Anybody who has ever placed esports bets will know that there’s more than one way to bet on your favourite esport. Whether it’s placing a simple outright bet on which Dota 2 team will pick up The International trophy, or even making a wager on the correct score on a CSGO game in the Intel Extreme Masters, there’s certainly plenty of different types of esports bets out there.
So we’ve made an easy guide to some of the most popular types of esports bets that you are likely to find at the best esports betting sites. Whilst this isn’t an exhaustive list of all of the esports bets that you’ll see, it should help to give you a head-start in making some decent profits whilst betting on esports. Bets range from very simple to quite complex, but this is what you need to know.
If you head to a traditional online bookmaker like Bet365, then the chances are that you will see some of the following esports betting options. Although, plenty of types of esports bets will vary depending on the game you’re betting on. So, if you’re looking at CSGO betting markets there might be some different to LoL markets. These are the main types you’ll find:
Outright bets are definitely the simplest and most common type of bets on esports.. You’re going to find these options at pretty much every site that covers esports. Essentially, you’re betting on an outright winner or single easily defined condition.
One of the biggest markets for outrights bets is the simple winner of a match up. These are the main outright types of esports betting options you’re going to find:
These outright bets are hugely popular as they can be made at any time, even well in advance of top competitions like The International, DreamHack or the Intel Extreme Masters. This is simply betting on the outright winner of an event. So, if you believe a team is going to win, you place this bet. Often the odds are the best furthest out from the event, since a lot can change.
It can be tricky to predict the outright winner of these tournaments, but if you are willing to do plenty of research and seek advice by researching the events, you can usually get a decent return on predicting the outright winner on an esports competition.
This is perhaps the simplest kind of esports bet and it can be used for a wide variety of games. From making a betting prediction on who will win a World of Tanks match, to making a last-minute bet on the final round of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, it’s clear that match winner bets represent a good way to get started with bets on esports.
Match winner bets can be made before the event begins, but they are also the most common kind of bet that you will find if you click on the Live Esports tab at sites like esportsbetting.com. Whilst these are simple bets to make, it takes a degree of expertise to know which odds can give you the most profitable result. Some matches have fairly even odds as the bookmaker doesn’t know enough about the teams. It is always worth compering odds between sites as they can vary quite a bit.
Match winner odds change quite quickly as a game is in process. If you can keep an eye on the live betting odds changes, then you could get a good deal with the simplest type of esports bets. There are different types of bet on a match winner, but this is the most basic of just deciding who you think will win.
Sometimes when you’re looking at outright bets, then moneyline is likely going to be a term you see a lot. This is basically the same as an outright bet. You’re betting on which team will win without a point spread of any other conditions on your bet. You don’t need to be confused if this term is used in its place.
Another type of esports bet that you can look towards is the bracket or group winner in a tournament. This is pretty similar to betting on an overall tournament winner, but for the winner at a different stage of the tournament. Like with tournaments there are risks with more overarching bets. However, you can get decent odds on these bets sometimes. These outrights aren’t carries as widely, but you can find them for the biggest tournaments.
Those are the more basic outright types of bets that you can place at most betting sites. However, outrights do go beyond just picking the winner of a stage. An outright bet is essentially one market with a single outright result, so there’s actually loads of different type of esports bets in this category! These are some of the more complicated outright bets:
This type of bet can vary depending on the format of the esports game that you’re playing. However, betting on the score essentially allows you to place a bet on. The exact final score. This can be in terms of points, such as 2-3, 4-1, etc. Basically, any exact score that you think is going to happen can be picked out here for your bet on esports.
Betting on the exact score is going to be tricky to call in advance. This is one of the types of bets which are used heavily in live betting, as you have a bit more information to work with.
One of the more complex types of esports bet is to bet directly on a player who is involved in the game. The exact metrics are going to vary depending on the type of game. For example, in a shooter you can bet on objective time or kills from a specific player. Now this type of bet is getting quite a bit more complicated. You’re going to need to be confident in the performance of a specific player to make one of these bets.
These bets tend to have great odds since it is a factor that is hard to predict.
Top Player or MPV bets are a simpler kind of bet on player performance. This comes down to calling the official top player for a match in games that support this.
