Over the last five years, the number of esports bettors has grown from 191 million to 523 million. This huge pool of bettors has a deep understanding of esports and high expectations of bookmakers, which stimulates the active development of esports trading. Let’s take a look at how and why operators implement advanced esports trading to win new bettors and develop their business...
Esports trading originated from classic sports trading, but has long since become an independent market of its own. The maths of predicting outcomes and deriving odds for sports events are relatively simple in comparison to esports events, as classic sports games have limitations on the duration of each match or the maximum possible number of points/goals.
The criteria to win in esports disciplines are much more complicated, meaning esports trading cannot be limited by time or number of points. As a result, we continually have to invent new analytical tools and techniques to calculate the outcome of any given esports game.
For example, Dota 2 players select one character from a possible 120, each of which has four abilities. Some characters are stronger at the beginning of the game, while others begin to shine closer to the end. Moreover, there are over 100 artifacts in the game, which give characters new abilities or change their default skills.
This means that, even without taking into account how a particular team or players have been performing, there are thousands of ways a match could unfold. Only 3-5 years ago, it wasn’t uncommon for operators to reject live bets near the end of matches, as it had become almost impossible to predict the outcome of a game.
Esports trading cannot be limited by time or number of points. As a result, we continually have to invent new analytical tools and techniques to calculate the outcome of any given esports game
Today, we have advanced tools for predicting the outcomes of games despite the huge amount of variables involved. We now offer more markets and offer them for longer, meaning customers can place bets up until the last few minutes of a match.
In addition to the character selection stage, which is also available in Valorant, League of Legends (LoL), King of Glory and Wild Rift, esports trading is becoming more complicated with the existence of different maps; which are effectively entirely different playing fields, each with its own particularities when it comes to interacting with in-game items.
In CS:GO, there are seven different competitive maps at the moment and seven in Valorant with two or three respawn points on each. The games are developing rapidly and developers are constantly updating characters, abilities and maps. Our task it to quickly recalculate live odds and provide attractive markets, while taking into account the intricacies of each game. To this end, GG.Bet recently introduced a number of unique markets – total bets on individual players’ number of kills and deaths in top CS:GO teams. We’re planning to launch the same market for Dota 2, LoL and Valorant in the coming months.
What’s more, we cannot ignore human factors while calculating the odds – the physical condition of players, the quality of their teamwork, a team’s winning spirit and morale. This can be illustrated further if we take a look at any two teams. The dynamic between two rivals will vary from tournament to tournament depending on their motivation levels.
At the DPC tournament, players compete for points with the hope of making it to The International and winning the main Dota 2 prize. As for the non-DPC tournament, the main goal for teams may not be to win, but perhaps to practice a new strategy or compete as a new team in a large tournament (and yet not reveal all of their cards at once). As a result, we might offer different odds for the same pair of teams at different tournaments.
We cannot ignore human factors while calculating the odds – the physical condition of players, the quality of their teamwork, a team’s winning spirit and morale
In fact, the type of tournament often influences what markets are available on our website. With three Fortnite Major tournaments having recently been announced, GG.Bet’s preparations are already underway – including developing analytical models, analysing data to identify bettor preferences and collecting information about teams.
Sometimes, we have had to rethink the entire discipline from a trading perspective, which is what happened with League of Legends: Wild Rift. Visually, it still looked like LoL, but the introduction of LoL on mobile devices changed how people interact with the game and consequently how we needed to think about it.
To add more accurate odds, we had to reconsider our entire analytical framework for the game. Changes like these happen rarely in classic sports. In the world of esports, however, these changes are to be expected.
Last but not least, we keep an eye on the release of new games and our customers’ interest in them. If we notice that a particular game is trending, we develop new markets for it.
All of these factors make esports betting faster, more complex and more eventful than classic sports betting. And, when it comes to experienced bettors, the more complex the experience the better. Esports offers a deeper immersion and a more vivid sense of emotion. That is why we are so passionate about it.
