Riot Games weighs prediction-market sponsors as esports betting money keeps growing

What Riot is reportedly considering

Riot Games, the publisher behind League of Legends and Valorant, has held talks with prediction-market operators Polymarket and Kalshi about esports sponsorship, according to a Bloomberg report by Cecilia D'Anastasio published on 10 September 2026 and summarised by esports-news.co.uk and The Standard. It is described as the first known interest from a major game publisher in bringing prediction-market branding into professional play.

Nothing is signed. Both esports-news.co.uk and win.gg stress that no deal has been announced and that Riot has not committed to either company. In a statement carried by esports-news.co.uk, a Riot spokesperson said prediction markets are 'an emerging space that we're evaluating,' with the focus on competitive integrity, value for teams, the fan experience and alignment with the wider ecosystem.

The GRID guardrail

The most concrete condition reported is about data. Any prediction-market partner that Riot approves would have to source official betting data through GRID Esports, Riot's data partner, rather than scraping matches independently. That requirement is framed as a safeguard against match-fixing and corrupted feeds.

Riot is not a neutral bystander here. According to win.gg, the publisher has held a partial stake in GRID since 2023. Esports-news.co.uk adds that GRID launched its own data service, GRID Odds, in the same week as the Bloomberg report, offering data-driven pricing and market types such as match outcomes and player props. Polymarket, for its part, already holds a deal with the tournament organiser BLAST and with GRID, so there is a working template for how such a partnership could plug into official feeds.

Routing sponsors through a single, publisher-aligned data source is the mechanism Riot would use to keep control. If a prediction market is pricing outcomes off the same authorised feed the publisher governs, Riot retains a lever over integrity that it would lose if operators sourced their own data independently.

Why now, and the risks

The commercial logic is size. The Standard, citing Bloomberg, reports that betting related to League of Legends and Valorant reached roughly $10.7 billion in 2024, with most of it flowing through unregulated markets and unlicensed bookmakers. Bringing regulated or semi-regulated operators inside the tent, on official data, is one way a publisher could try to capture value that currently leaks out entirely.

There is also a sustainability angle. Win.gg frames prediction-market money as a way to ease esports' funding problem, noting that League of Legends teams have historically leaned on publisher support to stay afloat. A regulated sponsorship category that pays into the ecosystem, on official data, could help teams diversify revenue in a sport where sponsorship has long been the hardest line to fill.

The timing is pointed. The League of Legends World Championship is set to begin in October, so any move around betting branding lands during the sport's peak viewing window. There are clear risks too: esports-news.co.uk notes that UK rules currently block both Polymarket and Kalshi, and that the government is reviewing unlicensed gambling sponsors, which could constrain what publishers and teams are allowed to do in that market.

For now this is a story about talks, not signatures. Gaming Trend Wire will report a confirmed sponsorship only if and when Riot or one of the operators announces one, and takes no view on any betting product.