Find out where to find the best odds for betting on esports
Passionate about esports betting? You’ve spawned in the right place!
Browse through our odds comparison tables and figure out where’s the perfect place to wager on CSGO, Dota 2 or League of Legends.
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Latest News
ESL and DreamHack will merge their operations into one entity
ESL and DreamHack have merged together under a new brand ESL Gaming. Both entities, owned by Swedish-based company Modern Times Group (MTG), will continue to organize events and operate under their own brands.
Valorant is Riot Game’s first official title since the launch of League of Legends over 11 years ago.
PUBG corp announced that PUBG Global Series 2020 or PGS will feature three event stops and a Grand Finals with a total prize pool distribution of at least $3.5M USD.
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Esports betting might have been a niche activity a few years ago but not today.
Betting on esports in 2020 was brought into the supervised light of gambling regulators and thus esports betting is as safe as wagering on american football, hockey or basketball.
As with any other form of online gambling, there is no international body that regulates esports betting as a whole.
As with traditional sports betting and online casinos, this usually falls under the control of national organizations such as the UK Gambling Commission.
The UK is therefore considered a “regulated market”.
The good news? More and more countries are regulating the betting industry within their own borders.
What does this mean for you? Safer online bookmakers, guaranteed support, transparent transactions.
If you’re not currently living in the UK, Sweden, US, Spain or Italy chances are, the betting websites available to you operate under an international gambling license.
There are several of them around the world. Some more reputable than others.
A gambling jurisdiction is a country where the local government passed specific laws that make it legal for companies based there to provide online betting services.
Such examples are:
Companies based in one of these countries can obtain a gambling license if they meet (and keep) certain requirements.
Not at all. European licenses such as the ones from Malta and Isle of Man are generally regarded as the most respected.
On the other end of the spectrum are licenses such as the ones from Curacao or Panama.
The regulators in such regions don’t tend to be as strict with their licensees as their European counterparts.
In Europe, gaming authorities in the countries mentioned above ensure that betting companies adhere to very strict requirements concerning:
This set of rules will ensure the companies are engaged in ethical practices, protect their customers and have transparent terms and conditions.
Is it therefore, our advice to always check under which license your preferred betting site operates.
Educate yourself on how gambling authorities operate and make esports betting safer:
The drawbacks of playing with unregulated bookmakers are huge.
The game that brought us where we are today, or at least helped speed up things a bit, CSGO is the most popular esport title to bet on thanks to an established base of players, teams and events.
As a very strategic FPS, Counter-Strike uses factors such as economy, teamwork and communication to create a highly entertaining show.
This means players need to master an asymmetrical gameplay as each side (the Terrorist and the Counter-Terrorist) have access to different weapons, win conditions, and strategies.
With an ever-growing calendar of events – most of them supported by Valve – that can offer up to $1M in prize pools, there’s no surprise, most esports organizations feature a CSGO roster.
The biggest of them – and thus the ones you should keep in mind when betting on CSGO – include Fnatic, NAVI, Astralis, Cloud9 or Team Liquid.
The history of Dota 2 as an esport began with a two-years long beta phase.
Not very exciting, but the title put that time to very good use as the game is seens as one of the best balanced esports out there.
Dota 2 is a very strategic MOBA with hundreds of heroes to master each with their own specific role.
Beside heroes, professional gamers need to know how to manage gold, items, abilities, specific map regions and timings.
And that’s during gameplay. In Dota 2 matches can be lost before the game has actually started.
In professional competitions, Dota 2 is played using the Captain Mode – a draft feature that allows one player on each team to pick and ban heroes before the match starts.
Some of the best Dota 2 teams today include Virtus.pro, Vici, Evil Geniuses and OG.
The other MOBA in the holy-trinity of esports is League of Legends.
Riot Game’s title was launched in 2009, inspired by the original Defense of the Ancients and in the 11 years that passed, it became a worldwide phenomenon.
Its 2019 World Championship Finals was estimated to have a total audience of 21.8 million viewers.
What League of Legends did for esports betting was to create an almost ideal competitive ecosystem similar to that of traditional sports.
Professional LOL is played in a dozen franchised leagues around the world with Spring and Summer / Winter splits, weekly matches and even clearly defined salaries for players.
That standardization meant League of Legends became an almost constant presence on all sportsbooks, regardless of their region.
Valorant is Riot Games’ newest title and, as a title built for esports, a serious contender for CSGO in the strategic FPS domain.
The title was launched (with moderate success) in June 2020 but nevertheless, became one of the top games on Twitch, below CSGO but above Dota 2, Minecraft or FIFA 20.
Valorant aimes to be a strategic shooter, utilizing concepts taken from various titles such as Overwatch, CSGO and even Rainbow 6
Valorant uses a hybrid gameplay that utilizes teamplay, good timings and hero abilities.
