eSports Betting Online for Real Money
Esports betting popularity is already overtaking eSports themselves and if you are reading this, you are here to find out more about some of the busiest markets you can bet on as well as the major eSports events out there today. We have compared the best online eSports sportsbooks to give you an edge when considering and making your next wager yourself:
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How Do We Compare eSports Betting Sites?
We are aware that for online eSports betting enthusiasts out there, there are quite a few things that matter when it comes to a bookmaker. Transparency is one of them. As Michael Sepso, founder of Major League Gaming (MLG) and often called the “godfather of eSports”, puts it – eSports fans don’t like to be told lies.
And Sepso is right. Therefore, in analyzing suitable eSports bookmakers we make sure they are on the level that gamers expect them to be. We use the same proven standards we use for assessing sportsbooks to make sure we always bring you the best eSports betting portals.
- Our team checks whether common regulatory standards have been kept. Most eSports bookies will have licenses as well as an intuitive website with adequate encryption technology to guarantee the safety of your personal information and ease of use at the same time.
We invite players to even ask questions and decide for themselves whether a website strike them as safe enough. A way that bookies have found works out for them is to create a community right on their website.
In other words, you can see an active live chat going on in the side panel with eSports bettors getting to know each other and exchanging know-how in real-time. And trust us when we say that, in eSports, the approval of the community is what breaks or makes a website.
- The second test we run is to make sure that the markets are competitive enough. Anyone can list all major eSports games, but has the bookmaker gone the full distance adding every single major event that matters to you as a gamer?
It would be easy to just list the games, but covering every important market takes a great bookmaker, and that is precisely the eSports bookies we review and recommend.
- Another important aspect of the experience we look into is the availability of promotions. Unlike all other groups of bettors, eSports fans would much rather bet outright without having to face any wagering conditions.
This has prompted eSports bookies to become inventive and offer incentives without asking anything in return. We take a look at the promotions available at all our recommended online eSports bookmakers and measure them up against gamers’ expectations.
Of course, there are a number of other criteria that matter. For example, a great esports bookmaker should have an awesome customer support service that is always helpful, but also knowledgeable.
You can’t hire just anyone to deal with gamers – the support team has to speak the same language when it comes down to eSports vernacular.
A Closer Look at the Types of Bets
Esports betting offers a great variety of possible wagers you can place. In general, you can distinguish between two types of bets – game-specific ones and general ones, but there exists a lot of overlap between the two. We have offered a general breakdown of eSports bet types previously but let’s now focus on the main ones and why you should consider them in the first place.
- Match/outright winners bets – This is perhaps the best form of esports bet there is for at least several reasons. First, this wager carries the smallest risk. As long as you have researched your bets well, you will be able to make an informed decision and win in over 50% of the cases. Of course, your success rate can be much higher, depending on how good you are at analyzing individual match-ups, but if you are looking for a sustainable long-term strategy and robust winning percentage, going with match bets is the surest way
- Handicap bets – Oftentimes, you will see match-ups that simply aren’t worth betting on. To make things more entertaining, an eSports bookie will introduce the so-called handicap. In this case, the bookmaker will take away from the winning team and give back to the losing one. In a Bo5 game, for example, a handicap could be SK Telecom T1 to win -2.5. This means that SK has to win with 3-0 for the bet to be successful. But why risk this bet in the first place? Since SK is such a strong team, you would get very small – and almost worthless – value on a match bet.
- Proposition bets – A proposition bet is a type of wager whereby you make a bet on some specific game condition. As you can imagine, this means that each game will have a whole lot of different prop bets as they are called for short. For example, a bookie would ask you to bet on the duration of a game or which team will draw first blood. You could be asked to guess the number of kills a player would get or guess if any team would score a “Quadra Kill”. There are quite a few options here.
You can similarly place bets on the “totals” rounds, kills or games in an eSports contest – i.e. whether Cloud9 would win over or under 1.5 games and so on. This category could just as easily fit under proposition bets as well.
Don’t Miss Out on the Major eSports Events
We have already mentioned about big eSports events in our guide to eSports, but we haven’t really covered them in full. From Dota 2 to Fortnite, to the League of Legend Worlds, there is a world of opportunities for you to bet on eSports. Here are some of the largest events you should be looking forward to both as a fan and an eSports bettor:
- Dota 2 The International – Without a doubt the single event with the largest prize pool reaching over $25,000,000 and growing every year. The International is the grand season finale of the Dota Pro Circuit, which features various qualifying competitions known as Minors and Majors. The event features 16 teams and it started in 2011 with a prize pool of $1,600,000.
- Fortnite World Cup – The Fortnite World Cup is Epic Games’ own competitive season that has a massive $30,000,000 prize pool spread across various competitions. The World Cup itself carries a $3,000,000 prize for the final event of the series and this remains one of the largest events to bet on to date.
- League of Legend World Championship – Another major event on the calendar, the World Championship is a no-miss opportunity for esports bettors. The prize pool is more modest, sitting at $1,000,000, but that hasn’t stopped the event from being one of the most considerable competitions. Besides, Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends are supporting a number of franchised leagues over the world, to name LCS, LEC, LCK, LPL, PCS, VCS, and many others.
There are other events as well, of course. Counter-Strike has its Blast Pro Series where the prize pool fluctuates from year to year, but each event usually carries $250,000 in terms of prize money.
More importantly, you can bet on numerous franchised leagues, and specifically League of Legends and Overwatch. Presently, these are the only two games that have a regular season with games taking place almost every day.
In a sense, this is the closest you can get to betting on eSports as you normally would on sports, and it’s completely worth it. Here is why.
Why eSports betting online?
Online eSports betting in the USA and around the world is already quite well-developed. The reason behind that is the number of gamers growing constantly – both male and female.
Betting on eSports does come with a number of benefits. As long as you are a true fan and play the game or games you are betting on yourself, you will always have an inherent edge over any bookmaker’s algorithm. This is precisely what makes many players make the switch from spectators to the occasional and hopefully successful bettors.
Either way, eSports betting is affordable, quite straightforward, and you stand to add extra excitement to an already beloved pastime. In a word, it’s entirely worth it.
