Best eSports Betting Sites

With the intense growth of the eSports market, it is no wonder it is also becoming popular among punters. There are dozens of eSports disciplines available for betting with the best Australian bookie. You can bet on CS:GO, Dota 2, League of Legends, and many other cybersports. The industry is still actively developing, and not all the bookies are capable of catching up with it. We will review the main features of eSports wagering. We will elaborate on the promotions, give some tips on how to start, and introduce you to the main eSports betting markets. Stay tuned, and don’t miss the details to become an informed punter.

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eSports Betting

In its essence, eSport betting is not different from the one available for regular sports. The core features are typically the same, and the service is usually provided at popular sportsbooks. However, there are also some companies that exclusively cover eSports, and they usually offer better conditions and more betting markets. A typical bookie will offer markets for the most popular disciplines and provide a basic range of betting options.

It is logical that the live streaming feature works even better with eSports as they are internationally streamed on the net. The quality of live streams is great with most bookies, making it comfortable to manage your bets and watch the games simultaneously. In-play betting is also available for eSports, allowing you to place your wagers right during the game.

Despite eSports being similar to regular sports in terms of betting, they have several unique features. For example, they have interesting proposition bets, allowing you to predict even the smallest aspects of the games. The games themselves also offer comprehensive statistics that are unavailable with regular sports. We can only outline that eSports are not only just a new and exciting sports type, but they are also a great option for betting.

Finding eSports Free Bets & Offers

The promotions are usually the same at eSports betting sites, but some of them offer eSports-exclusive bonuses. To find free bets and other offers, you can use the same methods as you would with regular sports. You could try finding a promotion aggregator that has all the relevant bonuses from all the bookies in one place. Or you could simply find a decent sportsbook with eSports as they usually offer such promotions too.

It is a common mistake of new players to forget to learn the conditions for bonuses. Even at the best sites, you should always be cautious and read the terms attentively. Learn the wagering requirements, minimum odds, expiration dates, and other points of the bonus agreement. Some of the promotions may seem generous at first glance, but after revealing the requirements, they become worse than average.

As for the regular promotions available with most bookmakers, they are in most cases compatible with eSports too. For example, if a bookie offers a welcome bonus, you will be able to spend it on CS:GO, so you won’t necessarily need to look for eSports-exclusive bonuses. VIP clubs and loyalty programs usually work with eSports too, but it is better to check it with every specific bookie as the terms may vary.

How to Claim Free eSports Bets & Offers

Claiming the bonuses and activating promotions is the same with eSports gambling as with regular wagering. You have to find the bonus in the corresponding section, activate it, and perform the necessary actions. Note that in some states of Australia, some bonuses may not be available, or they may not be advertised. Try looking for the information on third-party resources as they typically have the descriptions of all active promotions.

To successfully claim a bonus, you will need to take the following steps:

1.  Create an account.

2.  Read the bonus terms.

3.  Visit the bonus section and hit “activate.”

4.  Complete the necessary actions, which in most cases implies making a deposit.

5.  Complete the wagering requirements to unlock the withdrawals.

Free No Deposit eSports Bets

It is true that the best eSports betting sites offer free bonuses after registration. However, those no deposit promotions are more about attracting new players rather than providing some benefits to the users. To limit the losses from such promotions, the bookies set different limits and obstacles on your way. For example, most of such bonuses will have hard requirements, significantly lowering your chances to actually withdraw something for free.

Our recommendation is not to prioritize such bonuses over the general quality of service. If a good bookie offers a free no deposit bonus, it’s good. But if you will pay for this small freebie with the quality of all your experience on the selected platform, it is most likely not worth it.

