E-Sports: A beginners guide to a new frontier of sports betting

The sporting world has come to a virtual standstill due to the global coronavirus pandemic but there is another highly competitive activity that is still going strong - say hello to the world of E-Sports.

What are E-Sports?

This is the umbrella term used to describe competitive online gaming at a professional level.

While live events that attract large crowds - London's Gfinity Arena is particularly popular - have been suspended by Electronic Arts (EA), online events where the participants and organisers are remote and will continue.

That presents E-Sports with an excellent opportunity to gain a bigger audience and make its mark in the sphere of sports betting. As reported by Forbes in December, E-Sports currently have revenues exceeding $1 billion and audiences of more than 443 million.

Which games are involved?

Most games involved in E-Sports are team-based and are usually played in leagues or tournaments throughout the year, culminating in one final event.

The two biggest variants of E-Sports games are First Person Shooters (FPS) and Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBA).

The most common FPS games are Counter Strike: Global Offensive (or CS:GO - abbreviations are common in E-Sports), Call Of Duty (COD) and Overwatch, which adopt a king-of-the-hill set-up where the focus is essentially killing the opposing team and fighting over locations.

MOBA games essentially encompass any game where two teams of players are competing to destroy each other's bases.

Each player chooses a hero with a specific skill to deploy in the arena, whether that be killing or healing, and these heroes combine to destroy the opposition base.

The most popular MOBA games are League of Legends (LOL) and Dota 2 (Defense of the Ancients 2).

E-Sports are not limited to these two genres, though. Sports titles such as Fifa and Formula One are working their way into the industry along with battle royale games such as Fortnite.

Where can I watch them?

Owned by Amazon, Twitch is the most notable streaming service for online gaming and viewers can catch professionally hosted E-Sports tournaments as well as seeing their favourite streamers playing games. Viewers can usually communicate with one another via moderated chat rooms.

YouTube Gaming is also popular while Facebook, ESPN, Sky Sports and the BBC have also been involved.

Among the most reliable schedules for games and when they are taking place is E-SportsCalendar which allows visitors to search by game at the top of the page and look for tournaments corresponding to those on bookmaker sites.

Which notable names should I look out for?

Typically E-Sports players are contracted to play for a variety of organisations which will have a number of teams across multiple games.

Among the world's most famous E-Sports organisations are the Dutch outfit Team Liquid, FaZe Clan, Cloud9, Team SoloMid and Fnatic. They can have teams competing across a range of games from Fortnite Battle Royale to Rocket League, another huge game, which is essentially two teams of three cars playing football in a walled arena.

While athletes and footballers will focus training on improving fitness and physical prowess, E-Sports is more about mind training and strategic research. Team Liquid practice for a minimum of 50 hours per week.

Which markets can you bet on?

Sports fans are crying out for entertainment in the current climate and E-Sports has the potential to fill the void.

Once followers become more familiar with the tactics and nuances of the games as well as the teams and players involved, it can have as great a pull as any other sport.

They already involve commentators, known as casters, and punters can bet pre-game and in-play.

There are also handicap, correct-score and round-winner markets as you would expect from other sports, along with the chance to bet on what happens in each map.

Where can you bet on E-Sports?

Many of the top bookmakers offer prices with bet365, Betfair, Betfred, Betway, BoyleSports, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and Sky Bet all offering an extensive range of markets.

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