These types of bets are hard to put a title on, but easy enough to explain. In certain games there are binary events that can either happen or won’t, but it isn’t guaranteed. This can be anything, like a map going to overtime. However, they tend to be specific to the game that you’re looking at. They’re called ‘Prop bets’ because it is a proposition. You’re betting on a specific occurrence or non-occurrence happening, so you’re proposing something happens in this type of esports bets. Naturally, the odds are going to vary depending on how likely the event is.
Just like you can bet on which football team will score the first goal in a football match, you can also take bets that are specific to each individual esport. In order to successfully use these kinds of bets, it’s a good idea to know your chosen game inside out so that you are able to see when the betting site is offering odds that are too good to ignore. More specialist different types of bet can be specific to games though.
Whilst there are plenty of weird and wonderful esports bets that are specific to games like CS:GO, LoL and Dota 2, here are some of the more common ones that you will see at websites like esportsbetting.com.
Betting on who will win the first map is a great betting option for fans of first-person shooters like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This is a pretty universal type of esports bet across esports.
Rather than taking a bet on the overall match winner, you can just take an in-play bet on which team you think will win the first map. So, if you know that a top CSGO team like Fnatic have a history of getting the first map, you’ll know who to place that first-map bet on.
Some esports betting sites like esportsbetting.com even give you the chance to bet on esports specifically on who will get the first kill or first blood in each particular match.
These bets can take a little more expertise than other kinds of bets, so be sure to follow the esports live streams to get a good idea of when an entry fragger in a CSGO game could give you a winning result on your first kill in-play bet. As ever, there’s nothing like doing plenty of research via Twitch and Reddit to see which of the best esports players could help you make some decent profits from this kind of bet.
Some online bookmakers even allow you to make a bet that requires you to guess whether there will be an odd or even number of games won, players killed, or rounds played. Whilst it might sound tricky to do, it’s a fun alternative to the traditional match winner kind of bet. Since odds and evens are evenly spread in what the outcome could be, it is a fairly simple to predict bet with more of a 50/50 approach!
So even if you have no idea about whether SK Gaming or Astralis will win their next CSGO showdown, you can still take a chance with an odds/evens bet to potentially boost your profits.
Once you’ve understood odds/evens bets, then you can also try making an over/under bet. These kinds of bets require you to bet whether an esports team will score more or less than a specific amount set by the online betting site. This is like betting on the exact score, but instead you’re guessing a range. So you could guess that a team could win under 3 maps and win if they manage 1 or 2 maps.
This kind of bet is commonly used by sites like esportsbetting.com where you can make a wager on whether teams like Gambit Esports and TyLoo can get a total of over or under 26.5 in the first match of a CSGO battle. Over Under bets apply to score, maps, and plenty of other things that you can quantify in a game for different types of bets.
There are also plenty more advanced betting options for those who want a little more complexity in their esports betting. So once you’ve got the basics sorted, be sure to check out some of these other betting options that you can find at sites if you want to place a more complex and specialist bet on esports outside of normal outright bets.
If you see a team like SK Telecom T1 playing in a LoL esports game, then there’s a pretty good chance that they will win. But in order to give yourself a better profit, you can take a handicap bet which gives the favourite team a disadvantage and therefore provides you with better odds if that team go on to win despite their handicap.
Essentially, with a handicap, it is putting conditions on a stronger looking team to actually win. If pays off to think through the handicap that is attached. Sometimes, you can find a good opportunity here and handicap betting can be a great type of esports bets.
Whilst it can take some expertise to use handicap betting successfully, it’s another great option for boosting your betting profits whilst betting on some of the best esports teams. After all, nobody wants to back an obvious loser.
Also known as combi-bets, accumulator bets are a way for you to bet on the outcome of multiple esports events. As you can use accumulator bets to wager on a large amount of esport contests, it means that you’ll have to get all of the predictions right in order to get a payout.
As a result, it can be incredibly tough to successfully predict an accumulator bet, but if you do manage to get it right then the payouts can be truly phenomenal. These type of esports bets are high risk, high reward. Don’t forget that some betting sites even have accumulator insurance offers that can refund you in extra bets if just one selection of your accumulator lets you down. But always be sure to read the small print first so that you don’t get caught out by any restrictions on what odds you include in your combi-bet.
Doubles are a different type of bet with slightly better odds of actually paying out! This is the term used by most bookies for an accumulator style bet that only has two legs. So you’re only betting on two things being right, and getting a multiplied payout in the chance that you’re correct.
