Esports Betting Strategies for CS:GO, LoL, Dota 2
Whether you prefer to follow other people for esports betting tips or research them yourself, this post should help improve your game. Using some basic rules and strategies, you can take your betting profits to the next level.
There’s no better time to get started with esports betting. New betting sites are opening everyday and there is an abundance of historical match data available, free of charge. Combined with patience, dedication and a pinch of common sense, this is a perfect recipe for profitable esports betting.
General eSports betting strategies
The best way to be a profitable esports bettor is to work to a strict betting strategy. Placing bets without proper planning or research will ultimately result in loss of profit.
The exact strategy you use will depend massively on the esport that you are betting on. However, whichever esport title you will be betting on, make sure to follow these three simple rules for developing your own profitable strategy.
Team Research
It’s vital to ensure the team you are betting on as a reliable set of results behind them. Betting on teams that have little, to no experience is a recipe for disaster. Most major esports teams will have months or even years of historic match data that you can look at, for free online.
Although it’s possible to look at how a team played a year ago, it’s better to focus on more recent performances. For example, it would be unwise to judge a team by their all time win/loss record as they may have had different players, coaches or other factors a long time ago that no longer apply. It’s better to look at a much closer timeframe such as the last month or so.
Of course, the opposite can be true also. Judging a team’s ability solely from their last games performance would be a major mistake. Great esports teams can still have bad days or they may occasionally play heavily prepared opponents. It’s important to not bet on a team solely because they performed great in their last game.
Record Your Bets
Particularly if you are using multiple bookmakers, it can be very helpful to record your bets so that you can improve in the future. You can do this by creating an excel sheet or even just writing them down in a paper journal. At the very least, you should be able to check back in your betting accounts history to see where you have done well or not so well. This method will be more difficult if you are using multiple bookmakers.
Making notes of your reasoning for placing your bets can be a good way to improve in the future. It can be helpful because when looking back, you might notice that you didn’t do enough research into that particular bet and missed a crucial piece of information. This might be for example, a roster change that you didn’t notice.
Stake Consistently
Placing random bets of different amounts will not only make it difficult to track your progress, but it can result in a quick loss of profits. If you usually stake around £10 but decide to bet £100 on a particular game because you’re feeling lucky, if that bet loses,you will be left with a big dent in your betting bank.
CS:GO Betting Strategy
Map Selection
The maps played in a pro CS:GO game is one of the biggest factors of how the result will end up. Certain teams are better at playing maps that suit certain playing styles. For example, Cache is a map that suits players who have good aim and rely less on complex strategies to enter a bombsite. This is because there are a lot of key areas on the map that require some kind of dual in order to gain a new position. These are typically small corridors where it’s not possible to smoke off the enemy’s position, as they would also be blocking their own view.
In larger tournaments, maps are selected a few minutes before the game via a map-veto process. This is where each team leader will veto maps that they don’t want to play. After both team leaders have submitted all of their vetoes, the remaining maps will be played. This can differ slightly depending on the tournament rules.
This map selection process offers bettors a unique chance to find good value bets. This is because the bookmakers will leave the Match Winner odds the same, even though the bettor may know that one team now has a big advantage (if they are playing on a map that suits them).
Betting On Live CS:GO Games
Betting on live CS:GO games can be extremely profitable. Unlike any other esport, teams will choose to throw away rounds in order to save money for later rounds. These are known as “eco rounds”. A team may choose to save money and eco for 1, 2 or even 3 rounds in order to buy full weaponry and utility in the future.
In this case, there is a much higher chance that they will lose the round due to the fact they will not have purchased any powerful weapons, useful utilities or armour. After a team has finished their eco rounds and is about to buy strong weapons for the next round, it can be a great time to place a bet for them to win. This is due to the odds rising as they lose the eco rounds. However, they may now be at an advantage as they may be the stronger team anyway and now have the full kit needed to win the next few rounds and the match as a whole.
LoL Betting Strategy
Lane Selection When Live Betting
During the first phase of a League of Legends game, players will separate into different lanes in order to kill minions for rewards. There will typically be 2 players in the top lane, 1 in the middle and 2 in the bottom lane.
As each team looks to gain an advantage over the other, they will sometimes group up (also known as ganking) to dominate a particular lane. If you notice that a team is about to dominate either by ganking, you can back them in-play on bookmakers that accept live bets. If your team does go on to dominate, your bet will be in profit and you can either cash out or let the bet settle.
