Have you heard of the thrill provided by eSports betting but don’t understand how to join it, too? Look at the eSports betting process, popular odds and markets to get a clear idea of bet types, how they work, and what to do to maximize your chances of winning.
What’s Special About eSports Betting?
eSports are video game competitions where professional teams of players compete in tournaments to win monetary prizes or their shares. These might be small online tournaments and international events devoted to games of different types: shooters, MOBA, sports, battle royale, and real-time strategy games. The top games popular in eSports betting nowadays are Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends, Valorant, Dota 2, Call of Duty, and others.
These competitions attract a huge audience and offer impressive prize pools calculated in millions of dollars. The biggest competitive scene in eSports belongs to Counter-Strike 2, since the leading teams participate in different events devoted to this game, including IEM, BLAST, and the Majors.
How does it work?
eSports betting is the process of placing wagers on the outcome of professional video games or tournaments. You need to complete several simple steps to do that:
- Choose a betting market.
- Place a stake prior to the beginning of the match or during it.
- Get a payout in case your predictions are correct.
You can select between two applicable ways of placing wagers: pre-match betting, available before the match starts, and in-play or so-called live betting, which works when the game is already in progress. It is better to select betting platforms with a decent selection of eSports, a list of events, and fixed, though competitive, odds.
Understanding eSports Betting Odds & Markets
When you decide to place an eSports wager, you should first select the type of market offered by the sportsbook.
- Match winner: a team or a player who becomes the winner of the match or the whole series.
- Map or game winner: a winner of the specific map or game.
- Map and round handicaps: virtual advantage/disadvantage.
- Total maps/games: decide if a series of games will complete over or under a specific number of maps.
- Series score: predicting the final series score.
- Round, kill, and objective totals
- First-to markets: choosing a team to reach a specific milestone first.
- First objective: predicting the first event to take place.
- Player props: individual player’s stats.
- Tournament and progression markets: predicting longer-term outcomes.
When you come up with the choice of the betting market, it is time to look at the odds. These numbers show the probability of the specific outcome predicted by the bookmaker. It also determines the amount of your possible winnings in case of a successful bet. It is important to remember that the lower odds signify higher chances of winning, and the higher ones show the less likely outcome according to the bookmaker. If you place a wager of $10 at odds of 1.50 and it wins, you will get $15 in total: your primary bet size and $5 of profit.
Types of eSports Betting Odds
Bettors should pay attention to the applicable odds format since bookmakers can use several of them.
- American odds: used mainly in the US, they display prices as both positive (underdog) and negative (favourite) numbers.
- Decimal odds: common in Europe, Canada, Australia, and many other betting markets, these odds show the total return for every stake. For example, odds of 2.50 mean that you get $25 for a wager of $10.
- Fractional odds: characteristic of the UK and Ireland, they show the potential for profit. For example, odds of 5/2 mean that you get $5 for a wager of $2.
- Asian (Hong Kong, Indonesian, and Malaysian) odds: Hong Kong odds use only positive decimal-style values, while the others offer combinations of positive and negative numbers.
How Are eSports Odds Calculated?
eSports odds depend on a variety of game-specific factors, including live ones that change very quickly, so they are calculated using the following rules:
- Defining the event and settlement rules.
- Estimating the team’s strength or player rating based on past performances.
- Considering the conditions under which this match is played. Analyzing maps, drafts, game version, etc.
- Modelling a match format by accounting for series length, map win probability, map selection, side choice, fatigue, and adaptation.
- Including situational factors like travel and time zones, tournament schedule, server location, competition stage, etc.
- Recalculating odds in live mode due to their constant updates.
You can see that eSports betting is a complex but at the same time thrilling process that requires some preparation and insights if you want to succeed and get a chance to win money.
