Vanderbilt’s Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law (JETLaw) hosted its annual Symposium on February 27, 2026, focusing on the rapidly evolving landscape of esports regulation and innovation. As competitive gaming continues its transformation into a commercial enterprise, the legal questions surrounding governance, intellectual property, labor protections, and technological change have grown increasingly complex.
This year’s Symposium convened Big Law attorneys, solo practitioners, academics, and other professionals from across the country who specialize in esports and interactive entertainment. Their discussions highlighted both the opportunities and the structural challenges facing an industry still defining its identity, offering insight into the legal frameworks that will shape the future of competitive gaming.
The Future of Esports: Everything is Fine
Steve Walkowiak, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig and Co-Chair of the Video Games and Esports Group, delivered this year’s keynote address. He framed the esports industry as a space defined by both failure and innovation, arguing that the sector’s volatility is not a sign of dysfunction but rather a natural feature of an emerging market still discovering its identity. In video games, players lose, retry, and level up. The same logic, Walkowiak suggested, applies to the industry itself.
Walkowiak provided a brief history of the esports industry, beginning with its origins in the 1980s–90s “Arcade Era.” The first U.S. National Video Game Championship took place in 1980, but the 1989 film The Wizard helped legitimize competitive gaming in the eyes of pop culture. Gaming leagues expanded as technology advanced, and the 2011 founding of Twitch, a live-streaming platform that allows gamers to broadcast gameplay to mass audiences, marked what Walkowiak described as an absolute turning point. That platform drove further popularity for esports and spurred the development of physical esports arenas, whose real estate investments helped bolster the industry’s broader legitimacy.
Despite optimistic market projections, Walkowiak described esports as characterized by a recurring boom-and-bust cycle: organic growth attracts heavy investment, valuations inflate, and corrections follow. Structural issues exacerbate this pattern. Unlike traditional sports leagues where team owners share governance and revenue, esports publishers retain full control over intellectual property, league rules, and monetization. Teams often pay substantial fees for limited influence, while revenue streams, dominated largely by sponsorships, remain fragile. Players lack union protections, collective bargaining, or long-term stability in games that can change at any time.
Walkowiak also highlighted several emerging legal and regulatory challenges. The expansion of esports betting has increased the risk of match-fixing, prompting new oversight bodies and contractual enforcement. AI integration in game development may accelerate production but could also introduce quality and maintenance concerns in an industry already defined by frequent updates. International dynamics further complicate the global landscape, including significant long-term investment from Saudi Arabia and restrictive prize-pool regulations in Japan.
Gaming the Elements of Gambling
John T. Holden, Associate Professor in Business Law and Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, opened the morning panels with an examination of how gambling is legally defined and why that definition remains so contested.
Holden reviewed the three core elements of gambling: prize, consideration, and chance. He outlined the three primary tests states use to classify an activity as gambling:
- the predominant factor test, used by most states, which classifies an activity as gambling if chance exceeds skill in determining the outcome;
- the material element test, which asks whether chance plays a material role regardless of relative degree; and the any chance test, which classifies any activity with any element of chance as gambling; and
- the gambling state test, a “walk like a duck, talk like a duck” approach that asks whether an activity induces participants to risk something for a reward, noting that while conceptually attractive, states have been reluctant to adopt it.
Holden discussed the prevalence of the online casino market and the problem of enforcement: when one online casino shuts down, two more appear in its place. He also analyzed statutes that permit a person who loses money gambling to sue the winner for recovery, finding them largely ineffective in online gambling because gaming companies are not technically “winners,” making legal recovery unavailable. Consumer protection, Holden argued, is a pressing concern, as continuous innovation designed to circumvent operators has created a serious regulatory problem. He concluded by asserting that gambling state tests must be modified, or a new regulatory structure must be created altogether.
Esports Talent Visas: A Look at the Bestia Situation and More
Justin Jacobson, a New York City entertainment, sports, esports, and video game attorney at the Law Office of Justin M. Jacobson, Esq., addressed one of the most practically urgent legal challenges in competitive gaming: obtaining visas for international esports athletes.
