Distilled Dota 2 Betting Wisdom and the Ultimate Dota 2 Betting Guide

From Noob to Pro: What is Dota 2

Dota 2 is a free to play video game created and published by Valve Corporation. Its development began in 2009 but the game was released 4 years later, in July 2013.
Dota 2 belongs to the MOBA genre (multiplayer online battle arena) and is one of the most successful electronic sports (esports) in the world, with over 10 million active players, hundreds of professional teams and a professional circuit (called the Dota Pro Circuit) that includes around 25 important tournaments per year.

These tournaments are LAN events held in large arenas in front of thousands of fans, and have prize pools of either 300.000 (Minors) or 1 million dollars (Majors). At the end of this circuit, a world championship takes place (called The International), which brings together the best 16 teams from 6 different regions: Europe, CIS, China, Southeast Asia, North America and South America. In 2017, this tournament had a prize pool of 24.7 million dollars was won by Team Liquid.

Dota 2 is a very complex game with more than 700 elements and mechanics. At its most simple level, each match is played in a team vs. team format (5 players vs. 5 players) in which the two teams, called Radiant and Dire, fight each other in a two-sided arena split by a river.

One round lasts anywhere between 15 and 75 minutes and is a mixture of real-time strategy and role-playing game elements. Players pick heroes out of a pool of 115 possibilities and then synchronize with their teammates in order to bring down the opposition’s Ancient, which is the most important structure inside a team’s base. When this building collapses, the game is over.

Betting on Dota 2 tournaments

Dota 2 has regular tournaments throughout the year. For the 2017-2018 competitive season, the most important event will be The International 2018. Besides this prestigious competition, some of the tournaments that were included in the Dota Pro Circuit are StarLadder i-League Invitational Season 3, ESL One Hamburg 2017, Perfect World Masters, DOTA Summit 8, Captains Draft 4.0, ROG DreamLeague Season 8, ESL One Katowice 2018, The Bucharest Major, DreamLeague Season 9, Dota 2 Asia Championships 2018, StarLadder & i-League Invitational Season 5, and EPICENTER XL.

When Dota Pro Circuit events take place, they attract the attention of the entire Dota 2 community. These events are covered by the bookmakers (although some do a better job than others) and offer excellent betting opportunities.

Types of Dota 2 betting odds

Betting on a match result

For this type of bet, you can pick the team that you believe is going to win a particular match. Dota 2 matches are usually played in a Bo1, Bo3 or Bo5 (only Grand Finals) format, meaning that the winner is decided by going through a maximum of 1, 3 or 5 games, maps or rounds (the equivalent of sets in Tennis). For some tournaments, the organizers choose a format that includes Bo2 matches. These types of matches can also end in a draw.

Betting on a match result with a map handicap/advantage

This type of bet is almost identical to the previous one, except that one of the teams starts with either a handicap (usually the one considered to be stronger) or an advantage (usually the one considered to be weaker).
For instance, betting that team A will win a Bo3 match with a 1.5 map handicap against team B means that you believe team A is going to win the match with the score of 2 – 0. If it wins with the score of 2 – 1, your bet will be lost because of the handicap, which makes the final score 0.5 – 1 in favor of team B.
In exactly the same way, if you bet that team A will win a Bo3 match with a 1.5 map advantage against team B, this means that you believe team A is going to win at least 1 game against team B. If it does that, even if this team loses the match with the score of 1 – 2, the real score after adding its advantage will be 2.5 – 2. So your bet will be won.

Betting on the winner of a particular game

For this type of bet you are picking the winner of a certain game within a match. Depending on the format of the match and for how long it actually keeps on going, this could be either game 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5. If you’re betting on game 2, 3, 4 or 5 ahead of a match and the match doesn’t actually go that far, the bet will be cancelled and your money will be returned.

Betting on the occurrence of an event

This is a type of bet that allows you to bet on a certain event which takes place during a certain game. Examples include: an Aegis of the Immortal being stolen by any of the teams, an Animal Courier getting killed, a player getting a Godlike streak (9 consecutive kills dying) or a player getting a Rampage (5 kills in quick succession).

Betting on the team which will be the first to accomplish something

This type of bet allows you to pick which team will be the one to do something within a particular game of the match. For instance, you may be able to choose the team that will kill the first Roshan, or destroy the first Tower or Barracks, or get the first kill (First Blood), or be the first to get 10 kills on the scoreboard.

Betting on the tournament winner

This type of bet is available before the start of a tournament, allowing you to pick the team that you believe is going to claim the title.

Betting on the tournament finalist

This type of bet is available before the start of a tournament, allowing you to pick a team that you believe is going to qualify for the Finals.

