From the early 2000s to 2024, eSports has grown from an underground hangout for its own people to a multi-million dollar business and a full-fledged entertainment industry. The eSports market is estimated to be worth tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars.
Having made its way to screens and stadiums of many thousands, cybersport has also found its place in the betting market. Betting on CS:GO or Dota 2 is on a par with betting on the Champions League and the NBA.
While the field of eSports betting is of age, many people are just getting to know the specific niche. For such users, we have prepared a guide to the main betting disciplines, in which we will try to reveal the pros and cons of betting on one discipline or another.
Contents
The pros and cons of betting on CSGO
Source: steam.com
Arguably one of the most popular eSports betting destinations has been and remains the CWGO. The legendary team shooter from Valve attracts not only millions of players, but also a large number of betting enthusiasts.
The CSGO betting market is quite developed and that’s the payoff. One of the major pluses of the discipline is considered to be its mass appeal.
The CSGO has a fairly well-developed tournament ecosystem that gives fans of the game an almost uninterrupted flow of tournaments. Major eSports studios such as ESL and BLAST consistently stage tournaments with millions of dollars in prize money and top teams from around the world participating. The latter, by the way, is another argument in favor of betting on CSGO at EGamersworld.
There are plenty of top clubs in the Global Offensive who value their divisions in the game. The top teams in the CWGO invest in marketing and media development of their players.
This kind of action popularizes the game and cuts out match-fixing and cheating. This is, incidentally, one of the key drawbacks of CSGO betting, which is actively fought by various organizations.
Apart from well-known and reputable organizers, there are many lower quality tournaments. There is less moderation, unknown teams play and mishaps often occur, damaging the image of the COSC. Cheating and other unfair play is stopped, but it is almost impossible to get rid of it completely.
Pros and cons of Dota 2 betting
Source: twitch.tv
Another popular discipline for betting on eSports is Dota 2 from the creators of Valve’s CSGO. The MOBA is revered by players and betting enthusiasts alike.
Explaining the popularity of Dota is easy. The game from Valve is the industry’s biggest eSports discipline in terms of prize money.
The main Dota 2 tournament, The International, is renowned for its multi-million primes. In 2021, the total prize pool for the game’s main tournament was over $40 million.
Obviously, such large-scale events don’t stay away from the betting industry. Betting on The International is in global demand. Bookmakers are opening up all their lines for this championship and offering a wide variety of bets.
Thanks to its in-depth mechanics, it is possible to bet on a variety of events in Dota. Apart from the standard bets on the winner of the card or the game, the total and handicaps of the match, special lines are available for the winner of the tournament, the region of the winning team, reaching the final, taking the roshan, committing first blood and much more.
This arsenal of available bets makes the process of betting on Dota 2 even more interesting. However, there are plenty of downsides to playing at the betting shops.
Dota, unlike CSGO, has a rather closed tournament ecosystem. In fact, in the modern form of Valve’s MOBA there is a single lineup of tournaments, the DPC with The International at the helm.
The DPC is played in different regions, and the level of play varies considerably from corner to corner. In some regions, like the first DPC round in 2024, match-fixing and other dirty business is developing. In China, for example, there was a big wave of purges in the spring, which affected players in the top division.
While such precedents are common in the elite leagues of the top regions, on the rare smaller tournaments such things can take place on a massive scale. However, Valve is working to weed out unscrupulous players and the betting offices are removing matches involving suspicious teams.
Pros and cons of betting on League of Legends
Source: esportsbets.com
It’s hard to imagine any top eSports game without having League of Legends in it. Riot Games’ massive project is capturing the attention of players and betting enthusiasts alike.
The popularisation of LoL betting is helped by Riot Games themselves, although they do so largely unconsciously. It’s all about the approach to League of Legends development.
Riot Games are balancing the development of the gaming components, such as adding content to the League of Legends, and the cyber sports scene. The latter is going great for Riot.
Today’s LoL has a very diverse competitive scene. There are central regions with local leagues (LPL, LCK, LEC, LCS, VCS, PCS and so on) as well as a whole range of side events involving hundreds of clubs of various sizes: tournaments like LVP, LFL, EU Masters, student leagues and so on.
This variety of championships allows betting on LoL almost round the clock: games on the professional League of Legends scene literally never end. Riot arrange the League of Legends tournaments in such a way that central regions do not overlap.
Different betting lines are available for all LoL tournaments, starting with trivial match or card winners, ending with the number of Barons taken and total handicaps on kills. However, there are also disadvantages to betting on the League of Legends.
The main disadvantage of betting on the League of Legends can be called the predictability of matches. There is a tough balance of power between teams by region in LoL. For example, teams from South Korea have dominated TIR-S tournaments since 2018, which means their victory is predictable.
Given the League of Legends’ gameplay design, which has been honed for mechanical execution, LOL’s wildcards are rare, which means high odds in live or pre-match are rare to catch. For some, however, this may be a plus.
Advantages and disadvantages of betting on VALORANT
Source: wired.com
Another top eSports discipline has only recently emerged in 2020. Having created the successful competitive project League of Legends, Riot Games decided to conquer a completely opposite genre – the tactical team shooter, and they succeeded with VALORANT. It has succeeded in captivating not only the players and the public, but also betting enthusiasts.
VALORANT is exciting with its gameplay mechanics and design. The game features unique agents with a personal set of abilities, which adds variation to every match. When paired with Riot’s approach to developing their games and cyber sports in them, this yields impressive results.
For example, the VALORANT Champions Tour 2024: LOCK//IN São Paulo was one of the most watched events in 2024, and was also a popular betting event. The event attracted 30 teams from all over the world to Brazil and together they competed for 500,000 dollars.
LOCK//IN was the first leg of the VCT 2024 series, the main tournament circuit of today’s competitive VALORANT. It makes sense to bet on matches in this series, as top clubs and media players play here, which adds weight.
There are 30 teams from three regions in the VCT system, which adds to the betting variability. And it also includes third-party events like Challengers and other championships outside of Riot Games’ jurisdiction.
The main disadvantage, if you can call it that, is the chaotic nature of the local scene. At high level tournaments, there are always top favourites but in VALORANT, teams play from tournament to tournament: it’s difficult to predict the winner of an event before it starts as it is in other disciplines.
Conclusion
To summarise, all of the most popular eSports disciplines have their strengths and weaknesses. This applies to both gaming aspects and betting disciplines.
Remember that betting is best done with a cool head and prepared. Study statistics, analyse information and watch the games – then your bets are more likely to be successful.