Jacobson grounded the discussion with a compelling example: an Argentine esports organization that had won a tournament spot but was forced to withdraw because the team filed its visa applications without legal counsel and missed the deadline. The two most common visa types for esports athletes are the O-1 and P-1A. Because the athletes are not seeking permanent residency, green cards are inappropriate. The P-1A visa, designed for professional athletes, is the more commonly applicable category, while the O-1 requires a higher evidentiary threshold. The existing visa framework, however, does not align well with the esports world, where leagues form overnight and lack the established institutional recognition of organizations like the NHL. This challenge is compounded by immigration officials who are often unfamiliar with gaming and esports.
Jacobson outlined the timeline problem as a second major hurdle. The standard processing route carries an indefinite timeline of six to nine months, while the premium process, which guarantees a fifteen-day turnaround, costs an additional $3,000. Teams must conduct a cost-benefit analysis: is the extra cost worth the certainty of competing, particularly when missing a tournament means losing not only prize money but also significant social media exposure? Even upon visa approval, athletes must visit a local consulate or embassy to have their visas stamped, with wait times ranging from days to weeks depending on the country. In some cases, athletes fly to other locations to find shorter wait times, incurring additional cost.
Requests for evidence create further delays, pausing the process with no government deadline to respond unless the premium process has been selected. Jacobson noted that players missing tournaments due to visa delays is a recurring issue, creating cascading problems for event organizers and sponsors.
His proposed solution centers on legislative reform and country-specific carveouts. Germany, Japan, and South Korea have each developed esports-specific visa categories distinct from general talent and entertainment visas, streamlining the process significantly. Jacobson cited Germany as a model worth emulating, noting that its streamlined framework has led to greater numbers of esports events and increased sponsorship activity. He suggested the United States develop a specific framework for esports visa examiners to better comprehend tournaments and their broader impact.
Title IX Compliance in College Esports: Culture, Capacity, and Governance Gaps
Dr. Lindsey Darvin, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sports Management at Falk College, and Dr. Jeff Levine, Associate Clinical Professor of Sport Business at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business, presented findings from their collaborative research on gender equity and Title IX compliance in collegiate esports.
Darvin and Levine began by establishing the equity gap: esports are immensely popular at the collegiate level, yet that popularity has not translated into opportunity for non-male athletes. Women and girls account for roughly half of all U.S. gamers, yet 85–90% of collegiate esports teams are made up of men. Esports culture, historically rooted in a male-dominated space, has been linked to hostility, toxicity, and harassment toward women competitors.
Their exploratory mixed-methods study proceeded in two phases. The first involved a quantitative survey distributed to 250 collegiate esports coaches and administrators (with a 14% response rate), examining recruitment practices, scholarship allocation, gender representation, harassment experiences, and Title IX awareness. The second phase consisted of qualitative semi-structured interviews with ten collegiate esports directors exploring governance structures, housing policies, and cultural issues including toxicity, inclusion, and meritocracy.
The findings were sobering. Directors expressed a desire for a unified governing body, such as the NCAA, to standardize esports and create enforceable equity standards. Toxicity was identified as a structural issue rather than an individual one. Women competitors are being pushed out of the space through sustained harassment beginning at a young age, with some successful women esports players admitting to hiding their consoles from parents due to the stigma they face. Darvin and Levine termed this the “glass monitor” effect.
Operationally, collegiate esports frequently fall outside standard institutional frameworks. Because many competitions take place after 9 p.m., students have been forced to forfeit when campus security clears buildings, highlighting that many departments within colleges remain unaware that esports operate under the athletics umbrella. Levine contended that esports require tailored policy specific to its unique structure, given that much of the activity occurs online and outside traditional school hours.
The key takeaways from their research: (1) Title IX applicability to esports varies widely across schools, with most teams having no formal relationship with their institution’s Title IX office; (2) there is an overt reliance on Discord for harassment reporting; (3) incident-triggered rather than proactive responses to burnout and harassment remain the status quo; (4) solo-leadership governance models are common in esports athletics departments; and (5) Title IX training is largely absent from esports programs. Darvin and Levine argued that offering esports is an effective way to address enrollment cliff challenges, provided institutions adopt policies tailored to the sport’s unique realities.
