THE BEST BEGINNER ESPORTS BETTING TIPS
Start small.
Imagine, hypothetically, that you begin your eSports Betting venture with a £/$/€10 deposit. Now, a mistake common to beginners would be to place this entire sum on one or two simple bets ranging between £/$/€5-10. However, risking your entire bankroll on your first few bets is not a wise decision.
As a rule of thumb, the more bets you place, the more experienced you become, and similarly; the more bets you place, the more chance you have of actually winning one! So, instead of risking large sums, employing an alternate strategy, such as
Percentage Staking
is advisable. Simply pick a percentage of your total bank, for example 10-25%, and place a series of smaller bets capped at that amount instead of risking everything in one.
Play it safe.
We know it sounds silly, but we also know that the big numbers are the most tempting - trust us, we’ve been there! Take it easy, do the research, and don’t take foolish wagers that turn your stomach or are impossible to win. Leave that to the pros, or at the very least wait until you’ve built up your bankroll and are wagering with surplus. As you become more comfortable betting, you’ll become more adept at gauging potential risk factors prior to taking bets.
Do your homework.
Anybody and everybody that sees success with eSports betting has put in plenty of time into either researching, watching, or playing their favoured game(s). Not to mention, that some competitive games and esports matches are easier to digest, understand, and bet on than others. For example, League of Legends has a lot of mechanical and technical depth. An expansive knowledge of metagame tactics is required for successful participation. And, although the same could be said for Counter Strike, concerning decades of tactical etiquette, the core gameplay mechanics will be more familiar to newcomers due to the nature of the FPS genre.
If you are still unfamiliar with your preferred eSports game, then take the time to play it or study in excess. As with conventional sports, such as Premier League Football, following your favorite competitors is a great way to become familiar with the technical depth of a game. Most eSports Competitors make time to stream during their day-to-day, so tuning in on Twitch and studying their playstyle is an excellent starting point for newcomers, or anybody seeking to bet on specific competitors.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Strafe eSports app presents the competitor's recent form and head-to-head records alongside the game at hand. This can be especially useful for pre-game betting, especially when studied alongside the competitor's backlog of video content on YouTube.
ESPORTS BETTING TRICKS FOR ALL STAGES OF PLAY
Separate your finances.
For the most part, when betting online, you will deposit into a ‘Real Money Balance’. When first starting out, punters generally stick to one site, however as you begin to incorporate more advanced strategies and multiple websites, it can become difficult to moderate your bankroll. Although it’s not essential to use multiple sites, and if you are doing so, a simple spreadsheet can accommodate, going a step further and creating a separate account for betting funds can be a godsend.
Now, we’re not saying you should have a separate bank entirely, but your betting account should be separate from your primary direct debit, and used exclusively for betting ventures. This is so that you are easily able to track your spends, wins, losses and withdrawals. It is generally recommended that you do not use a credit account or an account with an overdraft too, as gambling on funds that aren’t your own is a big red flag and maybe a sign that you should pack it in for a bit!
Keep sheets.
When placing multiple bets, especially with strategies such as Percentage Staking as mentioned above, keeping track of your bets can be as difficult as monitoring your funds. Most die-hard punters will keep spreadsheets or tables that keep track of: their total bankroll, their bets and respective odds, their daily losses and daily earnings; as well as the site that the bet was placed with. This will enable you to monitor broader strategies, such as
matched betting
or
the arbitrage strategy
with relative ease.
Matched betting
is a strategy that aims to off-set risk on your initial bets by taking advantage of promotions offered by bookmakers found in our
esports sportsbook reviews. The concept, put simply, is to cover all potential outcomes of a bet - for example in a conventional single, covering both a win and a loss - one with your real money balance and the other with your “free bet”.
If you would like to learn more about matched betting or the arbitrage strategy, we cover them in more detail in our StarCraft II Betting Guide:
Use practice sheets.
Whilst we’re on the topic of keeping sheets, it’s worth making you aware of Practice Sheets. With practice sheets, you do exactly that: practice. You simply keep sheets, as mentioned above, but monitor hypothetical bets on real games with your own limited play money. This will allow you to refine strategies prior to risking your real funds! Whether you’re placing bets for the first time or trying out new, more complicated strategies, practicing alongside a live match is a great way to strengthen your skills and broaden your betting knowledge.
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ADVANCED PLAY FOR ESPORTS BETTING
When punters and betting articles discuss strategies, they are referring to a broader tactical approach or strict rule sets that they adhere to in order for a more streamlined and effective betting experience.
Recommended strategies will deviate based on your preferred betting markets and your game knowledge, and because of this, every punter develops their own playstyle and will recommend different strategies. As we said earlier, the more you bet, the more experienced you become, and the more capable you become of gauging risk prior to taking wagers.
Developing your own strategies.
When it comes to developing your own strategies, you should look to identify your strengths and weaknesses. For example: What betting markets do you prefer and what types of bets do you see the most success with?
