since the Western domestic market is not the best from a competitive perspective, it becomes increasingly difficult to commercialise it: “The problem now is that the internet allows users to get easy access to the best content. So, if you do not provide the best content, they won’t watch it.”
According to Ying, a lack of strong competitive results is a major factor behind the worse commercialisation. The accessibility of fans across the globe further amplifies the issue. “Sponsors know you’re not the best in the world, so commercialising is difficult because users can directly watch matches from the best regions such as China and South Korea.”
He revealed that China also suffers from similar issues, depending on which titles it competes in. “Competitive teams from games like League of Legends, Honor of Kings, PUBG, they all can support themselves. Others, instead, struggle. Why? Poor performance,” he added.
Still, Ying did admit that China having lower costs to run competitions is a major factor that has impacted the country’s esports sustainability. For example, he highlighted that one of its largest sponsorship deals for the KPL (King Pro League), the Chinese professional league for Honor of Kings, was worth around $10m (per year). “While it is more than enough to operate in China, it would be unfeasible for a large sports league in the United States,” he added.
Focusing on community
While there are several hurdles to tackle, esports is still growing and more opportunities will arise. Danny Tang is convinced that more changes need to happen in the gaming landscape to reduce the esports winter’s effects — and not just from a business and commercial perspective.
Community is a big part of what makes esports tick, so enlarging the fanbase should, in theory, benefit the scene in the long run. Tang put a particular emphasis on the female audience, which is already close to 50% in China, according to a Chinese 2023 Global Esports Industry Development report.
Encouraging people to be part of this culture and developing a more inclusive community is what allows products to transition from a niche to mainstream status. By doing so, a larger community opens up a lot more room for monetisation, including sponsorship opportunities and the commercialisation of services and products.
Tang is convinced that game companies should find ways to incentivise participation by lowering the barriers to entry, which explains why the mobile and freemium models have been so successful. “All designs are focused on providing joy to players, and esports becomes part of their product content,” Tang explained.
“As long as you provide them with a conducive environment and more ways for beginners to integrate into this environment, they will be willing to interact and watch matches.”
Source: Nico Partners / esportsinsider.com
PayRamnt-weight: 400;”> has launched its private stablecoin payment gateway for iGaming operators, gaming platforms, and affiliates that require fast, borderless, and censorship-resistant payments.
Built on the belief that payments should operate as freely as the internet itself, PayRam delivers decentralized PayFi infrastructure that allows iGaming businesses to accept and manage stablecoin payments through fully self-hosted infrastructure. Operators no longer rely on banks, custodians, or centralized processors to control their revenue.
In an industry plagued by frozen balances, chargebacks, delayed settlements, and compliance shutdowns, PayRam gives operators direct control over funds, payouts, and transaction infrastructure. Platforms retain ownership of their payment flow without platform risk. Operators can now accept private stablecoin deposits, launch without intermediaries, and expand globally on their own terms.
Stablecoins Are the Future of Global iGaming Payments
Stablecoins now drive the most significant transformation in payments in decades. With a market capitalization exceeding $300 billion, stablecoins now function as real-world settlement infrastructure rather than speculative assets. For iGaming businesses that operate across borders, stablecoins deliver instant payouts, low transaction costs, and continuous global liquidity.
Governments also continue to formalize regulatory frameworks. Initiatives such as the GENIUS Bill in the United States signal that stablecoins will soon function as foundational financial infrastructure for both traditional commerce and emerging agent-driven economies.
Yet most existing stablecoin fiat gateways still copy legacy banking structures. They custodian funds, over-monitor transactions, delay settlements, and restrict high-risk industries such as iGaming. Operators continue to face frozen balances, withheld profits, and sudden account closures.
Instead of decentralizing commerce, centralized processors reintroduce single points of failure. They strip merchants of privacy, predictability, and true ownership of funds.
PayRam removes these bottlenecks by allowing iGaming operators to deploy and operate their own self-hosted stablecoin payment nodes. This sovereign infrastructure restores payment autonomy, protects funds from blacklisting, enables private deposits, and eliminates third-party revenue risk.
Permissionless Commerce Underpinned By Privacy
PayRam embodies a mission to decentralize the global payments ecosystem. Its founder, Siddharth Menon, who previously co-founded WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, helped bring crypto to more than 15 million users. Today, he’s channeling that experience into building a decentralized PayFi layer engineered for privacy, autonomy, and self-custody.
“The future of payments is decentralized stablecoin payments. As the world moves beyond custodial systems, PayRam is building the foundation for permissionless commerce, where every merchant, creator, or platform can host and own their own payment infrastructure,” said Siddharth Menon, Founder of PayRam. “Just as Uniswap reimagined trading through decentralization, PayRam is reimagining how money moves across the internet.”
iGaming Operators Go Live in Minutes and Expand Into Underserved Regions
PayRam removes all onboarding friction. Operators need no approvals, no vetting, and no centralized onboarding process. Any business can deploy PayRam, configure it, and begin processing private stablecoin payments within 10 minutes.