The Regulation of Esports Gambling
Jennifer Roberts, General Counsel of Wynn Interactive and WynnBET and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Nevada Las Vegas William S. Boyd School of Law, brought more than twenty years of gambling law practice to bear in her presentation on the regulation of esports gambling.
Roberts opened with historical context. Though gambling has existed throughout human history, modern gambling regulation in the United States began when Nevada legalized it in 1931. Other states were slow to follow, deterred by pressure from major sports leagues, cultural perceptions of gambling as taboo, and concerns about addiction. Legal sports betting was introduced in Nevada in 1949 but faced federal opposition due to its association with organized crime. Roberts reviewed major federal statutes that long constrained sports betting, including the Wire Act (prohibiting sports wagers from crossing state lines), the Illegal Gambling Business Act, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). She noted that gaming operators must hold a gaming license ensuring ethical practices, audits, and regulatory compliance.
The passage of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA) prohibited all states from legalizing sports betting, until the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Today, sports betting is legal in 39 states.
Turning to esports, Roberts explained that when many states legalized sports betting, they included esports within that framework. However, operators have argued that there may not be sufficient demand to justify dedicated esports regulations, given the many existing avenues to accomplish the same objectives. Roberts pushed back on this framing, arguing that traditional sports betting models are not directly comparable to the structure esports would require. She contended that meaningful regulation should include oversight, integrity measures, fairness standards, and mechanisms to monitor and report suspect gambling activity, with federal agencies potentially better positioned to oversee corruption standards. Roberts concluded by questioning whether regulation would deter people from seeking out illegal markets and flagging the possibility of another Supreme Court confrontation regarding the scope of esports gambling regulation.
The Evolution and Operations of an Esports Practice
AJ Jameel, a senior associate at ESG Law who advises organizations in esports, gaming, content creation, and user-generated content development, and Co-Executive Director of the Esports Bar Association, offered an insider’s view of what substantive legal work in the esports space actually looks like.
Jameel outlined the core areas of esports legal practice: player contracts, buyouts and trades, and league formation. In player contracts, the central focus is on where the rights lie and when those rights are triggered. He highlighted that players must sell their sponsorship rights to generate income from those deals. Buyouts and trades are often quick transactions, with players frequently moving between teams to access different revenue structures. New leagues, by contrast, are a rarity, occurring roughly once a year, though his practice continues to advise clients on building them.
Jameel also addressed the structural challenges that have shaped the current state of the industry. Overinvestment has been a persistent problem: sponsors and team owners enter with high return-on-investment expectations fueled by hype, then exit when those returns fail to materialize. Player salaries frequently exceed revenues generated from tournaments and sponsorships combined. Inflated viewership numbers have made esports appear larger than it is, while monetization models have underperformed. Fans have proven unwilling to pay for esports content, and pay-per-view experiments have failed.
Publisher dynamics add another layer of complexity. Blizzard has historically encouraged esports around its titles, while Nintendo has actively fought against it; publishers, as intellectual property owners, can shut down tournaments at will. Jameel concluded that while esports have passed its golden age, a market still exists. He encouraged students to watch how the market and adjacent industries continue to develop, with particular attention to how AI and shifting capital flows reshape the landscape.
Regulating Agents in Esports vs. Sports
Roger Quiles, founding partner of Quiles Law, a practice focusing exclusively on the global esports and content creation industries, and Adjunct Professor of Law at Marquette Law School, examined the significant regulatory gap between agent oversight in traditional sports and in esports.
In traditional sports, athlete agents are regulated at the state level through the Uniform Athletes Agents Act (UAAA), which has been adopted by forty states as a baseline system for licensure and compliance. Under this framework, agents must register in their home state and in every state where their clients are located. Licensure requirements are relatively low, though California maintains a separate, more demanding standard. All of these frameworks share a common origin: concerns about NCAA amateurism. Quiles also noted that some states mandate specific clauses in athlete-agent contracts as an additional layer of player protection.
