Esports betting is a relatively new way to bet and rake in some big profits. Betting on League of Legends or Dota 2 was something few people dreamed of until a few years ago. When approaching traditional and esports betting, is the experience the same? Should you alter your strategy to accommodate the differences?
While the betting concept itself is exactly the same, you must take into account other factors when placing your bets. Let’s break down the key differences all players need to be aware of.
Weather factors
Sports such as football, rugby, and cricket can all be thrown into turmoil by a sudden downpour or a blizzard. The favorite could find themselves in trouble simply because of gale-force winds.
Although weather forecasts have become more accurate in recent years, the weather can still throw people’s bets off course.
With esports, this is not the case. Esports takes place entirely in the online world, therefore, you always know the conditions you are about to face long before the match officially begins.
Player injuries
Did your team’s striker just pull their hamstring in the warmup? Has an in-form team suddenly experienced big changes to their starting XI because of a seasonal outbreak of flu? These are things even the smartest gambler cannot predict ahead of time.
Esports remove the injury factor entirely. Even if a player is unable to compete prior to a match, most sportsbooks will count the bet as invalid and refund your stake.
The one exception is within team-based esports, where teams may have substitutes ready to step in if one of their members is unable to compete. The rules on this depend on the tournament in question.
Additional volatility
Volatility and variance exist to a certain extent in both traditional and online sports. However, the dominance and form of teams within football, rugby, and Formula One racing tend to remain largely constant.
Take Lewis Hamilton’s dominance of motorsport as an example – although he does not win every year, he is among the favourites practically every season.
The dynamic nature of the esports landscape brings chaos to the betting arena. Teams and individual players rarely remain dominant over long periods.
Referees and human error
How many times have you watched a big final, only to see the win snatched away from you due to an error in refereeing?
Take the recent incident at the Africa Cup of Nations. Referee Janny Sikazwe blew the final whistle on both the 85th and 89th minutes. In farcical scenes, the referee’s watch differed from the official clock, and so the Afcon game ended in confusion for both Tunisia and Mali.
Human error exists in every aspect of life, but referees are much more prone to error in traditional sports. In fact, esports referees are present purely to prevent any blatant cheating. Since esports involve playing video games, the correct decision is guaranteed.
Again, it makes esports more predictable within this category. You know that the final result is the deserved result.
Competition formats
Most traditional sports utilize either a league or a tournament spanning several weeks, months or a year to decide the champion. Other than individual sports, such as tennis, most traditional sports don’t use a matching system.
Even sports like poker prefer to use the tournament system. Heads-up poker is the least popular form of the game, at least at in-person events.
Esports, on the other hand, tends to utilize every possible competition format to determine an overall champion. Events are decided by a match, a tournament, or a league. Sometimes you will find all three formats within the same overarching competition.
From the perspective of your average gambler, esports offers a more complex, exciting, and dynamic betting experience.
What about betting types?
Betting options vary little between both types of sport. You can place your usual selection of bets, such as win bets and more exotic accumulators, with desktop and mobile gaming options.
Since most esports run for multiple rounds, you can also place in-play bets. Even traditional bookmakers have started to offer markets on the biggest esports events.
In this respect, you’ll find making the transition from one to the other to be incredibly easy.
Conclusion
Traditional sports and esports both offer entirely different experiences. It is this variation that has attracted so many gamblers to esports betting, even if they have never touched a computer game in their lives.
Approach each form of betting differently and develop a strategy for success. Like traditional sports, esports betting offers huge potential for landing equally huge wins.