How to Bet on eSports

As we have already stated, eSport bets are not different from the regular ones. You select the game, choose the outcome you wish to place a wager, configure the bet in your bet slip and confirm it. If you have made any sports bets before, you won’t feel any difference with eSports. In case eSports are going to be your first wagering experience, here’s a short guide on how to make your first bet:

1.  Create an account.

2.  Read the Terms and Conditions document.

3.  Visit the banking page and make a deposit.

4.  Select a game and the market.

5.  Configure and confirm the wager in the bet slip.

6.  Wait until the results are calculated.

Best eSports Betting Markets

Betting markets are probably the best eSports betting aspect. Experienced punters will already be familiar with the classic markets, such as victories, handicaps, totals, point spreads, and others. However, eSports have much more to offer. The proposition bets are one of the most interesting across all types of sports as there are more mechanics in video games than in regular sports. Depending on the discipline, you may bet on towers destroyed, pistol rounds won, first teams, to reach the map objectives, and many others. Below, we will give short descriptions of the most popular disciplines and markets available for them.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

This game is the latest release in the extremely popular first-person shooters by Valve. CS:GO was released in 2012 and still maintains the leading positions in the eSports popularity lists. Many sportsmen from previous parts of Counter-Strike have switched to CS:GO, and Valve did a great job of bringing the scene to another level.

The betting markets for this discipline are extremely diverse. You may bet on knife or grenade kills, pistol rounds, total rounds, the first team to reach a specific number of rounds won, and many others. At some bookies, you may even make a bet on a victory in a specific round. All in all, the diversity of betting markets in CS:GO does not limit your creativity.

DOTA 2

This is another sequel by Valve that got insanely popular worldwide. The game was released in 2013, but it originates from the modification to Warcraft 3 made in 2003. It brought the MOBA genre to a new level of popularity, and it is hard to underestimate the efforts of Valve to make it a trending sport. The International tournaments attract millions of viewers every year.

The betting markets for this discipline are also vast. You are able to predict victories, teams that reach a specific number of frags first, towers destroyed, first-bloods, Roshan kills, and many other in-game events. There are great betting markets for in-play wagerings, such as predicting the frag count, allowing you to analyze the in-game situation first.

League of Legends

LoL is another MOBA game on the list. It was released by Riot Games in 2009, but the first Worlds Season arrived only in 2011. Major tournaments in League of Legends gather lots of viewers: the LoL World Championships in 2020 peaked at more than 45 million concurrent viewers.

The betting markets are similar to the ones available for DOTA 2, and there is no wonder: the games are both of the MOBA genres, and they have been competing with each other for a long time already. There are total kills, towers, map objectives, point spreads, and many other markets you can use. Popular eSports websites offer in-play and pre-match betting for LoL, granting the space for creativity to their users.

Overwatch

As we’re moving back to the games of the shooter genre, Overwatch is a project we cannot ignore. It was released by Blizzard in 2016, so it is a fresh discipline on our list. However, it has not stopped Blizzard from evolving the game to a real eSport. Overwatch League has become the first major international eSports league in the world.

There is a great variety of betting markets as the game itself is pretty comprehensive. You can predict match or outright winners, total kills, handicaps, and there are a lot of proposition bets available. Some bookies even allow you to predict the hero lineups for the upcoming matches.

Fortnite

This Epic Games project is the freshest discipline on our list, and it is the most popular videogame. However, eSports are not yet so developed in Fortnite as in the other disciplines we have covered today. The genre of Battle Royale is fairly not the best option for eSports, so the Fortnite events available for betting are usually exhibition matches or small regional tournaments.

The betting markets, however, may be impressively diverse with some bookies. There may be numerous opportunities for your predictions, starting with the match winners and ending with specific gun kills. You can typically bet on a specific player reaching the top ten, a specific player getting a number of kills, and on the total match duration.

Rainbow Six Siege

This game, published by Ubisoft, is also one of the recently developed eSports. The game itself was released in 2015, but it became a popular discipline not so long ago. There are several major tournaments held annually, and there participate teams from all over the world.

The game is a team shooter, so the betting markets are a bit similar to the ones you may find for CS:GO. There are the mentioned total kills, rounds, and the others. However, Rainbow Six has something unique to offer in these terms too. There are agent predictions, headshot count bets, and many others. With R6 and many other games on our list, you can also bet on tournament placements.