Betting on a tournament statistic

This type of bet is generally available before the start of very important tournaments, such as The International 2017, allowing you to pick things like the most picked hero (throughout the entire tournament), the most banned hero, the hero with the highest GPM (gold per minute) within a game, the player with the most number of kills within a game, and other statistics of this kind.

Dota 2 betting strategies

When betting on Dota 2 matches, you should follow a set of very simple but very effective principles. Doing this will help you to increase your profits in the long run and will also save you a lot of headaches.

Start with the lowest risk bets

At the start of a tournament, if you’re not quite sure about what the pecking order is, either because a new patch has recently been released or because the teams have changed their rosters, take the lowest risk bets initially and watch a few matches to get a feel for how well the participants are playing.

Watch the drafting phase and then place your bet

Always try to wait until you’ve seen the drafts. If your understanding of the game is good, watch the drafting phase first and only then decide who you should place your bet on. In Dota 2, it’s frequently possible for a team to totally outdraft the other, and gain a big advantage right from the start of the game. The choices that are being made during this phase usually have a huge impact on the result, especially between opponents that are evenly matched.
If you can’t figure out who has the stronger hero composition at the end of the hero picks, listen to what the analysts are saying and look for signals that one team has a much better draft than the other.

Get higher returns by betting on specific game events

When one team is considerably stronger that the other, betting on it to straight out win the match usually yields low returns. However, you can get considerably higher returns by betting on game events that are consistent with a victory in its favor. For example, betting that Team Liquid will be the one to destroy the first barracks in a game against a team like SG e-sports is a game event consistent with a victory in favor of Team Liquid. However, the odds of such an event are always significantly higher than the ones associated with a match victory in favor of the stronger team.
Betting on specific game events is usually possible only when using the services of a great bookmaker like Esportsbetting.com, which is mainly focused on esports. Most bookmakers don’t bother too much with their esports section and only provide odds for the matches themselves.

Look for specific signals and drafting strategies

Look for hero compositions that are designed to put early game pressure on the opponent and are used against drafts that revolve around defending until the late game, when the carry hero can overcome the entirely enemy line-up (Anti-Mage or Terrorblade drafts for example). In these scenarios the team that goes for the early push draft will often be the one to kill the first Roshan. Especially if it has a hero like Troll Warlord, Ursa or Templar Assassin in its lineup.

Have a damage control strategy

Every now and then you will place a bet on a clear favorite and the game will start to go heavily in their opponent’s favor. When such situations arise, it’s good to have a damage control strategy to minimize your losses. And one of the things that you can do is to cancel out the initial bet by betting enough money on the opposing team while the match is still live and while this team still has good enough odds to allow you to do this. However, make sure that when you place the second bet the stronger team doesn’t have a hero composition that could easily come back from the brink of defeat and emerge victorious.

Stay informed

New game patches, roster changes, stand-ins and other similar events can significantly change the results of a match or a tournament. Subsequently, you need to stay informed about these things if you want be successful as a Dota 2 bettor. At esports.net, our news section is designed to help you with this and keep you up to date with the most important events that are shaping Dota 2 and its professional scene.

Top Dota 2 teams and players to bet on

At the moment, the strongest Dota 2 teams are Virtus.pro, Team Secret, Vici Gaming and Team Liquid. With formidable captains such as Solo, Puppey, Fenrir and KuroKy, and star players like RodjER, MidOne, Paparazi and Miracle, these teams can best just about any adversary and usually don’t face much opposition in tournaments until they start encountering each other.

Where to bet on Dota 2 matches and tournaments

Esportsbetting.com is an online betting site fully dedicated to esports and committed to offer the best betting services to esports enthusiasts from around the globe. This bookmaker is highly reliable, being entirely regulated and having a Malta Gaming Authority license (MGA).

Esportsbetting.com excels as a betting operator in a variety of ways:

• it offers competitive odds and a great live betting service with streaming for its members.
• new customers get 2 risk-free bets as part of their welcome bonus.
• the website keeps fans up to date with the most important events and tournaments from the world of esports.
• esports enthusiasts can also find on esportsbetting.com a great database containing facts and statistics about teams, players and tournaments.
• the website is user-friendly and gives people the ability to check results and bet with ease using their mobile devices.
• it accepts a variety of reliable payment methods.
• it provides odds and coverage for no less than 9 different esports titles, making it the go-to place for serious esports bettors.
• it is entirely trustworthy, having an MGA license.

Esportsbetting.com does a very good job at being an all-encompassing esports bookmaker. The titles that are currently included in its coverage and odds are Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, Hearthstone, Call of Duty, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft 2 and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
Perhaps the best thing about Esportsbetting.com is the fact that it goes not only wide with the type of odds it provides, but also deep. For almost every Dota 2 match you want to bet on, Esportsbetting.com offers a wide range of odds that you can analyze and take advantage of.