If Riot’s recipe will prove to be a success or not, currently it’s too soon to tell.
FIFA, together with F1 and NBA2k, is one of the main sports-sims that managed to achieve a breakthrough in professional esports.
With a competitive calendar revolving around FIFA eWorld Cup and its associated event, betting on FIFA is not as common, but for traditional bettors, it brings a certain amount of familiarity.
As in football betting, you can wager on the Match Winner, Final Score, number of goals etc.
Most esports aficionados like to connect the history of esports betting with the infamous CSGO skin betting as that was the first form of betting on esports known.
Although, not entirely inaccurate, skin betting was widely seen as shady, unregulated and sometimes outright illegal.
Even though it was unscrutinized, skin betting put the spotlight on the huge potential of betting on esports such as CSGO and Dota and hurried-up the regulation and brought forth the era of esports betting as we know it today.
Add to that an immense amount of money being poured into it by investors and brands and a global esports audience that grows on average by 16% year-on-year and you truly have a recipe for success.
The eSports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) was formed in 2016 to ensure fair competition and regulation within eSports.
Although still affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, the esport scene was quick to adapt and moved all major events online avoiding any major disruptions.
FIFA and NBA2k were the preferred esports to bet on, with 80% of the total volume of bets placed (Source).
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All reputable betting companies have included at least a few big esports titles in their listings.
It’s commonplace now to find the top CSGO, League of Legends or Dota 2 tournaments or leagues available to bet on.
If you’re looking for more niche games or mobile titles such as King of Glory, Street Fighter or Arena of Valor then you’re best choice would be an esports-focus betting site.
Operators such as Rivalry, LOOT.BET, Unkirn focus heavily on covering an extensive number of events and games.
Here’s a quick overview of some of them:
As one of the first esport betting sites, Unikrn attracted a lot of attention in its early days thanks to an innovative concept that combines betting, esports and cryptocurrencies.
Unikrn went as far as to develop their own crypto – Unikoin Gold (UKG) – that allowed players to shop or bet on the Unikrn platform.
In 2019, Unikrn was named EGR’s Esports Bookmaker of the year, offering 24/7 gaming and esports betting for hundreds of esports matches.
Unikrn UMode, is a regulator-approved skill betting mode where you can bet on your own games in competitive esport titles.
Advertised as the betting site “made for live esports betting fans”, LOOT.BET is definitely one of the bookmakers with a commitment to the esports scene.
The operator supports several esports events such as the LOOT.BET/CS and LOOT.BET HotShot Series and the LOOT.BET Winter Masters.
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A 100% esports dedicated betting site Rivalry is a proud partner of Fnatic and a long-time supporter of the esports scene.
Rivalry offers a plethora of betting opportunities from CSGO to mobile games such as Arena of Valour or King of Glory.
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If Superbowl or the Champions League will have a corresponding event in the esports scene it would probably be one of the events below.
With audiences that rival those of the largest sports events, these CSGO, LOL and DOTA 2 tournaments are part of every respectable gambling site out there.
There’s no bigger or more noteworthy event in the professional League of Legends than the yearly LOL World Championship or “Worlds”.
The tournament represents the culmination of the yearly LOL season, gathering all the best League of Legends teams from around the world.
Hosted by Riot Games, “Worlds” is held in various locations on the globe with the 2020 edition being hosted by Shanghai.
There’s no tournaments in the history of esports that managed to set and break more records than Dota 2’s The International.
Powered by one of the most devoted communities, the TI holds the record for the largest prize pool ever for an esport event – more than $30 million for its 2019 edition.
The 2020 International, was set to take place at the Ericsson Globe arena in Stockholm this August but due to the recent COVID pandemic will no longer take place this summer and may be pushed back until 2021.
ESL One tournaments, The Intel® Extreme Masters, the ESL Pro League are all major esports tournaments organized by ESL.
ESL is the largest esports events company and organizer of numerous online and offline CSGO, DOTA 2, PUBG or Rainbow 6 competitions.
ESL tournaments are a pinnacle of esports entertainment always featuring the best teams in the world and some of the largest prize pools.
There’s hardly a month without an ESL qualifier or tournament so chances are, if you’re searching for an esports event to bet on, you’ll come across an ESL one (pun intended).
First Kill / First Blood
There’s not a gamer out there not familiar with the term First Kill.
Made popular by team-based esports such as CSGO or Dota 2, the First Blood or First Kill bet is a bet on the team that will score the first kill of the map, game or round.
This type of bet is one of the most exciting but challenging types of bets as it requires in-depth knowledge and a proper assessment of each team to predict if they start matches more aggressively or not.