This instant deployment allows operators to enter underserved and payment-restricted regions, unlock new player bases, and launch real-money gaming operations without waiting on banks, payment processors, or jurisdictional approvals.
PayRam is built as a merchant-first ecosystem, offering advanced accounting analytics, scalable APIs, and automated payments orchestration tools. It also arrives with integrated growth tools like referral and payout systems. Merchants and individuals can issue payment requests, share unique payment links, and monitor transactions through programmable APIs, all operated on infrastructure that users self-host and fully control. The built-in SmartSweep feature uses a family of smart contracts to move funds securely and periodically, eliminating the need to store private keys on servers.
PayRam supports stablecoin and cryptocurrency payments across major networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Base, and Tron, with integrations for Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, Solana, Ripple, Monero, and TON next in line.
“We’ve used several crypto payment providers over the years, including BTCPay Server, NOWPayments, and others, but PayRam stands out as truly open and built for the modern internet economy. It gives us full control over our payments and funds, along with stablecoin support, privacy, multi-chain flexibility, and faster global settlements,” said an iGaming operator using PayRam.
PayRam Prepares to Support Agentic Betting With Privacy and Automation
Agentic betting represents the next evolution of iGaming, where autonomous software agents will place bets, execute strategies, manage bankrolls, and settle wagers in real time without human intervention. These systems already power algorithmic trading in financial markets, and iGaming infrastructure now begins to move in the same direction.
Most existing betting and payment infrastructure cannot support this shift. Centralized processors expose transaction logic, restrict automated flows, and introduce settlement delays that break agent-driven wagering models at scale.
PayRam is actively adopting the foundational standards and infrastructure required to support agentic betting in the future. The platform is positioning itself as a privacy-first, decentralized payment layer that will allow autonomous betting systems to operate with:
- Private stablecoin deposits
- Real-time settlement logic
- Automated treasury and bankroll flows
- Programmable payout execution
- Full self-custody and non-custodial risk isolation
By preparing to adopt open standards such as x402 and ERC-8004, PayRam aims to support interoperable and intelligent payment flows between autonomous betting systems, sportsbooks, and gaming platforms when the agentic wagering ecosystem reaches production maturity.
Through this approach, PayRam is building the foundation for a future where payments are private, programmable, and permissionless.
About PayRam
PayRam is the world’s first self-hosted private stablecoin processor, giving merchants and individuals complete control over their payments stack. Built for the next era of permissionless commerce, it merges stablecoin payments with self-hosted infrastructure to enable borderless, censorship-resistant transactions.
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Here are this weeks latest slots releases compiled by European Gaming
BGaming gets in the festive spirit with a Christmas take on its acclaimed casual hit, Aviamasters, with Aviamasters X-Mas. Santa and his sleigh replace the plane from the original title, with players watching as he flies through the air, collecting festive multipliers before hopefully landing on an ice floe to collect his prizes.
Stakelogic is spreading festive cheer this December with the release of Big Sugar Bonanza Xmas, a delicious sequel of the candy-coated hit, Big Sugar Bonanza. Launching on 1st December 2025, the new game transforms the Fluffkins’ sugary kingdom into a winter wonderland of treats and turbo-charged multipliers.
Million Games is bringing festive mayhem to the iGaming world with the launch of Rudolph’s Gone Rogue, a fast-paced Christmas slot where Santa’s most famous reindeer takes centre stage in a runaway holiday adventure. In this 5×3, 20-payline slot, Rudolph bolts into the night sky, dragging the rest of the herd with him and leaving a trail of chaos in his wake.
Spinomenal has unwrapped its new title Majestic Santa, signalling the start of the festive season. Spinomenal’s festive-inspired treat is a 5×3 slot that is bursting with Christmas imagery including red stockings, gingerbread men, and glistening golden bells.
Evoplay has launched Mega Greatest Catch: Blue Marlin, bringing the fearless fisherman Harry back to sea for his most exciting adventure yet. The latest instalment transports players to bright turquoise waters, where random scatters can trigger free spins, wilds appear unexpectedly, and the scatter respin feature offers a welcome second chance to enter the round.
Looking to unwrap longer sessions, stronger engagement and bigger revenues this Christmas? ICONIC21, in-demand iGaming content provider, just launched Sweet Royale Xmas ahead of the holiday season. Sweet Royale is one of the provider’s most popular slots to date and now returns in a Christmas edition decked with boughs of candy to allow operators to leverage the rise in slotting activity during the festive period.
Meet Nolimit City’s latest Crazy Ex-Girlfriend…the kind ex who would “accidentally” like your 2014 selfie at 3am and has a little voodoo doll named after you. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has mapped out your every move and runs through a 2-4-4-4-4-2 layout across 6 reels.
It’s the most magical time of the year, but don’t expect a peaceful Christmas with the release of Realistic Games’ latest blockbuster slot, Wreckmas. The new 5×3, feature-packed slot brings toppled trees, tangled tinsel and chaotic carols to a family Christmas, along with the chance to hit a 5,000x max win.