Some punters prefer betting pre-match, whereas others prefer live betting. Depending on this preference, as well as your preferred game(s), you will lean towards specific betting markets. For example, you may wish to bet on point spreads, or round wins, or player kills.
A strategy can be as simple as exclusively researching and betting on a single competitor, or it could be as complicated as bouncing between bookies in order to find optimal odds. However, generally you should only favour tried and tested strategies that work for yourself.
Test a strategy with practice sheets.
As mentioned under the “ESPORTS BETTING TIPS FOR ALL STAGES OF PLAY” heading, we recommend growing familiar with betting on practice sheets, however this also applies when it comes to incorporating new strategies into your betting system. Utilising practice sheets to test strategies is the best way to ensure that strategies are fool proof and regimented accordingly. As with any form of competitive play, there are some strategies that should be avoided entirely, such as the “martingale system” which encourages participants to double down after consecutive losses in order to recuperate costs.
Promotional Tournament Play
is favoured by and recommended for more advanced players. Often, these
special offers
are announced prior to and run throughout tournaments for popular competitive games. As this is a generally low-risk style of play, it is favoured by beginners for practice, however beginners rarely yield winnings from tournament promotions due to the difficult ‘wagered terms’ that come with the proposed ‘free bet’ / ‘bonus balance’.
It is not uncommon for tournament promotions to require your bonus balance to exceed 10x your initial deposit, within the tournament’s timeframe, for the balance to roll over into your ‘real money balance’ where it can be withdrawn.
In order to meet these wagered terms and achieve the desired withdrawals, punters should reverse engineer a strategy based on the figure they need to achieve. For example, if you need to achieve a balance of £/$/€100 within a week, you should research eligible betting markets for the tournaments game’s and their respective
esports betting odds
in order to calculate how many bets you will need to place, and what you will have to put down. Then, you would simply adhere to this strategy and reassess if it does not yield the desired results.
More experienced punters will generally do these calculations prior to even participating in an offer, but once you have a good technical understanding of betting odds, and are more familiar with these types of play, you will be able to assess whether a promotion is worthwhile or a waste of your time with relative ease.
Interested? We talk about play with offers and tournament promotions in more depth in the Counter Strike article below:
TEST OUT THESE ESPORTS BETTING STRATEGIES
It’s not for us to say what will or won’t work for you, but if you’re looking to change up your play style and incorporate some new strategies, below are some of our favourites:
Progressive Staking -
This style of play encourages punters to increase or decrease the size of their wagers according to their win rate. If you’re on a win streak, you would increase your standard wager accordingly, in hopes of achieving a higher return, however if you are on a losing streak, you should decrease your standard wager in order to accommodate for losses.
Obviously bets should still be well researched and our other advice still applies, but
Progressive staking works well in tandem with other strategies too, such as the previously discussed Percentage Staking. Ultimately, when using progressive staking, the aim is to bet with winnings instead of your initial deposit to protect some of your bankroll in the worst case scenario.
Effective Researching -
Essentially, researching your bets involves accessing the best available data concerning your chosen competitors and game, and utilising these esports betting statistics in order to increase the predictability and likelihood of future outcomes. There are lots of different techniques and sources you can utilise in order to acquire information concerning competitors and their performance. The Strafe eSports app is a great place to start as it connects enthusiasts with the broader eSports community, monitors performance, and presents head-to-head history and recent form.
That said, research and analysis won’t allow you to predict the future, but they will help refine potential eSports betting predictions and identify wagers that have the best value.
Value Betting -
This system relies on your ability to identify bets that hold additional “value” that has otherwise been neglected by your chosen bookmaker. For example if, according to your calculations, a bookmakers odds do not accurately represent a favoured outcome, and the presented odds are respectively beneficial, then you have identified a value bet. That is not to say that the bet should be taken, or that all value bets are worth taking, but that your ability to identify valuable bets may increase your potential return or highlight weaknesses in your chosen bookies database.
GAME SPECIFIC BETTING GUIDES
It is our intent for this article to be broad and cater to more general eSports betting tips that can be applied to a variety of games. However, we also have an abundance of articles and resources available to punters online. These are generally tailored to specific games and will give you a broader insight into game-specific techniques, betting markets, and potential strategies you may wish to employ.
Unsure what game to bet on? Want to learn more? Interested in testing a few new strategies? Look no further than our
esports betting news.
Conclusion
eSports betting tips today were cultivated by our in-house experts. We hope their insight and overview of strategies, tips and tricks will help improve your play style and allow you to bet with confidence regardless of your familiarity with the eSports industry.
Ultimately, although play styles vary, your bets should be well-researched and adhere to strict rulings to ensure you aren’t being reckless or hemorrhaging bankroll. Take it easy; learn, refine, and put in the practice, and maybe one day you’ll win as big as your favourite competitors. Happy betting, punters. Stay safe. Stay calm. Be cool and calculating, always.
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