eSports Betting Sites

🔥 eSports Betting Categories & Markets

Firstly, there are different types of online eSports betting sites – from your standard sports wagering sites to fantasy sites with bets on fantasy games including fantasy sports involving multi-players or player versus player. Then, there are varying sports markets you can access such as NHL Hockey, American Football, and Golf or fantasy esports games – it’s so varied. But of key interest here is the betting classifications for esports. Esports falls under four main betting categories namely, traditional esports betting, skins betting, fantasy esports, and esports competition betting.

Traditional eSports Betting

Traditional esports betting is your more straightforward ‘out of the tin’ kind. It’s where wagers are placed on the outcomes of other people’s matches using real money, like spectators betting on the outcome of a football game.

Skins Betting

Skins betting is a type of betting where wagers are placed on games using in-game skins, usually through unregulated gambling websites. Skins are game-specific items used virtually and traded by players as currency instead of real money. Much of esports gambling is built on skins as currency. We don’t advise you to bet using skins as this is largely an unregulated form of betting today – stay away for now from these types of sites.

Fantasy eSports Betting

Fantasy esports betting is a type of betting that occurs on daily fantasy sports sites like DraftKings’ contests involving esports competitions. Fantasy esports contests are legal in most US states and are classified as fantasy sports contests rather than sports betting. Additionally, fantasy esports games like Fortnite and Overwatch are growing in popularity and the pool prizes today are huge and in their millions!

Competitions & Tournaments

The fourth type of betting here is esports competitions, where wagers are placed on your own results. It’s the same idea as paying to enter an in-person esports tournament and winning a prize, but it also applies online to heads-up contests. Player-vs-player esports contests played for money such as those offered by PlayersLounge.co and GamerSaloon.com for example. Both sites operate in a large number of states because they’re considered contests of skill rather than luck and are big competitions.

🏛️ Future of eSports & Concerns on its Appeal to Younger Audiences

Currently, concerns over esports in terms of its appeal to younger audiences are in the spotlight. Esports wagering arguably draws a younger demographic of potential customers and gambling for minors is a big no-no, both in terms of athletes being wagered on and those doing the betting.

Esports leagues are to be held responsible for protecting underage players in the future, while the sportsbook operators themselves need to ensure age compliance of those betting going forwards. There are legal procedures that operators can follow called ‘know your customer’ which could be used in the future. There are examples of operators already following good practice. Unikrn for example currently verifies the age and location of site users and links their accounts to games they play.

In the future, legislation around online eSports betting could need to address licensing protocol – age verification, geo-blocking technology, mechanisms to identify and exclude people with gambling problems from participating, responsible gambling education, and monitoring. Also, states may have to clarify where they stand on eSports competitions.

Types of Bets To Place On eSports

Like any other sport, eSports has bets for almost anything that could happen throughout a game. Users can place bets on anything from the event’s winner, totals for a specific stat of a player or team, prop bets like futures or even the first player to get a kill in the match, and even live betting.

Moneyline

Moneyline bets on eSports work the same as on regular sports, meaning that it’s simply a bet on who will win. The esports odds will change based on the matchup, and the person or team that’s favored to win will have worse odds than the player or team that’s the underdog.

Esports app users can place moneyline bets for individual rounds of tournaments or events on either an individual or a team, depending on the event.

Prop Bets

Prop bets can be placed on anything you can think about in an event. Who will get the first point or so-called “first blood”, who will get the last point, who will die the most, and many other things can be bet on through eSports prop betting. Some esports betting apps even offer prop bets on what character a person would use in League of Legends or Overwatch.

Betting apps don’t limit prop betting to just a single match, either. Prop bets can be placed on the future of a team for a tournament or event through props called “futures.” Futures can be placed on an individual or team to win a tournament or even on the total number of rounds they get passed. An example of an esports futures bet would be to wager on whether a certain team will win the Dota 2 International tournament or whether a team would qualify to the International’s Winner Bracket.

Totals

Totals bets are bets on the total number of points in a game for either just one or both teams/individuals. These bets can be on the total number of kills, goals, or any stat that can be tracked in an online eSports video game.

The bet will consist of a line given by the sportsbook for the predicted game total, and users will need to choose over or under the total provided. This type of bet might seem easy to win at first, but the lines usually are scarily close to the actual outcome.

eSports Live Betting

Live betting can be any of the bets above that are placed while the event is currently in progress. Right after the event begins, pre-event line betting will be closed to the public, and live betting will begin.

The odds on live bets change based on the current outcome of the event, meaning that any team winning will have increased odds. This feature is crucial because it is easy to game for better odds on your bets. The best eSports betting apps will assist your live betting strategy by providing live streaming of the ongoing eSports tournaments.

