It’s time to do our annual state of affairs in esports betting. This time around, though, we’re focusing on a single esports title here, CSGO. Yep, this piece is basically all about the freshest CSGO betting trends and other news from the industry.
Let’s start off with a quick look at the most interesting facts:
- Online CSGO events have become the new normal for everyone involved in esports
- CSGO is still the most popular esports title to bet on
- Recent CSGO events have been nothing but chaotic, forcing bookies to stop offering outrights
- The esports betting industry continues to break records left and right
CSGO Betting Trends
We have four major trends to showcase here. They’re all, more or less, associated with betting on CSGO. It’s everyone’s favorite game to bet on, which is why we’re giving it the attention it deserves. So, without further ado, let’s kick things off!
Online Events are Chaotic
Typically, the most prominent CSGO events are played in mesmerizing venues across the globe. We’re talking about grandiose LAN events that feature upwards of $200k in prize money, AAA production quality, and an electric audience that cheers their favorite teams forward.
The thing with online events is that they’re the exact opposite. They require teams to connect to online lobbies, which isn’t ideal because every millisecond of lag (be it input or latency) matters in top-tier competitive CSGO.
That’s basically why people consider online CSGO events so darn chaotic. At first, we thought it was just a myth… but now that we’ve had more than half a year of online events, we’ve noticed several interesting CSGO Betting trends, the most important of which surfaced in Europe.
You see, the European region is an absolute mess. Here’s why:
Europe as No Man’s Land
Believe it or not, nine different teams have won notable CSGO events in Europe. Yep, nine of them! As mentioned earlier, the chaotic nature of online CSGO esports was always going to present us with upsets, but who would’ve thought we’d get so many different title winners thus far.
The likes of Heroic, MAD Lions and BIG stepped up to the occasion and used online events to the best of their advantage. The Germans are perhaps the best example of online superiority, having been ranked as the best CSGO team in the world following years of living on the top 20 margins.
Here are the nine teams that have won notable EU events this year:
- Heroic
- Complexity
- BIG
- MAD Lions
- Fnatic
- NaVi
- Faze Clan
- Astralis
- Mousesports
Bookies Not Offering Outrights Anymore
The situation has become so problematic that most esports betting sites don’t offer betting on outright winners anymore. Yep, driven by the current state of affairs on the European CSGO scene, bookies stopped offering odds on outright winner wagers.
However, the recently announced IEM XV Global Challenge (more on this event further down the line) could put an end to this. Fingers crossed that it does! The event is scheduled for December, so I guess match-winners and short-term specials will have to suffice until then.
The Return of NA vs. EU Events
Another one of interesting CSGO betting trend is surely the return of international events. It’s an online event we’re talking about here, but three American teams are set to travel to Europe where they’ll play against the region’s finest.
I’m referring to the upcoming BLAST Premier Fall 2020, an event that’ll finally show us just how well the two main regions fare against each other. The event is scheduled to start on October 26th, right after the end of DH Open Fall and IEM XV New York NA and CIS.
First New-Normal CSGO LAN Event
There’s been a whole heap of online events ever since the world traversed to the lockdown mode. Since March 1st, which marked the end of the last CSGO LAN event, we’ve had nothing but online events. And it’s not just CSGO – most other esports are sharing the same story.
However, we’ve already mentioned IEM XV Global Challenge as the event that’ll most likely change bookies’ opinions on featuring outright winner betting odds… and now you’ll find out why.
You see, IEM XV Global Challenge is set to be the first post-pandemic LAN event. It will feature all the best teams in the world in an offline environment, with a whopping $500,000 in total prize money.
Positive Numbers Across the Board
There’s one more thing we’d like to mention before we wrap everything up. According to the most recent FansUnite numbers, CSGO is still the number one esports title betting-wise. On top of that, the esports industry as a whole had a 650% increase in total money wagered through FansUnite’s B2B betting solutions.
Judging by those numbers, it’s safe to say the esports industry is still developing at an exponential pace.
Summary
Even though the world is going through one of the toughest periods in newer history, the whole of esports industry doesn’t seem to be having any issues.
Even though we haven’t seen any LAN CSGO events in quite some time (the last one ended on the first day of March), we’ll finally get one in December. IEM XV Global Challenge is the name – remember it because it’s probably going to be the biggest CSGO esports spectacle of 2020!
With those words, I’d like to wrap things up. Thank you for reading; I wish you the best of luck with your future CSGO wagers!
