Over the past two years, betting has started to become a pretty big part of eSports. With thousands of fans wagering on their favorite teams in the hopes of winning solid cash, eSports betting is definitely a fun and exciting experience for a fan.
How Does it Work?
An eSports betting site usually has a page where the gambler would be able to see the broadcast of the match, other people who are also betting, and all the bets that are being put on the match. The better then places a bet on which team they think will win. After that they just hope for the best.
How profitable is eSports Betting?
It can actually be very profitable. Depending on what game you’re betting in and how much attention the match is getting, you can make some serious money from it. In some cases, if you win in a major match, you can win anywhere from $100- $1,000. With payout like this, it’s no wonder why fans are getting so involved.
How it Affects the Pro Players
Unfortunately with all this money on the line, there are some who will go as far as to hacking to get their team to win. In many cases, pro teams have lost matches due to getting hit offline and being forced to forfeit. This has been a major problem in the Call of Duty scene, since their major tournament host Major League Gaming does their event seeding off of online cups, like their 2K series.
Fortunately, not every game suffers from this problem. Bigger games like League of Legends, Dota, Counter Strike and others are able to host almost all their matches on LAN, which allows the players to completely focus on the match ahead of them and allows eSports betting to grow within the scene.
How it Affects the Community
eSports betting has been able to bring a significant amount of money into the eSports scene. It also is able to grow the games’ fan bases because of all the money. I’m sure that there are thousands of eSports gamblers who spend more time betting than actually playing the game.
Nevertheless, in the last two years since its birth, it has greatly benefited the fanbases of several games and is showing no signs of slowing down.
Is it worth it?
eSports betting is attracting thousands of fans all over the world and bringing thousands of dollars into the scene every day. This allows fans to feel more involved in the competitive scene and gives them a chance to make some quick cash off of their favorite teams. However, because of the hackers who hit pros offline to determine a match, it really doesn’t benefit the pro Call of Duty players who have to suffer for no reason. It’s made the online cups less exciting than they should be, which has affected viewership.
I think the idea of eSports betting is great, but it should be something that both the pros and fans should enjoy. Pros shouldn’t have to worry about being hit offline and having to lose an important match over betting. That will wind up hurting the community more than helping it. I think Major League Gaming and Call of Duty, which are suffering the most from this, need to take the same approach that other major games have taken. They should just host all the tournaments in a small private LAN and give all teams a fair chance to win, while still keeping the community happy with betting. I think it is something that is worth keeping because I can only see it growing and expanding to other titles from here.
If you are interested in getting involved in eSports betting, then you can check out these safe sites:
What do you think about eSports betting? Do you think it is something that all competitive games should have access to? Let me know in the comments section below.
Published: Aug 22, 2015 11:54 am