There’s always plenty of talk about the growth and potential of esports betting, but when it comes to the details it’s still treated like a black box. What does that growth actually look like?

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PandaScore aims to bridge the knowledge gap and educate the industry about what’s popular, what works and how to improve esports betting for all operators.

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August 2021 was a big month for esports betting, with tons of CS:GO matches via the ESL Pro League, the tail end of top-flight domestic competition in League of Legends, teams preparing for the Dota 2 International and more.

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Unsurprisingly the placement of the big 3 is the same, with CS:GO taking the lion’s share of all betting turnover. The frequency of matches in the ESL Pro League was one of the biggest drivers of CS:GO turnover, while the last stages and playoffs of Valorant’s Challengers competition helped the game take the #4 spot.

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Traditionally the prematch vs live split is at least at the 60–40 mark, so August’s 51–49 result is surprising to see.

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The relationship between a tournament like the ESL Pro League, where there are multiple matches happening every single day and the ability to place combo bets and multiply your winnings was likely a big contributor to the prematch vs live split.

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The fact that there are only 2 CS:GO competitions in August’s top 10 yet CS:GO had such a huge presence in overall turnover speaks to the attractiveness of league format competitions, both from ESL and Eden Esports’ Malta Vibes competition.

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As we noticed from last years League of Legends betting activity, the LPL is hugely popular for League of Legends punters, partly thanks to games nearly every day of the week as well as it’s convenient crossover time slot with European fans.

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With Dota 2 competitions taking up 4 slots in the top ten it’s a strong sign that while the game may have a smaller following, fans are passionate and punters love to bet on many competitions year-round, not just the major tournaments.

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Across prematch and live betting, Match and Game Winner 2-Way dominates overall turnover numbers. A big contributor to this factor is that win/lose markets are very straightforward, particularly for esports fans who are new to or still learning about betting.

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Interestingly, Dota 2 bucks the trend with Game Winner 2-Way being its top-earning market compared to CS:GO and LoL’s Match Winner 2-Way. With the huge impact that draft can have on the outcome of a Dota 2 game, punters may be placing bets game-by-game as a first preference rather than betting on the overall outcome of a series.

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Considering CS:GO accounted for just over 50% of all turnover in August, the general popularity of the ESL Pro League and the calibre of teams competing saw punters flock to the competition. With multiple matches running at the same time and many matches one after the other over the course of a day, punters had a glut of options for betting on Counter-Strike.

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The matches attracting that largest bet volume were big mismatches on paper. The G2-Sinners matchup was the first match in Group B of the ESL Pro League. G2 came into the tournament ranked 3rd according to HLTV compared to Sinners sitting at #23. Many were expecting G2 to take the win, but Sinners snatched a 2–1 victory and set G2 on the path to a disastrous 0–5 finish in the group.

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Additionally, while BIG are a competitive squad that can take games of top-flight teams, but Na’Vi are far and away the best team in the world right now. Similar mismatches are seen in the likes of Heroic vs. ENCE or Na’Vi-Fnatic.

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It’s also worth noting that the likes of G2 and Na’Vi have enormous fanbases and naturally this translates into more punters placing bets on their favourite team. The relationship between a tournament like the ESL Pro League, where there are multiple matches happening every single day and the ability to place combo bets and multiply your winnings was likely a big contributor to this as well.

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If you want to learn more about how you can harness esports betting to capture the next generation of punters, get in touch with me at sales@pandascore.co.