Guest post

Since the internet became an absolute fixture in our lives earlier this century, sports betting and online gambling has progressively become more popular. There are literally hundreds of different platforms that offer a myriad of wagering options on both traditional sporting events, as well as various games of chance.
If you’ve ever seen it on TV or in a casino, you’re pretty much guaranteed to be able to find an option to bet on it online. It doesn’t matter if your game is football, blackjack, rugby, or even something more obscure like downhill skiing, or even less popular card games like the poker variant Courchevel, it’s easy to find a website that will cater for your betting needs.
One of the latest trends in online betting is esports. It’s just like regular sports betting except the players facing off against each other aren’t racing around a track or kicking a ball around a field – well actually, they might be, only it’s all done virtually, as you well know. That’s because esports is essentially competitive video gaming, of course. It’s become hugely popular in recent years. Of course, as soon as something competitive becomes popular, it’s only a matter of time before bookmakers want to throw some odds up and let people bet on the outcome.

What is esports?

As you know, esports is a relatively new phenomenon. It’s just like regular sports except the participants are playing video games. Put simply, it’s elite level competitive gaming.
Players either compete purely online or as part of a Local Area Network. Some events take place in front of huge crowds with large screens displaying the action to live spectators. Others are strictly an online experience. That’s not to say that the online tournaments don’t attract decent crowds though.
Online, audiences will use some form of game streaming service. The most popular one today is called Twitch. The biggest tournaments hosted on this platform often attract audiences well into the millions and will have multi-million dollar prize pools to boot – we told you it was getting extremely popular.

What kind of games can you bet on?

Esports covers lots of different games and genres of games. These might be first-person shooters, multiplayer online battle arena style games, fighting games, sports simulators, or real-time strategy titles among others.
Currently, the most popular esports titles include Dota 2, League of Legends and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. However, betting isn’t limited to these titles. For a full list of the games you can wager on, it’s best to sign up to one of the many platforms that’s offering esports betting and checking out their listings.
You can often watch the games unfold on the bookmaker’s website, however, for the full experience, you’ll probably want to sign up to a service like Twitch.

Betting on esports

Betting on esports is really easy. Just find a platform that supports esports betting, sign up, deposit some cash, and browse the various markets offered there. You’ll probably find the experience much like that of betting on any other event. You’ll see different odds quoted for different outcomes.
If it’s a point scoring game such as wildly popular football simulator FIFA, you might choose to bet on a final score, or which player (either on the field or controlling the action) will score first.
Alternatively, you might bet on a team of players winning an entire tournament. Esports teams such as Wings Gaming who specialise at Dota 2, or Tempo Storm who are League of Legends legends are popular to name just two. You might decide that your allegiance lies with one of these squads and back them every time for each game they play.
If you’ve never experienced betting on esports before, you may think it’s kind of obscure and a bit niche. However, certain platforms offer absolutely loads of action. For example, as we’re writing this, there are two matches on Counter Strike: Global Offensive starting roughly every 50 or 60 minutes for the next few hours. What’s more, that’s just browsing the odds for a single title. One particularly good venue for betting on esports is the platform BossCasino. If you’re stuck with where to start, maybe check them out.

Esports betting and cryptocurrency

One really cool innovation in the world of esports betting involves the emerging technology that backs cryptocurrencies – the blockchain. Some online betting platforms are actually allowing players to host their own esports tournaments on their sites and back themselves for real money (in the form of cryptocurrencies).
Platforms like Eloplay and Play2Live are working towards or well on their way to providing such a competitive gaming tournament. These events play much like online poker tournaments. All the players buy-in for a certain amount of money. These funds are pooled together, and they form the total prize pool. Just like a poker tournament, this pool will be divided amongst the those that finish in the top positions.
The players then play whatever video game it is that has been selected for the tournament for the allotted time or number of rounds. After the action is over, a smart contract automatically pays out those players who finish in prize winning positions. It’s all done automatically and allows amateur players to get a taste of playing for real money just like the pros.

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