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Get better at gambling online with this comprehensive esports betting guide that applies to any kind of gambling. The guides establish the fundamentals – via the 10 commandments, and provide a practical overview of various good advice and tools.
Make sure to read the first section about responsible gambling, your financial responsibility and the risks of losing money in esports betting and gambling in general.
You have to be at least 18 years old to place bets on sports. We recommend that you gamble responsibly and never put more money at stake than you are willing to lose or that your economy can handle.
We do not promise gold and prosperity. This betting guide provides you with several useful tools and a sensible mindset, but it is no shortcut to wealth. If you want to become better at esports betting or any other sports, it will cost you both money, time and energy.
…there are very few people that can make a living from betting.
Making a living out of betting on esports, football, tennis, or any kind of odds, is only being mastered by very few people around the world. For that, you must be determined, cold as ice, super-disciplined, and insanely talented. It may be that these characteristics suit just you, but if they don’t, don’t expect to be able to quit your job by following this guide.
It’s in fact better if you forget about huge leverage effects and unrealistic, financial ambitions. Start with baby steps and lower stakes to see how it goes. When your Money Management (will come to that) shows a good profit, you can gradually increase your stakes.
Always remember: If you’re not careful, you can lose money faster than you think.
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To become successful at online esports betting or any other sports, you need to learn the basics of betting and what you should watch out for, not to make common mistakes.
Here I list the 10 most important things that you should be aware of, the importance of your mindset, and things to consider before placing any bets on esports or any other sports.
There is no way to look into the future. Unless you have bribed the esports event organisers, the referees and the players, then YOU DO NOT KNOW how a match is going to end. Not even if it is the best esports team in the world vs the worst team imaginable. Even the biggest favorites can stumble in esports, and nothing is ever certain. So do not bet without looking at the odds, otherwise, you will lose. Maybe not every time but in the long run a deficit is inevitable.
You have to take the odds and put it in proportion to the chance of it being a winning bet. In other words: Basic probability theory. It may not feel like you need to get a deeper understanding of this, but there is no way around it if you want to win: Use odds assessments and only play value bets!
Self-knowledge is the alpha and omega when you bet. You must understand what you are doing and have the energy to find the necessary information to draw your own pinpointed conclusion. If you do not have real insight into the esports teams the league, the championship or the match that you are going to bet on, then do not bet on it! Also, be careful with listening to “talented people” who claim to have the insight (the so-called expert esports betters).
Use tips and predictions as inspiration but make sure that you do your own homework and make your decision upon that. First of all, understanding betting odds is crucial in esports, together with competent chance assessment is also necessary. Anyone can throw out some numbers – but are they realistic or not?
Statistics is indeed an indispensable tool when betting on esports, but the bookmakers set their odds based on the statistics which means you have no advantage. On the contrary, you are a step or two behind. The bookmakers will often have researched even further and adjusted their odds based on other significant factors. These factors also need to be checked – maybe you can even catch the bookmakers on the wrong foot by knowing more than they do.
That’s why knowledge gives you power in esports betting. Do your homework and try to find value that the bookmakers missed. Perhaps they think that one team is the favorite and they put very low odds on that team. But perhaps they missed that they are missing their best player and have to play with a substitute, which gives the other team a much bigger chance to win.
“There are three types of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” ― Benjamin Disraeli
Let’s say that you are great at esports betting and know everything about gambling, value bets, chance assessment and information-hunting. Now, you can still fail miserably with betting if you do not have control over your finances. Things will still go wrong anyway if you don’t know how to control your finances and how to use them wisely. In all kinds of gambling, this is called money management and it is a very important part of betting that you have to learn. You need to know how much money you can and should put on each bet, depending on your risk assessment and the value of the bet.
The most important thing: You must keep track of everything!
Read more about Money Management in the 10th commandment below where you also find a link to the Money Management guide.
Have an account with multiple bookmakers and betting exchanges. This way you can get better betting options and higher odds, especially when betting on esports. The image shows one and the same Dota 2 Maestros match from two different betting sites. As you can see, the odds on Infamous to win differ a lot between the two sites. Betting site 1 offers the odds 4.38 / 3.38/1 while betting site 2 offers 8.50 / 7.5/1. This means that a stake of €100 would give €438 in winnings at site 1, and €850 at site 2.
When looking for a new bookmaker feel free to look for a bonus but do not have it as the only criterion. The most important thing is that this is a bookmaker you actually intend to use. And to be fair, there is actually a vast selection of great betting sites out there.
