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The rise of Esports has been astronomical; from a humble pastime in kids’ bedrooms to a multi-million pound industry full of household name competitors and huge tournaments with big prize money, all in the space of a generation.
Where there is competitive sport, there is an opportunity for betting. In recent years, we have seen the list of online bookies offering markets on esports grow significantly.
But how has esports betting risen, and what makes it unique for punters? Read this guide and take your first steps to esports betting mastery.
The short answer is that most betting in esports is no different to betting on more traditional sports and events.
Esports, at a rapid rate, has seen leagues, teams and matches pop up worldwide that mirror the way other sports are organised. Thus, betting works in much the same way; you can bet on which team will win a particular match, with most UK betting apps offering handicap bets as well as betting on individual rounds of the match.
Then, there are the outright bets, where you can pick your team or individual who is going to win the whole league or tournament in question.
Odds are provided in the same forms as other sports, and regularly updated depending on results of the teams in question and any other factors that affect performance.
The average betting app may not have all the markets available that they will offer for a Premier League or NBA match, but what is being offered is growing all the time.
Despite all the familiarities, there are some aspects of esports betting that make it more customer-friendly than traditional markets, creating a unique, positive gambling experience.
Esports are not just data driven, but also have a reliance on the instantaneous nature of data usage.
This makes esports a leader in offering in-play betting. With all the data related to the game available instantly, bookmakers can quickly offer a wide range of in-play markets with little effort, as odds are calculated with ease. In traditional sports, much more must be calculated manually, leading to more complications, meaning bookies aren’t willing to offer so many in-play markets.
Bookies rely on having the data available quicker than anyone else, which can be an issue with other sports. A fan in the stadium can often cash out a bet before the bookmaker can close that market – there will always be a slight delay when manually processing information – but with esports, data integration cuts out the middleman, allowing betting companies to get accurate information faster.
The odds in esports can often be much more reliable than those in traditional sports.
Even with the number one sport for betting, horse racing, there is still a certain amount of guesswork involved in the odds; a change of jockey or in the weather, a course that the horse has never run before or simply how relaxed the horse looks before the race can affect its odds.
Though they can affect the odds, they could have absolutely no impact on the horse’s performance, or they could even have a greater impact than anticipated.
In esports, the variables that influence the odds are based less on guesswork and instead on cold, hard data.
Consoles on which esports take place are, simply, machines. With the benefits of machine learning, taking on board what has happened in the game – such as scores, level difficulty and other statistical values – it is easy to calculate accurate, up-to-the-second win probabilities which translate into precise, in-play odds.
The more data, the better! As more players take part in more leagues and tournaments, the back catalogue of esports data grows bigger, making compiling odds based on past records a more accurate science – no different to studying the form in racing.
Of course, it’s still a human being with the controller in their hands and a bad night’s sleep and the wrong choice of breakfast might throw the form out the window, but still there are fewer human factors ruining the odds than the average sport!
As with any sport, the better your understanding of it, the better your chances of placing a winning bet.
Some sports are better than others in giving you insight into how well a certain competitor is performing. For example, a horse might be travelling smoothly down the home straight, you place a bet on it and suddenly it runs out of steam. Compare that to Formula 1, where a driver is overtaking for fun, but instead of betting on him, you see that his tires are very worn and he will have to come in for a change at any moment.
Esports takes that up another level; whatever information is important for the game, such as player health and weaponry, will be important for the punter. That data is usually staring us in the face when we watch, or even when we have played the game ourselves – something that the average horse racing or F1 fan will never have experienced.
The more information available and the better knowledge of the game, the easier it is for punters to contextualise what has happened so far and what is likely to happen next, making for well-informed bets and – hopefully – a few more wins.
While the quick data sharing can benefit the bookmakers, the reliability of the data can make esports more attractive to punters.
As the esports boom progresses globally, we are only likely to see an increase in betting companies offering a greater range of markets on esports events.
Esports is still a long way behind many traditional sports in terms of bets placed, but as knowledge of titles like League of Legends and CS:GO become more mainstream, the average punter is going to check out the esports section of their betting app with increased regularity.