In esports that use a draft feature such as Dota 2, the team componence can have a major impact on this, as some heroes can be more inclined to achieve this than others.
There’s nothing more easy to understand than a Winner bet.
For new punters, choosing the match winner is something that can be done without an abundance of research or knowledge.
For live betting fans, this type of wager is usually a clear favourite.
Why, would you ask.
Well, compared to the First Kill bet we talked about above which becomes unavailable once the event took place, betting on the Match Winner will remain available for almost the entire duration of the game.
Presuming your team is playing in one major tournament or esports league such as an ESL One event or one of the LOL leagues, you can bet on it to be proclaimed the tournament winner.
Odds for these types of bets are usually better before the event starts or in its early stages and will tend to fluctuate as the matches progress.
Astralis might be a favourite to win IEM Katowice but that might change if the Danish team gets off to a bad start at the Spodek Arena.
As most esports are played in rounds or in a Best out of X format, some online betting sites might offer esports wagers on the winner of the first round or map played.
As the First Kill bet, this type of wager is considered a proposition bet – a term that rose in popularity in the USA.
This is a bet placed on the occurrence or non-occurrence of an event during a match but without any impact on the game’s final outcome.
Odd / Even Bets
Another type of proposition bet the odds / even bet deal with any sort of match feature to which you can attribute a number. In simpler terms odd / even bets allow you to wager on such elements such as the number of rounds played, total champions kills, towers destroyed, number of headshots etc. by trying to guess if they will be an odd or an even number. A very tricky wager to make and one that should only be attempted by professionals, this sort of bet requires extensive knowledge of each combatant’s history and a hefty dose of luck.
Also called a Totals Bet, the Over / Under is a wager where you will try to guess if a specific occurrence will be over or under a certain threshold.
Most esports betting sites will allow you to bet on the over/under of things such as total number of rounds, total number of kills, total number of dragon kills but it’s not uncommon to find other types of wager available.
It wasn’t long for various esports teams to be divided into clear favourites or underdogs and with that, the Handicap bets followed.
Also known as line betting or points betting, these type of esports bets represent wagering are bets on the outcome of the game – similar to a Winner bet – but with the difference that the two teams are given a “handicap” – either positive or negative – before the game starts.
The “handicap” is a figure such as +1.0 or -1.0 that’s being added (or subtracted) goals from each of the two teams before kick-off.
For example, if Ninjas in Pyjamas were favourites to beat Astralis, the bookmaker might give Astralis a 1-0 handicap advantage.
That literally means that Astralis will start the game from 1-0. In a Best Of 5 event, that means Astralis will only have to win 2 other games while NIP will have to win 3.
Betting sites offer handicap bets to make betting on underdogs (Astralis in the example above) more attractive.
Yes. As esports competitions follow the same format as traditional sports, with tournaments and matches between professional players or teams, they are considered a form of sport. As football or basketball, esports athletes are required to follow regular training sessions in order to maintain a high skill level and physical prowess. More over, with the surge in popularity of titles such as CSGO, Dota 2, League of Legends or Fortnite, esports have attracted millions of fans and, with them, millions of dollars in sponsorships from big brands such as Mercedes, Red Bull or Monster.
Betting on esports is no different than betting on ice hockey or baseball. Most esports bookmakers now offer esports odds to their players so if you're familiar with traditional betting, wagering on esports is simple. The most common type of odds offered for esports are the same as the ones offered for american football for instance. You can bet on the Match Winner, place an Over / Under wager and even a Handicap Bet. Depending on the esport you choose to bet, you can access special bets such as bet on the team that you think will be the first to kill the dragon in League of Legends or bet on whether the overall match will go over or under a certain number of rounds in CSGO.
Esports' immense rise in popularity in the past years, especially among young adults is carried over in their viewing habits. According to YPulse research, 26% of 13-37-year-olds, and 32% of 13-18-year-olds, watch esports content every week. A similar study by technology consulting firm Activate estimates that, in United States, esports will have more viewers than almost all other traditional professional sports league but the NFL by next year. Their research estimates that esports will gather more than 84 million viewers, way higher than the 79 million MLB viewers or the 63 million NBA viewers. And that's not the only way esports disrupts the sports industry. With more people tuning-in to see Astralis, Ninjas in Pyjamas or OG, big brands are quick to follow. From automakers to snack companies, the list of non-endemic brands currently investing in esports includes Disney, Spotify, Toyota, Mastercard, Cheez-It, Hershey or Chipotle.
Geeks.bet is an independent esports odds comparison website built to tell you where to find the best esports odds! We try our best to make sure all the information that we provide on this site is correct but we cannot guarantee it as odds will fluctuate.
To avoid discrepancies and inaccuracies, always compare the odds shown with the actual sports betting websites.
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