Triples are the next step up for accumulator bets on esports. These are ones that have three legs. This is the last size of accumulator to have its own name in a lot of places, as bets with four-folds or more are just called accumulators.
Conditionals are slightly different from accumulators as they add something extra. These type of bets add an extra condition into the game. Conditionals allow you to add a rule to your accumulator. So, you can increase the odds, but you’ll have to have a condition met for your bet to pay out.
System bets are like accumulator bets in that you place multiple selections on your betting slip. But system bets are different in that one of the esports betting selections can let you down, and you won’t necessarily lose all of your stake.
There are a variety of systems bets that range from doubles, trebles and so on. Obviously, the more selections you include, then the more you stand to win. Whilst the payouts from these kinds of bets might not be quite as lucrative as accumulator bets, they still represent a fun way to get some decent profits from your esports betting. If a regular accumulator is just slightly too high stakes for you, then system bets can work in their place.
We can’t forget to include a short section on esports live betting. Live betting means that you place your esports bets after the match has begun, and these kinds of bets on esports have become hugely popular at many online betting sites.
The majority of esports betting sites will include an in-play bets section that allows you to make simple match winner bets on a variety of CS:GO, LoL and Dota 2 options. But be sure to stick with a dedicated esports betting website where you’ll get a much larger selection of live betting markets – often with more competitive odds too. A decent esports bookmaker should be updating their live betting quickly while things are changing fast.
In addition to this, some sites also feature live streaming that’s a great way to get a much better picture of what’s really going on in your chosen esports match.
Live betting options can give you the opportunity to bet on events while they’re underway. You can take advantage of changes in the match as they develop with this type of esports bet.
If you’re looking into live betting, then you need to think about the different types of bets that are available here too. Live betting allows you to bet on just about any type of bet that you could in the pre-match betting. This even includes adding bets as legs in accumulator bets.
Skin betting is a type of esports bet that you can use to bet on esports events without having to use normal currency. Skin betting is only available from specialist skin betting sites. Here, you can make your regular esports bets but with in-game items like skins instead of actual cash. You can use most of the normal types of esports bets with esports betting, but with skins as your stake. Skin gambling is a unique type of bet on esports, but you’re betting in the same way as you would with other type of esports bets.
Skin betting is more frequently used in a more casual wager type of bet. However, it isn’t exclusive to this.
Fantasy esports betting is a completely different way to place bets on competitive gaming. Here you’re not undergoing a traditional bet on an outcome occurring. Instead, you’re building your own team and winning or losing depending on how they perform.
Sites like DraftKings now offer fantasy betting specifically for esports. The process works differently depending on which site you use. However, you largely get a budget to put together a team. You then receive points depending on how the players you chose perform. If you get enough point, you will get a pay out from your team.
Fantasy betting is a unique way to approach betting on esports. It can be a lot of fun as a change though!
Cash-out options have also become a massive feature of the modern esports betting experience. By cashing out early, it means that you can still get a decent return on your stake regardless of whether your chosen esports team has a losing result at the end of the match. It offers you a way to solidify your win for a lower payout, getting rid of the chance that the match turns against your prediction! This will work with most types of esports bets. Sites like CobraCasino even let you take your winnings in cryptocurrencies.
It can take a little bit of expertise to know a good time to cash out your bet, so always keep an eye on the live score and the live streaming options so that you know when the odds are going to be in your favour.
Whilst there is nothing wrong with just making some simple esports bets on the winner of each match, it’s clear that if you want to make the most of riskier types of betting then you
This is because all true esports betting enthusiasts know that you can take advantage of the odds on offer in some pretty creative ways to get a decent return on your betting stake. Whether it’s making an accumulator bet on several different esports teams in the ESL Gaming League, or even trying some handicap betting to get a better payout on a favourite, it’s evident that you’ll need to use different types of esports bets in order to make your betting truly worthwhile.
Just because we have given you a long list of the different kinds of esports bets doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to use them all. It’s only by being patient and waiting until the right kinds of odds come up that you are going to be able to use most of these bets to good effect. It is good to broaden your horizons to different types of bets for opportunities. However, you should make sure you understand everything first before you place your bets on esports.
If in doubt, keep your esports betting to small stakes and simple bets so that you are not taking any risks. But regardless of whether you are betting on the outright winner of a tournament, or are predicting the first kill in a CSGO bout, it’s clear that there are plenty of ways to bet on esports.
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