betting-strategy-esports

Esports Betting Strategy 101

There are two key components to every successful strategy:

  • Having a system that works
  • Having the discipline to execute it relentlessly

Having a system that works is simply a way of betting with an edge.

In other words, you need to be knowledgeable in your market to the point of perfection and then find out what works the best.

What this means is that you will first need to become a bona fide expert — know the player form, strong and weak maps, performance by game stage and how they play in the clutch.

The bottom line is — if there is a statistic out there, you need to know it.

Once you define your edge (i.e. find out which markets are the most profitable for you) you move on to the second part of the equation, which is the consistency.

Being consistent means to stick to your plan, adapt and improve. It means that you’ll need to embrace a disciplined approach to your betting, regardless of whether you’re betting for fun or profit.

Even though we cannot “teach” you how to be disciplined, we can definitely teach you how to find a betting edge.

Before you jump on to the exact chapters, you need to know the individual elements that create an effective esports betting strategy:

  • The main eSport
  • Staking system
  • Point of focus
  • Odd hunting
  • Account management
  • Bet tracking
  • Evaluation and improvement
  • The backup plan

Let’s go over it.

Decide on the Esport

When you first started playing Dota, did you know how to play with all heroes at once? Of course not. You started with one and worked your way to the others.

Betting is just like that — you start with one eSport, CSGO, Dota 2, LoL, WoT, whatever you choose.

This is usually the game you already know how to play, so take advantage of that and start learning other important aspects.

Read our betting academy lessons, check out the news outlets, follow all teams and players on Twitter and just, generally, stay on top of the game.

Once you get good at one eSport, start implementing the same routine into another one.

The end goal is to be knowledgeable in all games because you’ll have more betting opportunities on your disposal. And by that I mean…

You will know how to spot and use good odds, regardless of the game.

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Focus point

Moving on to another important component of a betting strategy. Your focus point decides on which markets you bet:

  • Single match winners
  • Multiple match winners
  • Special markets (map winners, over/under, etc.)
  • Combination
  • Live (in-play) betting

Your strategy will literally form around your main focus point.

For starters, begin betting on single/multiple match winners and slowly start exploring special markets, combo bets, handicaps and live match betting.

Staking system

Disclaimer: This is not to be mistaken with a stalking system, which is something you’d use when stalking your ex-girlfriend’s Instagram. 

Staking system simply means – how you invest in your bets.

Like everything else, here you have a choice as well. You can:

  • Go all in, every single time.
  • Regularly bet a fixed amount.
  • Use a progressive betting system
  • Or have a custom plan

I advise you to start off with betting a fixed amount on every bet and then working your way to more advanced stuff, such as Martingale or Fibonacci systems.

Hunting for Opportunities

An important part of every winning strategy is the desire and dedication to a thing called Odd Hunting.

Odd hunting is exactly that — you go around all major websites and try to find good opportunities, be it matchups or specials.

There is not a best practice for this, which means you’ll just have to wing it and do it in your own way. But I believe in you. 

To start off, open an account in several reputable esports betting sites, log in and compare the odds by opening a separate browser tab for each.

In the end, if you do manage to find a great system for odd hunting in eSports, let us know and we’ll write about it.

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Multiple betting accounts

Continuing on from the previous section….An important thing for any serious bettor is to have multiple betting accounts.

When you have multiple betting accounts, you can:

  • Simplify odd hunting
  • Quickly engage in good opportunities
  • Bet futures on one and in-play on other websites
  • Take advantage of unique specials 

Short-term, this will allow you to be prepared, at all times.

In the long run, this will bring you a piece of mind and some profit to go along with it, if you play your cards right.  

Tracking your Bets

At this point in your life, you are probably familiar with spreadsheet software and tools, like Excel or Google Sheets. If not, don’t worry…

You can still do this with a handheld, solar powered calculator. 

OK, we’re not going to go into complicated math here, but I want you to know that tracking your bets is extremely important.

Track following items:

  • The games you bet on
  • The odds you bet on
  • The staking system you use
  • Your budget (invested and returned profits)
  • Performance by sportsbook (recommended)
  • Performance by eSport (recommended)
  • Performance by event (recommended)
  • Other notes

I recommend doing this for (at least) the first 6 months. The end goal is to have as much information as possible so you can filter out what works and what doesn’t.

Consequently, you will focus on your winning markets and stay out of the markets where you’re losing money.

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Evaluate and Improve

You can’t fix what you don’t know, right?

Therefore, evaluation is a good reason to track your bets.

Once you have enough data on your betting, you can figure out what can be improved. Maybe there is a market that you’re missing out on or you have a wrong staking approach?

There is only one way to know and that’s to evaluate.

Backup Strategy

Having a backup strategy is necessary for full time bettors, but no so much for the casual players.

Nevertheless, it’s always good to think about various betting strategies you can pursue simultaneously with your main one.

For example, if you are testing a parlay betting strategy with a progressive staking system, you may want to consider supplementing that with dutch betting on specials, so you can aim for that small, but guaranteed profit.

There are more advanced strategies coming your way, but for now I think it’s enough.

Here is what you can do to help us all:

  • Step 1: Start applying all (or some) of these principles and let us know how they work for you.
  • Step 2: Follow and subscribe for future updates and lessons.

Happy esports betting!