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Esports is an ever-evolving gaming environment that takes constant adjusting to. This includes changes to Esports games, tournament formats, player and team changes, and just about everything else. The same can be said about Esports betting markets.
If this is your first foray into Esports betting, then this article will serve as a guide to the most popular Esports betting markets. We’ll be covering everything from how to bet to concise explanations about all the betting markets.
Before setting out on your first betting voyage, you need to understand how the betting process works. Although this is a fairly simple process, there are plenty of metrics that go into it. In general, many Esports countries have produced strong teams with either regional or international players.
And that’s just one piece of info that you might end up needing to place your bets. On the other side we’ve got betting operators and a couple of important metrics here as well, including but not limited to betting odds, payment methods, betting markets, and more.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – here’s the rundown of how to start betting:
Betting markets shouldn’t be too tough to understand but there are quite a lot of them so pay close attention. In short, betting markets represent the types of bets you can place on a bookie website.
However, due to the nature of these betting markets, there are a couple of differences to consider before you start betting. Esports betting may be fun, but you need to be mindful of the specifics.
Each betting market has predetermined odds with slight changes depending on the teams or players that are playing against each other. For example, outrights have amazing odds because they’re difficult to guess correctly, whilst match winner or over/under bets don’t have odds as good as the outrights, but you have better chances of winning.
Certain betting markets aren’t available on specific bookie websites. The reasons behind this aren’t important; what is important is that you know which betting markets are available where.
Virtually all betting operators support most of the basic betting markets (match winner, outrights, etc.). The divergence happens when special or unique Esports betting markets come into play. Keep an eye out for the betting operators and the betting markets they have on offer.
Although odds can be considered as a chance to win a bet, they still aren’t reliable enough. They’re meant to show you what the size of your winning will be if you nail the bet, but aren’t precise enough to give an accurate representation of what to expect.
Having said that, certain betting markets have lower chances of bringing you victory, but you can increase these chances if you do your background research, essentially elevating your knowledge about each bet you want to place.
Sometimes, punters want to indulge in special or unique bets that can be drastically different from the ones people usually place. Essentially, the weirder the bet, the more interesting it’ll appear.
For example, in League of Legends betting, certain betting operators offer the ‘First Dragon’ or ‘First Baron’ betting market. With it, you bet on the team or player that gets to kill the first drake or Baron.
Now, we’re ready to go over the most popular Esports betting markets of today. We’ll be providing you with information surrounding which betting operators offer these betting markets, as well as the games you can expect to find them for.
Simply put, this is the most common betting market and probably will be for some time. After all, betting originally featured only this type of bet – either A or B will win.
In most cases, this is the easiest and quickest bet to make – you don’t have a lot of variables at play, although the research process might be longer than expected.
This type of bet is very similar to the match-winner betting market with the key difference being that this bet is available only for games that use multiple maps. However, that is not all.
Due to the nature of these games, certain teams will perform better on certain maps and vice-versa. Because of this, it can get difficult to make safe bets which is why this betting market is both attractive and a deterrent to punters. Those who like risks and lots of research will like this one.
When talking about over/under betting markets, we can see that they’re related to either time-based bets or score-based. What this means is that, depending on the game, the subtype of the bet type changes.
For instance, if there’s a League of Legends match going on and you get a prompt that the game will last for 30 minutes. You can bet that it’ll finish sooner than that, or later. In games such as CSGO, you might get a prompt related to the score (Team A wins with an 8-match score difference, i.e. 16-8).
Simply put, this type of betting market is something you can do quickly. Because calculating the exact score (if possible) is tedious and time-consuming, punters usually just go with their gut at the moment.
The truth is, guessing the correct score is nearly impossible to get right, but at least the odds are very good if you do.
Outrights are simple betting markets that are available at all bookies and for all games. However, there is a subgroup of outrights that revolve around group winners (if a tournament features a group system in combination with the knockout stages).
These work similarly to tournament outrights (betting on a team to win the entire tournament) except that they’re limited to the group stage (you pick a team that you think will be 1st place once the group stage is finished).
These may not be available at all bookies so definitely keep an eye out; the odds for them are slightly worse but your chances of winning are higher.
Certain games (like Overwatch) have a time limit at the end of each round. If the score is tied, the game goes into overtime to break the stalemate. These betting markets aren’t too common and there’s a limited number of games with an in-game time limit.
Handicap bets are specific types of already existing betting markets, with a slight twist. A handicap bet can be any type of bet that involves a team (so no time limit or over/under bets). In essence, a handicap is assigned to the team that are considered the favorites.
An example of one would be a CSGO match where Team A are the favorites, but to level the betting playing field, they must win the match with 5 or more rounds against Team B (ie. 16-10 or 16-11).
This betting market is generally available for games with the thematic describing it. Essentially, all games with a kill mechanic can be bet on. Keep in mind that, while this is a popular betting market, it isn’t as widespread as others.
For those that are looking for an extra challenge, game-specific and unique bets are the way to go. These betting markets vary wildly across all bookies, while some might not even have them on offer. You can expect things like ‘how many Barons will be taken in a LoL match’, ‘What CSGO map will be played the most in a tournament’, and more.
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Esports betting markets must be understood in order for punters to place potentially winning bets. It is one of the core features of Esports betting, hence its importance.
Now that you’ve learned about the most popular Esports betting markets, you’ll be ready for betting. Of course, as long as you don’t go in blind, you’re doing a good job. Also, remember that each online betting operator decides the odds for themselves, so certain betting markets may differ from bookie to bookie.
If you want to learn even more about Esports betting and the various intricacies that come with it, make sure to visit our betting Academy for more info. Good luck!
Esports betting markets represent the types of bets you can place. Most online betting operators provide the same betting markets (with slightly different odds and some other differences) but they’re free to create their own unique ones.
That depends on what you would consider the best. Match winner and over/under bets have the highest chances of winning, while outrights and similar difficult betting markets have the best odds. In truth – the best ones are the ones you’re most comfortable with.
This may take some time to figure out, but you’d need to try with all and see which one simply isn’t working out with you. In most cases, you should avoid placing loads of difficult-to-win bets. Bet-specific wise? There are no bad betting markets – only bad odds.
Theoretically, there could be an infinite number of betting markets. But that’s probably never going to happen. Still, there are plenty of them; some are available at just one place – at the bookie that created it.
You can find most of these betting markets at one of our partnered bookies, including Betway, 1xBet, and GGBet.
In order to become successful at Esports betting, you need to be smart, diligent, and wise with your bets. Research is your friend; it is the only way you can get an idea of what to place and when. That, plus the experience you’ll get along the way, so take your time; don’t rush it!