Players can jingle their way to jackpot joy in Christmas MegapotsTM from Big Time Gaming. This festive slot brings Big Time Gaming’s legendary Megapots mechanic to life with seasonal sparkle, giving players the chance to unwrap Mini, Midi or Mega Jackpots with each spin.
Players are being commanded to raise the sails and brace themselves for a high seas adventure like no other in Captain WinBreaker, the latest swashbuckling slot from Northern Lights Gaming. This pirate-themed slot sees players take the helm of a ship bound for treasures and untold riches.
Amusnet has released 20 Burning Hot Buy Bonus, a sizzling twist on the classic fruit slot. Set across 5 reels and 3 lines, this game combines familiar symbols with modern mechanics for fast-paced spins, vibrant visuals and nonstop excitement.
SlotMatrix is embracing the holiday season with Santa’s Golden Christmas, a sparkling new slot packed with festive cheer, golden prizes, and heart-warming holiday magic. Set in a winter wonderland, the game brings players closer to the jolly gift-giver.
Inspired Entertainment, Inc. is thrilled to announce the exclusive launch of its brand-new, bespoke slot game, Spin O’Reely Grand Chance, in collaboration with long time partners bet365. Expanding bet365’s popular exclusive Irish-themed Spin O’Reely game series, the game will initially be available to players in the UK, Ontario, and New Jersey, with more markets to follow soon.
Play’n GO pits sun god Ra against serpent deity Apophis in Ra’s Reckoning, a mythic grid slot inspired by the celestial battles of ancient Egypt. Ra’s Reckoning brings players face to face with an age-old mythic struggle – the eternal duel between light and chaos.
Playson has unleashed a whirlwind of excitement with Tornado Power: Hold and Win, introducing a new Tornado Feature and enhanced payouts. The 3×4, 10 payline slot features immersive visuals with old-school charm, as the untamed gameplay is further enhanced by a new Tornado Feature
ELA Games announces the release of its latest title, Joker Jam, a bold visual addition to the studio’s growing portfolio of strategic yet aesthetic games. Set under the neon glow of a vibrant city, Joker Jam reimagines the classic Vegas aesthetic into a thrilling experience.
Just Slots has announced the exclusive launch of its newest title, Dynamo’s Show, available on Gamdom and Stake. A full network release will follow on 11 December 2025. This vibrant new slot transforms the classic Hold & Collect experience into a full theatrical performance
Spinomenal is celebrating the holiday season by inviting players for a festive journey with The North Star Express – Hold & Hit 3×3. Unfolding against a wintry backdrop, North Star Express arrives to present a fun, festive adventure as players race through snowy forests.
Belatra Games, the specialist online slots developer, has rolled out the red carpet to the Frozen Barrel Tavern to celebrate the festive season. Players are warmly welcomed into a cosy winter tavern that radiates holiday cheer and buzzes with Christmas chatter.
The post Week 49/2025 slot games releases appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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Company reveals a substantial rise in player value after casinos add sports betting
DATA.BET, a leading sportsbook solution supplier, reports notable performance improvements among casino operators that introduced sports betting through the company’s plug-and-play integration.
According to internal statistics across multiple clients, adding a betting vertical resulted in players who use both casino and sports betting, generating up to a 4x increase in player lifetime value (LTV) compared to their previous casino-only behavior, while the same betting-active segment delivered an average 12% additional revenue without additional player acquisition. Operators also recorded higher retention and engagement levels, with every second casino player placing at least one sports bet after the sportsbook launch.
The clients have noticed these results after integrating a Single Page Application (iFrame), which takes around one week. While DATA.BET manages all betting-related operations and configurations — both at launch and ongoing — casino operators instantly gain access to a full suite of sports, esports, and virtual sports events, allowing them to focus on marketing and player acquisition. To enhance flexibility and engagement, the iFrame supports full customization: from color themes and layouts to dynamic banners, promo blocks, configurable bonuses, and margin/odds control.
The company designed the SEO-friendly solution to ensure that search engine crawlers can easily read and index the content, thereby improving discoverability, page load times, and the overall quality of metadata, which contributes to higher SEO rankings and better visibility in organic search results.
Yurii Berest, CEO of DATA.BET, commented: “For many casinos, betting is more than diversification – it helps operators to maximize the potential of their existing audience and improve the efficiency of traffic monetization. As the average stake in sports is traditionally higher than in slots, operators experience instant revenue growth while retaining and extending player lifetime value. It is a powerful model of sustainable growth that helps to boost not only the current player base but also attract new audience”.
As the market continues shifting toward universal gambling ecosystems, DATA.BET’s solution demonstrates that sports betting drives measurable financial impact for casino operators, turning existing audiences into long-term revenue drivers.
The post DATA.BET Boosts Casino Performance appeared first on European Gaming Industry News.
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