Rahul Sood Worked for Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard after He Founded Voodoo Computers
E-sports is a little known form of gambling which is growing in popularity on the Internet. For some time, Internet users have enjoyed watching games online esports sites. Rahul Sood, a tech entrepreneur, founded the Unikrn gaming company on the idea that esports viewers are going to want to bet on matches.
That is the purpuse of Unikrn (“unicorn”), which is powered by Luxbet. Viewers have the ability to bet on the outcome of matches, making their viewing a great deal more personal and exciting. Of course, those reading this article might not know what “esports” is, so let’s review the subject.
What Is Esports?
Esports is short for “electronic sports“. Also known as e-sports or competiting gaming, esports is the term used for organized multiplayer video game competitions.
Electronic sports involve first-person shooters, multiplayer player-versus-player online battle arenas, real-time strategy games, and most other PVP fighting games online.
Prizes and Broadcasts
Esports offer prizes for winning competitors, while broadcasting the live events to viewers through their Internet feeds. Esports competitions like the League of Legends World Championship, the Evolution Championship Series, the Battle.net World Championship Series, the Intel Extreme Masters, and The International Dota 2 Championships are popular with a wide range of enthusiasts in the online gamer community. With the interest level, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to offer people the ability to gamble on such games.
League of Legends and DoTA 2
The explosion in popularity of League of Legends and Dota 2 are the main drivers of interest in the gaming. League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena video game which allows players to play “champions” with special skills and abilities. These champions contend against champions from other teams in simulated combat. League of Legends, which is available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, was developed Riot Games.
DOTA 2 is a similar multiplayer online battle arena video game. DoTA stands for “Defense of the Ancients”, which is part of a three-game mod alongside Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. These are the main options for gameplay and viewers, but other options exist.
Unikrn Esports Portal
When someone goes to a site like Unikrn, they have the ability to watch competitions via live streaming. The matches have broadcasters who provide play-by-play and color commentary, just like they would on televised sports like football, baseball, and basketball. The broadcasters remind me a great deal of the announcers for Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Real money gamblers set up an account like they would at an online casino or mobile casinos. Once they’ve made a deposit, they can wager on the outcome of e-sports competitions. While people might assume League of Legends matches are fly-by-night, these are legitimate leagues with well-known, well-compensated players. The players involved have rankings and long histories which gamblers can research. In many ways, their gaming information is more easily than many sports teams, and certainly more easily quanitied than the contestants in horse racing and dog racing.
Unikrn Partners
Unikrn has a number of partners, including CBS Interactive, Hewlett-Packard, Logitech, Tabcorp, and the Singapore-based gaming product company, Razer Inc. Unikrn is located in Seattle, Washington. The site also partners with Luxbet for its software package. Luxbet is located on the Isle of Man, where the website is licensed.
About Rahul Sood
Rahul Sood founded Voodoo Computers in 1991, then sold the company to Hewlett-Packard in 2006. After the sale, Mr. Sood became the Chief Technology Officer for the Hewlett Packard Global Voodoo Business Unit. He left HP in 2010 to become the GM for System Experience in the Interactive Entertainment Business for the Microsoft Corporation.
While at Microsoft, Rahul Sood founded the first incubation fund for Startups at Microsoft, the Bing Fund. This became Microsoft Ventures, which Mr. Sood led until November 2014. That was the month he left Microsoft to found his latest venture, Unikrn.
Other key contributors at Unikrn include co-founder Karl Flores (Saas, Microsoft, Pinion), Arthur Stelmach (Digital Media), Bryce Blum (Director of eSports), Chris Scrivens (Creative Director), Daniel Rudolph (CTO), Debbie MacKenzie (Finance Administrator), James Sanchez (Community Manager), Jason Welter (Lead UX Designer), Kunal Chopra (MOBA Champion), Mark Mulder (Web Developer), Michael Moodie (Senior Designer), Natalie Wang (Senior Front End Engineer), and Neda Samimi (Microsoft Bing Fund).
