Esports and the Rise of Video Game Gambling
The growth of the eSports industry is based on the overall viewership and the amount of money curiosity generates is huge. There are massive sponsorships, large prize funds for tournaments, and advertising is now playing a big part of the growth. The total amount bet on eSports tournaments and competitions is expected to hit $12.9 billion by 2020 and this is a huge jump from the $5.5 billion that was bet on eSports in 2016.
Video game competitions won’t be going away anytime soon and for those who aren’t familiar with eSports, these tournaments and competitions feature teams of players who battle against one another for large sums of cash. It is often done in front of a huge live audience. The Dota 2 Championship in Vancouver has a $25 million prize pool and attracted tens of thousands of fans.
It all sounds great but there have been some issues surrounding match-fixing and fraud and because eSports has no single governing body this can make it difficult to work against corruption. As the industry continues to grow, there may be growing pains to tackle.
Betting on eSports
The eSports market has exploded in recent years and if you don’t know what this is, this post will explain it all. Essentially, esports is competitive video gaming and esports betting lets people place bets on a video game. Whether you are a dedicated fan of a particular video game or eSports team, or just a casual viewer, you can place bets on who you think will win a particular match or tournament and win real money at the top online casino where you placed the bet.
Choosing eSports Betting Sites
If you want to get in on the action, choose an esports betting site can be as quick or as time-consuming as you want. The key is to find a top online casino comparison site that just about everyone trusts to provide information on safe places to bet real money and receive cashouts quickly and easily. You also need to make sure that there are several different betting markets and having more types of esports to choose from will add more excitement. Other factors like free casino bonuses and favorable odds should also be taken into account. Reading reviews from comparison sites will help you find the right eSports betting site for you.
It’s safe to say that has played a video game or placed a bet on their favorite sport and the chance to win money betting on your favorite video game is exciting. Esports is one of the fastest growing sectors in sports betting and it is estimated to be worth around $12.9 billion by 2020.
There are lots of different types of bets that you can make on matches, but the main ones are:
- Money Lines: If you’re familiar with sports betting you’ll know that money lines is where you bet on who is going to win the match. The odds available will tell you how much you win if you are correct.
- Handicap Lines: if there is a heavy favorite in a match you will see a handicap betting option. You may see the favorite with odds of -2.5 which means they would need to win by more than 2.5 games for you to win your bet. Instead of betting on the outright winner as in the money line, you can bet on different outcomes. This varies from game to game. In CS:GO you can bet on the number of games within a series or even round scores. In Dota 2, you can bet on the number of games won within a series or even the number of kills in a game.
- Totals: This is where you bet on specific statistics of the game such as total maps played total kills, total points, total rounds, and over/under. In Dota 2 you may see the option to bet on over 40.5 kills. You win your bet if the combined kills of the two teams are 41 or more.
- Propositions: Props are special bets on different things like how many kills a certain player will get, which team will get first blood, if the match will go over 30 minutes, whether there will be a pause longer than five minutes, and so on. Prop bets are great fun and can lead to big wins too.
Top eSports Games To Bet On
There are a number of main video game titles that are available for eSports betting and sports betting fans will be happy to hear that these include traditional sports games. NBA 2K, a basketball simulation video game has millions of dedicated players. The FIFA eWorld Cup is the biggest esports tournament for the football simulation video game and is an annual tournament for players to take part in.
The biggest games, however, are not based on sports and are in fact Multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games. These games have two opposing teams with each team consisting of multiple characters. Players control one individual character and play together with other players to destroy the opposing team’s base. Others include first-person shooter games.
- League of Legends: Often called LoL, this is a fantasy video game where two teams of five players battle it out. Each player chooses a champion to control and there are over 130 different champions to choose from. The aim of League of Legends is to destroy the opponents Nexus but there are other objectives included too.
- Dota 2: Released in 2013 by Valve, it’s a free to play Dota 2 and comes with a steep learning curve. Two teams of five players each battle to destroy their opponent’s structure and the first to do so wins.
- Overwatch: A video game based on a futuristic version of Earth where robots have formed an uprising. Overwatch is a newer game released in 2016 by Blizzard Entertainment. It is a team-based online multiplayer title where players work together to meet set objectives such as defending control points or escorting a transport of goods across a map.
- Counter Strike: Global Offensive: CS:GO is a first-person shooter game that features two opposing teams – Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. The terrorists have to either plant a bomb or capture and hold hostages while the counter-terrorists have to prevent the bomb from being planted or rescue hostages.
Other popular titles include Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo, Smite, Heroes of the Storm, Halo, Quake, Street Fighter, Warcraft, and StarCraft.