Betting on esports is a simple process in 2023 with all of the top betting sites featuring markets on competitive video games. This includes details about esports games, esports bookmakers and sportsbooks, understanding odds and payment and banking information.
BEGINNERS GUIDE TO ESPORTS BETTING
The team at eSportBet.com has recognised a severe lack of eSports guides out on the World Wide Web which adequately cover the basics of betting on eSports.
HOW TO BET ON ESPORTS
Betting on eSports is actually just like betting on traditional sporting events. In eSports, the most basic known form of betting is match winner or match win, also referred to as a Moneyline bet (Pinnacle), Head-to-Head (BetEasy), Straight (William Hill) and many other terms depending on your preferred online betting site or social circles. The premise is very simple: you place a wager on which team you think will win the match, after deciding on the odds which represent the best value for your hard-earned money.
Depending on where in the world you are from and which site you sign up with, you will need to learn how they work before you start betting. Due to its simplicity, the most common format used by online betting sites is decimal odds, which we will use in our examples throughout this article.
BASIC MATCH WIN BETTING IN ESPORTS
Okay – so in our beginner’s example of a basic match winner bet, we want to place a bet on Athletico vs Team Immunity in a game of CS:GO, with Team Immunity to win. We need to break down the three basic factors every punter needs to consider before placing the bet.
- Format: The odds format the Internet bookmaker/sportsbook you have chosen uses – decimal, fractional or American.
- Odds: The actual amount the bookmaker/sportsbook will pay out on a winning wager, together with the required stake.
- Bankroll: The amount of real money you wish to bet with.
In our example, it would be as so:
- The hypothetical bookmaker we have chosen uses decimal odds format.
- The hypothetical odds are 1.60 for Athletico to win, compared to Team Immunity at 2.50.
- The amount of real money we wish to bet with is $100 stake (maximum – set yourself a limit).
We choose to place a $100 bet on Team Immunity to win.
The sportsbook calculates our potential return from this wager on our betting ticket, by multiplying our stake of $100 with the odds they offer. In this case, it’s 100 x 2.50 = 250. If Team Immunity wins, our return is $250. This includes our original $100 bet, called a stake, and your total profit, which is $150.
To work out our total potential profit, just subtract one from the given odds. The formula shifts to stake x (odds – 1) = actual profit. In this case, it’s 100 x (2.50 – 1) = $150.
The betting odds offered by bookmakers reflect their implied probability of a team winning a match over another. The lower the odds, the probability is higher the team will win in the bookmaker/sportbook’s view. The higher the odds, the team has a lower probability of winning in the bookmaker/sportbook’s view.
TYPES OF BETS IN ESPORTS
The basic straightforward match winner bet option is often the only betting market open on our favourite eSports games, but every game has slightly different types of special wagers unique to its style of gameplay. These kinds of wagers aren’t dependent on whether the team you’re betting on wins the entire match, but are based on another outcome entirely.
Many sportsbooks are still playing catch-up when it comes to offering more exotic and varied wagering options, but thankfully there are several types of these other bets we can place on eSports, as detailed below.
BASIC TYPES OF ESPORTS BETS
These are the main betting markets available in the majority of eSports video games at Internet and mobile sportsbooks.
- Draw: You are placing a bet on whether the outcome of the match results in a draw.
- Group of Winner: You are placing a bet on the group which contains the overall final winner of the entire tournament.
- Group Winner: You are placing a bet on the winning group of the specified tournament (if teams are organised in groups).
- Handicap bet: When a sportsbook places a set margin (called the line) which gives an unfavourable team a small advantage (usually in the form of rounds) and effectively places the game on equal footing. It is only available when there are only two possible outcomes (two teams). You are placing a bet on whether the team with the handicap advantage or disadvantage wins. Example: You place a bet on Team A, which has a 3 round advantage against Team B.
- Outright Winner: You are placing a futures bet on the which team you think will be the overall winner of the tournament in question.
- Over/Under: You are placing a bet on the number a sportsbook predicts for a particular statistic in a given game (most often combined score of the two teams, also factors such as total kills and first to markets); whether the actual number in the game is either higher or lower than the bookmaker/sportbook’s odds.
- Region Winner: You are placing a bet on the specific region the winner is from, if the tournament separates them by region.
- Total Rounds: You are placing a bet on whether the overall match will go over or under a certain number of rounds.
SPECIAL TYPES OF ESPORTS BETS
These are more exotic types of betting markets available in multiple eSports video games at online and mobile sportsbooks.
- First Blood: You are placing a bet on the team who scores the first kill of the match (Counter Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends).
- Knife Round: You are placing a bet on the team who scores the first kill of the Pistol round (Counter Strike: Global Offensive).
- Knife Round/Pistol Round: You are placing a bet on the team who scores the first kill of the Knife Round, when available (Counter Strike: Global Offensive).
- Map Winner: You are placing a bet on the team who wins the specified map (Counter Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, League of Legends).
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