Banking Methods Supported

In case you’re planning to set real money wagers, you will have to interact with the cashier of the site you have chosen. The conditions of banking vary a lot between different bookies, so don’t forget to check up with your bookie’s terms. The list of payment methods accepted may include credit or debit cards, e-wallets, prepaid cards, payment processors, cryptocurrencies, and wire transfers.

The terms for transactions are also an important aspect of your banking. The minimum deposit amount should not be too high in order to let you cash in anytime you want. The limits for withdrawals vary a lot, so don’t forget to make sure you are comfortable with them.  The security of transactions should also be on a decent level: a good bookie will use encryption and the latest SSL protocols to protect your personal information.

At good eSport betting sites, the banking system should be a helpful tool rather than an obstacle on your way. The transactions should be processed quickly, and there should be no fees charged for withdrawals or deposits. In case something goes wrong, there should be a good support team that will quickly help you out.

Customer Support Service

We always recommend not to ignore the support aspect when choosing a bookie. The support team should be easy to reach. The bookmakers typically accept the requests via phone calls, email letters, and live chat messages. The responses should be quick, especially with the live chat. The support agents have to be respectful and friendly. The simplest way to analyze the support service of a specific bookie is to send them a question through their live chat.

Tips to Find a Good Bookie for eSports

As you could have seen throughout the article, there are lots of aspects you have to take into account when choosing a sportsbook for your e-sport betting experience. Of course, there is always an option to perform the research yourself by finding a dozen of bookies and assessing the quality of each. Even though it is the safest way to find the exact experience you are looking for, it requires too much time, so many players use other methods to find a good site.

The first tip we can share regarding this problem is to make your search discipline-specific. Don’t look for all eSports bookmakers, as they may not cover your favourite game properly. If you’re an LoL fan, search for the best bookies for this discipline.

Another good idea would be to read the players’ reviews. Checking out the unbiased opinions of other players will be helpful for evaluating your own potential experience with the selected bookmaker. If you haven’t started the search yet, you can simply check out the sportsbooks with a positive reputation on such platforms.

Even if you’re sure about the bookmaker someone has advised you, double-check the most important aspects. Even if it was your best friend, read the terms and conditions attentively, discover the play-through requirements for the promotions, check the support team quality and the reputation of the bookie.

Comparing the odds may also become a game-changer of the selection process. There are many sites that aggregate all the odds for a specific event available with different bookmakers. On such platforms, you will easily compare the odds and instantly see the most beneficial site. However, sometimes, the additional features of the sportsbook may also have a huge impact. In some cases, it is worth it to select a place with a higher quality of service over a place with the highest odds.

The last thing we can advise is to think about the long-term perspective. If you are wagering with the same bookie for a long time, the generous welcome bonus will become a very small portion of your total turnover. Therefore, there is no point in choosing a sweet benefit for the moment over something good that will stay with you all the way. Having a good set of features and a high overall quality of the service should be considered better than generous one-time bonuses.

A Beginner’s Guide to Esports Betting

Even though we’ve given some tips throughout the article, we would still like to summarize them in this section. Here, we will try to explain all the important features in detail so that you would have fewer questions about the service when you decide to try it for the first time. We will both present the guides on how to compare the betting sites with each other and elaborate on the key features. Even if you’re an experienced gambler already, we are sure you will find something you didn’t know too.

How Esports Betting Sites Work

First of all, let us briefly summarize the general principle of any sportsbook. A bookmaker is a company that offers you betting markets for different sports events. They determine the odds you will bet on, and they make their profits of this. In a casino, this is called the house edge and is the mathematical advantage over the player. However, with sports betting, you will not be dealing with programmed machines, so your chances are better, and your results depend on your skill too.

This is general knowledge you are probably already familiar with. But did you know that not all betting sites operate this way? Some of them are called bet exchange platforms, and they have a different principle of forming the odds. On such sites, the odds are formed exclusively depending on the bets of the users. For example, when 90% of the players wager on team A, their odds will be low, while the users who wagered on team B will share 90% of total bets. Such platforms make their money by charging a small fee for every bet won.