Screenshot from the two betting sites
There is no betting system that can guarantee you winnings. That system or strategy simply does not exist. Whether it is called the Greenwood system, the Hence system, the Martingale system or spread betting, none of them are bulletproof. The only road to profit in gambling is paved with value betting, knowledge, and extensive research. However, if you want to try any kind of betting system or strategy, we recommend the J. Kelly betting system.
A betting system like the Martingale strategy seems super easy and straightforward. Because it’s just based on that you double the stake every time you lose until you eventually win. The strategy itself could be bulletproof, but it’s not!
The huge risk with such a strategy is that sooner or later, you will get unlucky, and/or make bad choices, which will quickly burn your bankroll and make you lose more money than you could ever imagine.
First of all, your winnings have to be at least as high as your stake. This means that you need to bet on
odds of at least 2.00 or 1/1, which would have to be outcomes that do not give you very high chances.
Secondly, by staking double the amount for every loss, you risk reaching very high amounts sooner than you think. Even if you start with low stakes like €10.
Start: €10 stake
Loss 1: 10×2 = €20 stake
Loss 2: 20×2 = €40 stake
Loss 3: 40×2 = €80 stake
Loss 4: 80×2 = €160 stake
Loss 5: 160×2 = €320 stake
Win: €320 + €320 stake = €640
Real profit:640 – Stakes: 10 + 20 + 40 + 80 + 160 + 320 = €630 = €10
The strategy requires a lot of patience, since every time you win, you will only win the same amount as the initial stake. So in the above calculation, you would have to stake €320 on the fifth bet, but at the end, you would only make a €10 profit. After that, you rinse and repeat, starting with a €10 bet on at least 2.00 again.
The question is: Are you willing or able to double your stakes if you lose more than 5 times in a row?
Underdogs in esports with high odds can be as good to bet on as favorites – in fact, they are often better. Lots of people play blindly and unconsciously on the favorite which raises the odds on the underdog. The reason for this is that, as soon as the bookmakers notice that the majority of the players bet on the favorite we, they will lower the odds continuously as long as the bets keep coming on that team. So a very low odds on a favorite team can actually be slightly misleading.
This means that you can actually find great value in the underdog if you through your research and knowledge, come to the conclusion that the underdogs have a good chance of winning.
As a starting point, it can be recommended that you play singles (one match per betting slip) and avoid doubles, trebles as well as accumulators. The reason is the simple fact that with a given bookmaker it can be difficult to find enough value bets to be able to construct a healthy accumulator. It’s also simple mathematics, that for every match you add to your betting slip, the odds will increase, but the risk of losing your stake will actually increase even more.
Avoid impulse and desperation bets! Always do your research and base your bets on the subjective outcome of your predictions. Don’t just put a bet for the sake of betting, unless you are comfortable with losing the stake, both mentally and financially. This applies to all kinds of gambling!
Never play to catch up or chase losses. Gambling and especially betting is a long-distance run and not a sprint. It’s all about how it goes in the long run so don’t panic about a loss or two. If the losses are due to errors in your betting strategy, then correct your strategy. Play it cool and thoughtful. And remember to follow these 10 commandments!
The best way to avoid these things and to create a good mindset in gambling is to have good money management and to keep track of your bets through bookkeeping.
It’s crucial that you keep track of all your bets, both the wins and the losses. This is the only way to really learn from your successes and mistakes. The most common and simple way of doing this is to use a well-structured excel document. There is a vast selection of tools online that you can also use, to help you keep track of your progress. Some of them cost money, and others are free, some are very basic while others are very detailed and more complex.
As a beginner, we highly recommend that you stick to more basic tools and Money management strategies.
The betting guides are written by our notorious betting expert, Kenny Powers. He works on a daily basis at one of the biggest betting sites in the world and you could say that he knows his stuff.
In fact, he’s so good at gambling on odds, in both esports and football betting, that among friends he goes by the nickname “The Oracle”. Kenny does not place a bet unless he did his homework and he’s got the right mindset of a successful bettor.
Kenny has taken his time to create these gambling guides, to share his experience, best tips and tricks for you to avoid common mistakes and to become a more successful bettor at esports or any other sport.
I highly recommend Unibet as a betting site for those who never placed any bets before. The sportsbook is very straightforward, packed with guides, easy to learn and to navigate through. They also have top class customer support, which is important for you who don’t have a lot of experience with betting.
Unibet also shows pre-game statistics for the biggest esports games, such as CS: GO, Dota 2, League of Legends and more. They also provide in-play live streams for most of the matches. These features are great for faster learning.
Read our Unibet review to learn more about their sportsbook and values.
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