What is CSGO?
CS:GO (Counter Strike: Global Offensive)
CSGO is multiplayer first-person shooter video game where two teams play against each other: the Terrorists and the Counter-Terrorists. It was developed by Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment and became a very popular game among players. The goal of the game is to eliminate the other team whilst completing separate objectives and from betting perspective is very interesting because it is similar to other sports games, where two teams compete against each other.
In the picture above we can see an example of one csgo match, where we have two teams (G2 Sports vs fnatic). At the top of the page is the score and in the bottom corners we see the players and how they perform in this round. The games are played similar to tennis sets or playoffs, where the best team out of 2, 3 or 5 games wins.
How many players are in one CSGO team?
Every team has 5 players and they play against each other in different maps (Inferno, Train, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass, Dust II, Vertigo). Every map has its own characteristics and the impact on teams and players.
What are the best CSGO teams and players?
As in any other competitive sport the best teams and the best players can change and will change during time. But we have already some teams and the players that are constantly in the top rankings. Astralis, Heroic, fnatic, Natus Vincere (NaVi), Vitality, Evil Geniuses are some of the teams that are among the best.
You can check the rankings for the teams and players here.
But the best ranked and best paid players are (source for players hltv.org and salaries statista):
What is CSGO betting?
I hope we are little bit more familar with esports and csgo now, as we can see that we have teams, we have players, we have games they play against each other and of course bookmakers later set the odds, so we can bet. CSGO betting is similar to betting on any other sport that we know. The true concept of betting is basically the same – to win you must bet on positive expected value and beat the market.
The market is pretty young at this moment, but it grows exponentially, especially after the COVID happened, because most of the sports were shut down and esports games were played basically without any problems. But the covid situation was just small positive push against other sports. The real reason, why esports betting and csgo betting is the next big thing is because younger generation love video games. And when we have the market, when have liquidity, we have money involved and bookmakers will offer more and more bets.
From Business insider: “Total esports viewership is expected to grow at a 9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2019 and 2023, up from 454 million in 2019 to 646 million in 2023”
What are most popular csgo betting markets?
Currently most popular markets are moneyline bets, where we simply bet on a team to win the game, like in MLB for example.
Other very popular markets are handicaps, similar to spread betting in basketball, tennis or football.
And I see that live betting is more and more popular among bettors, because they can speculate with the maps and how the teams will play each map.
Where can I find free csgo betting statistics?
The best site with free statistics about players and teams is hltv.org site, where you can find rankings for players, teams, lineups and many other useful info, including where to watch games live.
How and why I started betting csgo and esports?
First of all we all must understand how betting market works. When we have a lot of people who are willing to watch games and at the same time place bets (targeted audience for bookmakers are men), we also have very good environment for betting. Bookmakers make money with betting margins (or betting commissions if you like), because they have created small edge with every single bet.
And because I also follow trends in the World not only from betting perspective but also from financial, technology,… I see that this is basically the next big thing. Smaller and exotic leagues in other sports will never reach the level that we will see in eSports in the future, which is happening right now. Young people love video games and streaming, players who play esports have very good salaries and are basically stars with the fans, like we see in other pro sports.
When we combine this information with the understanding sports betting and how betting is basically relative competition against others (not only against bookmakers), now is the time to take the advantage. The market is new and young. Esports betting is young and new. Csgo betting market is not that sharp like nfl betting or nba betting. And I see this as an opportunity.
The first thing I did is to research the market. I saw different leagues and video games that are played now (League of Legends, Dota,…), but I found that CSGO is the best for the start, because it is at least for me least complicated. We have two teams, who will basically shot against each other and we can use these csgo statistics to create esports betting model.
Then used my sports betting knowledge and betting concepts to build csgo betting model, where I estimate my own probabilities. I turn these probabilities into the odds and look for positve expected value (+EV). You can also read more about my csgo betting in my blog post here.
What is a good csgo bet prediction?
The deeper you go with the understanding csgo betting markets, csgo teams and players, the better predictions you will make. But the very basic concept is the same for all sports. Bookmakers will offer the odds and these odds represent the prices. These prices will move before the games will start and every sports handicappers goal is to find the value. The value is basically the difference between your estimated probability and implied probabilities from bookmakers. Good csgo bet prediction must include estimated win% and calculated value. A lot of people do this in their heads and with the intuition, which never works on the long run, or if I am more precise – it will not work for most people (the rest – survivorship bias). I would recommend to focus on lineups, because players can change or even trade. After you make a final bet, it is very important to track your bets. The more info, the better, but here are some bet tracking info you must pay attention: profit, number of bets, yield, roi, closing line value. If you don’t have betting tracker, you can download my betting tracker here. But in general good bet prediction is when you outsmart the market. If you bet on the odds and they drop later in your favour. This is the simplest explanation. To learn more and go deep with the topic check my free course here if you didn’t sign up yet.
CSGO betting spreadsheet
Here is example of my CGSO betting spreadsheet and how I estimate my odds and probabilities. My method is looking for discrepancy between mu estimated csgo odds and bookmakers odds. I used logistic regression. To get my private esports csgo betting model to download you must be a member.
Best CSGO gambling sites?
With the popularity of esports, more and more bookmakers offer bets. More and more bookmakers offer different betting markets, betting types, live betting,…and this has the bright future.
But there are eSports focused betting sites who offer variety of games, different bet types and in general pay the most attention to esports and of course csgo betting too.
eSports betting in USA?
The best way to bet esports and csgo online for USA plyers is either Unikrn, which is US Friendly or betting on already trusted bookmakers like Bovada, MyBookie, Betonline,… who already offer variety of esports games for US bettors and sports handicappers.
Unikrn eSports betting bonus:
Bovada eSports betting bonus:
Bitcoin sSports betting
The trend I see is that many players, fans or other eSports enthusiasts are also very positive about bitcoins and cryptocurrency future. Many esports bettors are looking to bet with the bitcoins and this is why I think that future esports and csgo focused betting sites will offer crypto transactions, but at this moment we already have some bitcoin bookmakers who offer a lot of eSports games to bet:
Cloudbet, Nitrogensports and Sportsbet.io are the best bitcoin betting sites (the bookmakers account balance is held in bitcoins) at this moment.