It is hard to compare these two categories of betting services as both have their advantages and drawbacks. With bookmakers, you will always have an option to bet with more or less fair odds. With betting exchange platforms, you may have your odds a lot higher, but the situation will depend on the other users all the time.

Esports Betting Odds Comparison

The odds you’re wagering at directly affect the winnings you will get, which is why it is important to compare them. Visit some aggregator sites, find your bookie there and compare its odds to the best offers available. Sometimes, it is a good idea to compare the odds again after several months of playing, especially if you notice that they are becoming lower. Some bookies may increase their odds to attract new players, and when they get enough, they lower the odds to the initial level.

The steps you have to perform to check the odds are:

1. Find a website with relevant odds of bookmakers.
2. Select an event you are planning to wager on.
3. Select your bookmaker and compare the odds with others.
4. If some sportsbooks have higher odds, analyze their service using the tips we gave today.

Esports Betting Bonuses

Getting bonuses is great, but it is essential to keep several rules in your mind. The first one is pretty obvious: the higher the bonus value, the better. Comparing this criterion of bonuses is easy as you only have to visit the promotional pages of several bookies. However, the second rule is usually overlooked. It is that you should attentively read the terms and conditions. Discover the wagering requirements behind the promotion, compare them with the terms of other bookmakers’ bonuses and make sure to make an informed choice.

The steps to perform here are:

1. Visit the bonus page of your bookie and select a promotion you wish to compare.
2. Find the best offers of other sportsbooks and compare the value of similar bonuses.
3. Read the terms and conditions to compare the wagering requirements.
4. Don’t forget to check out the eligible bets for completing the requirements, the expiration dates, and other terms.

Range of Esports Offered

You probably won’t need each and every discipline offered across all the sportsbooks. However, having a good range of them cannot hurt. We recommend thinking of several eSports that you consider a must-have as well as some secondary eSports to check out. The first ones are a good option to filter out the sportsbooks that don’t support them, while the secondary eSports may be later used as an argument for your final choice.

The steps to analyze the range of eSports available are:

1. Prepare a list of eSports you wish a sportsbook to have.
2. Filter out the sites that don’t offer them.
3. Compare the other sites with each other.

Live Esports Betting

The in-play feature is definitely a must-have with eSports betting. We strongly recommend using it as another criterion for filtering out the sites in your search process. Even if you are not currently planning to use it, the bookies that don’t offer it have an outdated service. A good bookmaker should have all the popular matches available for in-play wagering, and there should be enough betting markets to choose from.

Tools and Features

Additional features and tools are the hardest criteria for analysis as they are very individual with each bookie. These are not numbers that you could compare and choose the highest one, and these are features with no way to objectively evaluate them. Therefore, here, the best way is to rely on your emotions: the features that thrill you the most should be considered good. However, getting too emotional is never a good idea in betting, so don’t forget to ensure the promoted amazing feature is not a gimmick.

The list of such features may be vast, and they may suit different kinds of needs. Some of them are designed for your convenience, while others are made to stimulate loyalty and active wagering. The list of such features and tools may include:

• VIP clubs and loyalty programs;
• daily lotteries or other activities;
• built-in social networks;
• comprehensive statistics for matches;
• tournaments among players;
• many others.

Payment methods

As opposed to the previous point, banking systems are easy to analyze and evaluate. You simply need to visit the banking pages of several sites and compare the values to find the best offer. This is also a process with two stages. Firstly, you filter out the sites that don’t accept the necessary payment methods. Secondly, you compare the terms, limits, and other conditions among the other sites.

The steps to perform are:

1. Find several bookies that accept your favorite payment option.
2. Visit their banking sections.
3. Compare the minimum and maximum limits for deposits and withdrawals.
4. Compare the fees, withdrawal processing times, and other terms.

Conclusion

Summing up, we can only say eSports betting is constantly becoming more popular. It leads to increased competition for this segment and, therefore, to better conditions for the bettors. Choosing a decent eSports bookie is hard, but we hope our tips will help you out in the process. Use the knowledge you got today to find the perfect site that will suit all your needs.