The esports agent landscape is starkly different. An “agent class” has organically emerged to serve players, born out of genuine demand for representation services, but this class remains largely unaware of the regulatory frameworks that apply in traditional sports contexts. As a result, many agents are not licensed, creating exposure to liability for both agents and the players they represent. The few players associations that exist in esports do not regulate managers or agents to the same extent as in traditional sports. Some voluntary certification programs exist, such as the League of Legends Players Association’s program, but Quiles characterized them as largely toothless, functioning more as a self-imposed raising of expectations than meaningful enforcement.
Esports also present a layer of complexity that does not exist in traditional sports: the question of whether esports athletes are even subject to athlete agent regulations at all, given that content creation is a primary function of the esports profession. This raises the question of whether esports athletes are more properly classified as artists rather than athletes, which would shift the applicable regulatory framework from athlete agent law to talent agent law. Quiles concluded that one of the most accessible paths toward self-correction in this space is player education, specifically around the importance of licensure status when selecting representation.
What’s Next in Esports Law
The closing panel brought together John T. Holden, Jennifer Roberts, and AJ Jameel for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of esports law and regulation.
Each panelist was first asked to offer a single word capturing where esports are headed. Jameel chose “nuanced,” reflecting the many layers of complexity beneath the umbrella of gaming law. Holden chose “evolution,” with particular attention to how a potential U.S. economic recession could reduce available capital and reveal which business models are actually sustainable in an AI-driven landscape. Roberts chose “battle,” anticipating significant litigation over jurisdictional questions and contests between gaming leagues seeking influence over how gambling is regulated.
The panelists turned next to the challenges AI will introduce to gaming law. They considered AI’s impact on stock markets, the copyright implications of AI-generated characters, and AI’s role in evaluating data. Roberts noted that AI is already being deployed to combat money laundering, and she expects it will increasingly be used to detect unusual betting patterns, a development with significant implications for esports integrity.
Looking ahead to 2031, Jameel predicted an influx of bankruptcy filings and a wave of mergers and acquisitions as the unregulated nature of the industry comes home to roost. He flagged the role of platforms like Discord as financial and organizational hubs that currently operate without meaningful oversight. Holden raised the possibility of consolidated, powerful market controllers emerging from regulatory pressure — an outcome with uncertain consequences for consumers.
On the question of money laundering, the panelists acknowledged it as a genuine concern on esports platforms, while noting that existing anti-money laundering frameworks from online gaming and casino contexts provide a foundation to build from. Self-regulation was identified as the most promising near-term solution, with external regulation likely to follow if platforms fail to police themselves. Holden observed that while government regulation of non-traditional currencies lags, the most probable trajectory involves stricter cryptocurrency guidelines that would shift some of the compliance burden away from esports platforms directly.
The 2026 JETLaw Symposium made clear that the esports industry is defined by rapid growth, persistent instability, and an ongoing struggle to establish durable legal and business frameworks. From Walkowiak’s keynote, which framed the sector’s boom-and-bust cycles as an inherent feature of a gaming-logic industry, to the closing panel’s predictions of consolidation, heightened scrutiny, and potential market contraction, a consistent theme emerged: esports are approaching a pivotal inflection point.
Each panel illuminated a different dimension of that challenge. Holden’s analysis of gambling definitions exposed the inadequacy of existing legal frameworks in the face of industry innovation. Jacobson’s discussion of visa hurdles revealed the practical barriers facing global competition. Darvin and Levine’s research on Title IX demonstrated how structural equity issues have been embedded into collegiate esports from the outset. Roberts and Quiles’s presentations on gambling regulation and agent oversight, respectively, showed how legal frameworks that work reasonably well in traditional sports contexts require significant adaptation for the esports environment. And Jameel’s operational overview of an esports practice grounded the theoretical discussions in the reality of day-to-day legal work.
The Symposium also emphasized the resilience, adaptability, and community that have long characterized competitive gaming. As technology evolves and global investment reshapes the landscape, the legal profession will play a central role in guiding the industry toward more sustainable models of governance and regulatory compliance. Esports law is no longer a niche specialty; it is a significant and growing field tasked with addressing questions that will define the next decade of interactive entertainment. The future of esports remains uncertain, but it is precisely that uncertainty that makes the work of lawyers, scholars, and industry stakeholders both challenging and essential.