🚀 Popular eSports Games to Bet On

There are lots of popular esports betting sites with some great games to be played. Here we look at some of the popular eSport games to bet on today – CS:GO, Dota 2, League of Legends, Fortnite, and Starcraft 2.

CS:GO

Global Offensive: Counter-Strike Global Offensive AKA ‘CS:GO’ is an esport betting online implementation of the classic first-person shooter, released originally in 1999. In this game, terrorists and counter-terrorists compete on missions like planting and disarming bombs. Killing all opposing team members ahead of mission accomplished is another way to win this. See the best CSGO betting sites USA here.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is a popular esports betting online game otherwise known as Defense of the Ancients 2. It’s a ‘MOBA-style’ (multiplayer, online battle arena) game loosely resembling an in-depth version of League of Legends (LOL). There’s a large battle arena, with two teams of five and a mission to destroy an important structure defended by the enemy. The pool prize reached $4m in 2020.

Rocket League

Rocket League (my favorite) is one of the best games in the eSports industry that combines soccer and auto sports for a unique and electric gaming experience. Users can play competitive modes for 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 games, and there are eSports tournaments in these game modes as well.

Rocket League is one of the most-streamed video games on live streaming sites with eSports coverage.

LOL

League of Legends LOL esports betting is simply huge. LOL is a multiplayer online battle arena game (MOBA). It puts two teams of ‘five against’ together. The objective here is to advance across the map and destroy the enemy nexus. Each team begins with weak characters who grow stronger as they kill monsters and earn points. League of Legends is one of the best fantasy esports gaming tournaments and can be found on sites like DraftKings where you can sign up for a $3 League of Legends tournament. Once you enter, you get a virtual salary of $50,000 to spend building an 8-man roster.

A LOL esports betting contest consists of 7 players plus 1 team slot. Your job as manager is to choose gamers to fill slots. You also choose a team to fill your final slot. Player prices vary on perceived strength and a person can cost more virtual money to add if they have good ratings. The more points, the higher your chance of winning the LOL esports betting league and earning a cash payout.

Overwatch

Next up we have Overwatch, a game similar to LOL. Overwatch is a first-person combat video game that offers different characters with different abilities and stats that has become one of the most competitive eSports in the industry.

The game not only has continuously grown in popularity since its release in 2016 but also has a significant eSports tournament, the Overwatch World Cup.

Fortnite

Fortnite esport game came onto the scene in 2017 as a free-to-play battle royale with cartoon graphics. The unique mechanic here is players can harvest materials to build structures. This allows players to survive in open areas and fight at any time. This fast-paced game has become one the most popular in the esports fantasy world with a total prize pool of 2018 tournaments was $2.6 million, the largest amount for an opening tournament for any eSport. In 2019, Fortnite gave out $65 million in total prize money. Top pool prize so far here is $7,000,000 (2020).

Starcraft 2 (ST2)

StarCraft II is the biggest RTS esport title published by Blizzard Entertainment with Terrans, Zergs, and Protoss galore. SC2 esports has a stable established scene and weekly tournaments throughout the year with continuous updates by developers and a committed esports scene, making it one of the core esports betting markets today.

eSports Major Events and Tournaments

There are several major tournaments and events in eSports every year that are perfect for fans to gamble on. Almost any major competitive game you can think of will have its own eSports league because of the vast popularity and following behind the game.

Below are five of the most significant eSports events and tournaments in different games throughout the year.

Call of Duty World League

Call of Duty is one of the largest video game franchises in the entire industry, and anyone who’s ever played video games has either played or watched the game at some point in their lives. This Call of Duty World League event was created to find the best teams in the game to play against each other in a tournament for $500,000!

Rocket League Championship Series – World Championship

As I mentioned above, Rocket League is a great game that’s become incredibly popular over the years and has become huge in eSports. This tournament is the world championship for the best teams in Rocket League to compete for a $500,000 prize pool!

Valorant Regional Leagues

Valorant is an online first-person shooter that has become one of the biggest competitive games on the internet due to its unique style of play. It is similar to Overwatch and League of Legends because each user gets the choice from several different operators with different power-ups and abilities.

The Valorant Champions event is a tournament to find the best team of Valorant in the world and has a final prize of $200,000.

Overwatch League

The Overwatch Summer Showdown is one of the most significant eSports events of the year, with a grand prize of $225,000! This tournament pitches teams against each other in a push-the-payload game mode to fight for dominance in the final Overwatch League event of the year!

CS: GO BLAST Premier: World Final

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the largest competitive games in the eSports industry, and the following behind it is incredibly cult-like (because the game is excellent). The CS: GO BLAST league is the most significant division for players of this game, and this tournament is the result of the entire BLAST season.

The World Final tournament puts teams against each other for a final purse of one million dollars! You can bet on CSGO online here.