Are you familiar with the term “esports?” You may have heard, read, or watched something about it once or twice, and your idea about it is a video game tournament. In a way, it is. The esports industry revolutionized the world of video games and made it competitive. Now, players can play their favorite games competitively and have the chance to get recognized or even get rewarded for playing a game.

Since esports made video game playing a competitive form of sport, one thing would naturally follow: people would want to bet on it and find a way to do so. With that, as esports grow in popularity and audience, esports betting is now also a thing. Just like how online casinos and online sports betting sites have various bookmakers, these esports betting sites are also offering bookie services for people who are into competitive video game betting.

But how exactly is the world of esports like? Are they a big niche, or a small yet rising community? To answer those questions and more, here are the things you need to know about esports.

Esports is real, and it’s big

Probably the first thing you should know about esports is that it’s big. It has been big for the past several years, thanks to all the innovations in gaming and technology. Esports had been a thing for more than a decade now. It grew and saw the biggest and most significant growth in the past years as more games started to be played competitively.
There are at least 40 million people who are part of the world of esports. These are players, fans, developers, and event sponsors for huge championships. The money involved in esports is also something to take note of. Prizes in esports events can go from sponsored items to a simple monetary amount to up to $30 million in the total prize pool. If there is one thing that you can be sure about, esports is that there are people invested in it and these people have huge spending power and are willing to dish out cash for their hobbies or interests.

What are the games played on esports you can bet on?

Any game can be played competitively, as long as people are willing to start a tournament or championship for it. Even simple mobile games like “Candy Crush” can be played as an esport, if enough people want to. However, as it is now, the most popular genres for competitive gaming include massive online battle arenas and first-person shooters.

Massive online battle arena

Massive online battle arena or MOBA games involve two teams of players of up to five members each team. The main objective is always the same no matter the game: to fight, strategize, and eventually defeat the enemy team by destroying their base at the far end of the game map.

The two most popular MOBA games that are played competitively in major tournaments and championships are Riot Games’s “League Of Legends” and Valve’s “DoTA 2.”

First-person shooters

If you are at least a casual gamer, you at least know about “Counter-Strike.” The game gained extreme popularity in the 90s, and now, “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive” is considered the biggest esports game. Other shooters that can be played competitively include those that are played in a battle royale format–where a group of players would freely fight it out in a map until one person or squad is left standing. These games include “PUBG,” “Fortnite,” “Call of Duty,” and more.

Esports’ Best Players and Teams*

In this section of our guide, there are three more pages to mention. To be honest, we don’t think these are required reading, and there’s nothing here that you absolutely must know. They simply cover some related topics that we believe you might be interested in, and we think they’re well worth reading. So, if you have the time, please take a look.