eSports Bet Types
Understanding eSports bets can have great benefits for you. As gamers yourselves, you will appreciate sports betting because it will provide you with opportunities to use your knowledge of an eSports game to make a profit. How big that profit would be will depend solely on how good you are at understanding competitive video games.
Today you will have an opportunity to find out more about what specific eSports bet types there are and how you can use them to your benefit. If you are completely new to eSports betting, it might be useful to read over GamblersBet's guide to eSports betting online.
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What eSports Betting Markets Are There?
Gamers will have access to a variety of bets that they can wager according to the specific eSports event they are choosing to back. We will now have a look at these main categories and help you decide which wagers make the most sense for you to be playing with personally.
- Moneyline
Moneyline is a very common type of bet. When you bet Moneyline, you effectively pick a team that you expect to win. Similar to what many sportsbooks will list as ‘match winners,’ this bet asks you to stake a money. To identify the favorite and the underdog, you need to watch out for the (+) and (-) in front of the moneyline. A plus indicates how much you stand to win per $100 wagered, and that covers the underdog. When you have a minus, this is how much you need to wager to win back $100, and that covers the favorite.
- Totals
Totals are the type of eSports wager where you have to guess the number of points scored in a game. These points could come in the form of ‘kills/won rounds/won maps’ and so forth. The important thing here is to guess whether that number will be over or under a specific number suggested by the sportsbook. You can bet total maps played, kills, points, rounds and so forth.
- Proposition Bets
Because eSports games are so different from sports, there are many specific bets you can place. The top sportsbooks will focus on some specific condition and ask you if you think that it can happen. For example, you can bet on outcomes such as: Will player X score first blood? Will the game extend over 30 minutes? How many kills will a player get? There are countless bets that a sportsbook can suggest here.
Bets Specific to eSports
The most popular sport-specific bets are proposition bets. They come under many different names, and depending on the game. For instance, in Hearthstone, you can have:
- Will card X be part of the original hand?
Hearthstone is a digital trade-card game and in it, you will start with an opening hand. Some sportsbooks ask from bettors to guess whether a specific card will appear in the first hand.
- Will X unit be used in the game?
In StarCraft and Warcraft, there could be many strategies used. Therefore, sportsbooks often ask if a specific unit will be produced during a regular game.
- Will a team win in under 15 minutes?
Known as ‘cheese strategies,’ under-15-minute victories are another bet you can place when available. The cheese strategies usually apply to games such as StarCraft and less commonly for Dota 2 and League of Legends. This type of bet has a substantial return.
Overall, all eSports specific bets will boil down to the same thing – they will be determined by the game and sportsbook. You won’t often see ‘archetypes’ here, as most betting types will keep changing.
Once you are a little more versed into eSports betting, however, you will see that this makes sense and it reflects the essence of competitive video game perfectly.
How Do You Read eSports Odds?
Moneyline bets may appear a little daunting, but they are not so in the slightest. Americans are just used to having their odds displayed as +110/-110 for the most part. What this means is that the money you bet will be converted using the following formula:
- +110 means that you will win $110 for every $100 you wager. To simplify this, if you wager $1, you will receive back $1.10.
- -110 means that you will win $100 for every $110 you wager. This time you need to wager $1.10 to win back $1.
Why the pluses and minuses? That’s a great question. The plus means that the team you are betting on is considered to be the underdog. On the other hand, the minus is usually assigned to the team that is considered to be a favorite – their chances are better to win overall, so you need to risk more money to win something back.
Every sportsbook will allow you to convert your betting odds into any odd format you are happy with – decimal, fractional or the ones most commonly used in the country, ‘American.’
Getting Started with Esports Betting
After assimilating all vital knowledge as to the nature of eSports betting, you can start on your own. Your first goal will be to pick a trustworthy sportsbook. Make sure there are enough betting markets to pick from and that all major events are covered. You wouldn’t want to miss on an opportunity to place a wager and that is possible by sticking to the best websites that offer eSports bets.
Just focus on the games that you find enjoyable and follow the competitive scene closely. Before long, you will see that your understanding of games such as Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Overwatch and many others has improved significantly. Take it easy though, and only one game at a time.
