Betting on eSports is becoming more and more popular every day. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the market is flooded with online video games that are considered the new generation of sports, like League of Legends or Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
The eSports industry is currently valued at over 1 billion dollars, and it’s expected to grow even more in the coming years. But how can you use this information to your advantage?
Well, in recent years, bookmakers noticed the increase in demand for an eSports betting market. After understanding the potential, they quickly implemented a feature that allows gaming enthusiasts to bet on the outcome of the greatest gaming tournaments, like League of Legends World Championship or the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships.
A significant advantage of eSports betting is that it works similarly to traditional sports, meaning that you will get odds based on team statistics, and you will have to decide which team will win the match. Mostly, if you’re following all the major gaming championships, you should have a good idea regarding who will be victorious and bank some serious cash while you’re at it.
If you want to be a serious bettor, having a well-defined eSports betting strategy is mandatory. Below, we’ve listed the key factors for success:
Choose a suitable bookmaker
Let’s say you want to start betting on eSports right away. Well, if that’s the case, you will want to sign up for a licensed casino operator, because otherwise you risk getting scammed by “pirate casinos” and even if you guessed the outcome correctly, you wouldn’t be able to withdraw the winnings.
Even though this advice might sound like the most basic requirement for any aspiring bettor, many beginners have no idea where to get started. After running some tests, we’ve figured out that the platforms listed on this website are trustworthy, and many of them allow you to bet on your favorite eSports tournaments.
Additionally, the betting platform you go for must have low margins, best odds, and no bet amount limit. While it might sound like a daunting task, it’s in your best interest to compare various bookmakers and choose the one that suits your needs.
Always research before planning your bets
Research is key in any betting market you’re planning to get into. If you’re an eSports fan, you surely spend hours watching professional teams battle each other on live stream or YouTube. However, you should never take that knowledge for granted.
Running in-depth research on eSports requires you to have a profound understanding of the game mechanics and how a team performs against another. Spend time getting to know the strategy used by all the teams participating in the championship, and you will begin noticing specific play patterns that could help you speculate the final outcome better.
For example, if you’re a fan of League of Legends pro team SKT T1, you will notice that Faker, their mid-laner is able to win his lane and carry even if he is against a counter pick, as long as he’s playing one of his main champions. However, if the enemy team bans Faker’s best championship, SKT will be at a huge disadvantage, because their strategy revolves around their mid laner hyper carrying them in the late game. So, you can never be sure of a team’s success, even if the odds are in their favor.
Keep track of your success
Being successful in betting requires a long-term strategy. Of course, racking up some easy wins because you got lucky might suffice, but if you’re serious about eSports betting, you will need to measure how many guesses were made right and how many were wrong. After you’ve got a clear picture of your win rate, you can go ahead and analyze your losses and try figuring out what went wrong.
Implement a staking method
If you want to optimize your bankroll, you must implement a staking method in your betting. Necessarily, you will need to prioritize the events and adjust the value of the wagers accordingly. You don’t want to bet too much on an underdog, even if your favorite player is part of that team. Still, if a team has an excellent reputation and has won a lot recently, you will surely want to wager more money on that event.
Now that you have a great idea on how to bet on eSports efficiently, it’s time to learn some of the common wagering mistakes that you should avoid at all costs:
Avoid betting on too many games
Even if you’re a complete beginner to eSports betting, you know that betting on every game is a bad idea, because you won’t always find odds that offer a positive expected value. Therefore, you should carefully select the events that you bet on, based on the odds listed on the bookmaker’s site and your general knowledge about the teams.
Never bet based on emotion
Just because you like a team or “your gut feeling” tells you that they will be victorious, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your assumption is correct. Always make your betting decisions based on facts, and you should avoid getting “tilted.” In a nutshell, being tilted means that after a losing streak, you decide to ditch your strategy and simply go with your intuition, which usually results In losing even more money.
Relying solely on the odds
New eSports bettors will see that an event has high odds, and they will instantly bet on the underdog just because they want to get a huge return fast. In reality, these odds are purely based on probability, meaning that they represent the bookmaker’s estimation on what will happen. The higher the odds, the less likely that team is going to win.
We’re not saying that an underdog will never win against a well-established team. However, you should never make bets based on the odds from the bookmaker. Instead, you should calculate the probability yourself by factoring in all the knowledge you have on the teams and by analyzing games where they go against each other (if available).
Now that you have a better understanding of how betting on eSports works, you can go ahead and start looking for opportunities. Before you go, keep in mind that patience is the key virtue of any gambler, so sometimes it’s better not to bet at all instead of making a decision based on intuition or with just partial information.
Placing bets on eSports is just like playing them – many players understand the mechanics, but only a few of them will use them successfully and make it to the top!