The choice of champion will make an impact on which lane each team decides to position their players. If a team spots a weak champion in a certain lane, they may reposition to take advantage of that and get a kill. Of course, this can backfire as they will leave their lane wide-open for a counter-attack whilst they are out of position.
Champion Selection
At present, there are 126 champions in League of Legends. These are different characters that each team can use in order to complete the game’s objectives and win the game. Each champion has different characteristics and special abilities.
It’s possible to judge what kind of a strategy a team will play by observing the champions they select before a match. For example, if a team selects their normal champions which they are most comfortable with, but the other team selects champions that can easily counter their opponents selections, this might suggest they now have a better chance of winning.
Get to know how each champion differs and what champions teams select before a game. This selection process can give crucial clues as to how a game is going to pan out.
Dota 2 Betting Strategy
Match Formats
Dota 2 games are played in several different structures. They are a mixture of BO1, BO2, BO3, BO5 and BO7. BO1 stands for “Best Of One” and the rest follow the same suit.
The format choice will be decided by the tournament organiser. Bigger games such as BO7’s and BO5’s are usually saved for finals of large tournaments. Longer games such as these are more appealing for the audience and are deemed to be a fairer representation of the winning team. This is because a BO1 can sometimes have an unexpected outcome because the underdog only needs to win one map in order to win the game.
If you are looking to bet on underdogs, it is best that you stick to betting on BO1 games. These match formats offer the most potential for weaker teams to steal a win. In larger format games such as a BO5, the underdog may win a map or two but the favourite will often claw back the remainder of the game.
A single map usually lasts between 30 and 45 minutes, depending on the skill levels of both teams. With this in mind, BO7 games can last over 5 hours. Technical problems can arise during games which may delay the total time even further. Added to that, there is usually some kind of break in between each map so the players can take a few minutes to rest.
Upset Potentials
In order to get more winnings from your bets, you will need to bet at higher odds. You can find higher odds bets by looking at games involving clear underdog teams who are playing opponents of higher calibre.
It will require some research to find games where the underdogs have a good chance of beating the favourites. You will often find situations where popular teams such as Team Faceless play against a lesser ranked team. Even if Team Faceless have performed badly in the last few games, they will still have much higher odds than the underdog because of their ranking. If the underdog has been playing well during this time, they will likely have a good chance of stealing a map or two.
Your bet will have a higher chance of winning if you bet on the underdogs to win during a BO1 or a BO2. The short game time may catch the higher ranking team by surprise.
Betting on Dota 2 Live
Although most betting activity takes place before a game starts, it’s becoming more and more popular to bet during a game is in-play. It’s often much easier to find profitable bets during a live game, especially if you are an experienced player of the game yourself.
Sometimes it may be difficult to select a winner before a match starts, if both teams are closely ranked or equal in strength. In this case, it may be better to wait 10-15 minutes into the game and see how each team responds to plays by the opposing team. It can be much more accurate way of picking a winning team as historic match results from 2 months ago (for example) don’t always reflect how a team will play on a certain day. If you judge their performance on the day and bet in-play, you can be confident that the team is already performing well.
It’s worth noting that if the team you have selected is doing very well in the game, you may be too late to get good odds on your bet. This is because the winning teams odds will drop throughout the game. It’s best to catch the moment before your preferred team makes a significant advance on their opponents positions.
Choosing The Right Bet Type
Not only can picking an interesting bet type make watching a game more fun, it can also increase your profits. Traditional bet types such as Match Winner and Rounds Over/Under are often very heavily researched by the bookmakers. This means that the odds are usually very accurate and it’s hard to find value most of the time.
Picking a less popular bet type can mean that you can grab valuable odds that the bookmakers haven’t researched that much. An example of this would be on a CS:GO match where you can bet on if the match will finish in overtime or not. You can usually get odds above 6/1 for this bet type which is much higher than the average match winner bet.
Increase Your Odds
If you prefer to bet on bet types such as Match Winner or Map 1/2/3 Winner, you will mostly get low odds for your bets. A quick way to increase your odds and your potential winnings is to combine your bets into a combination bet, otherwise known as an accumulator.
To make a combination bet, simply select your bets on your preferred betting site. In your betslip, there should be an option to enter a stake into a combination bet box. This is usually at the bottom of the betslip. By doing this, the bookmaker will calculate your combination bet odds by multiplying all of your single bet selections by each other. Your combination bet odds will then be displayed at the bottom of your bet slip which you can choose to accept or decline.
This process will vary slightly depending on your betting site of choice. Always make sure to read the help pages on your preferred betting site if you are unsur. Alternatively, most esports betting sites will have a customer support line if you prefer to speak to a representative.