Most Popular Games for eSports Betting

by The Admiral

Competitive gaming and gaming, in general, have been a popular pastime for many years, but the gaming industry has changed drastically since the introduction of eSports. Esports is not just game-playing; it is a multi-billion dollar industry that includes various game genres such as shooting, RPG, fighting, sports, life simulations, and so on.

Additionally, now you can bet while watching someone playing video games, which turned the video game industry upside down. Based on numerous vital factors, including viewership, events, income, and overall success, we created a list of the most popular games for eSports betting.

League of Legends

Probably the most famous eSport on the planet, League of Legends (LoL), is one of two Massive Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs) leading the esports industry. LoL is one of the most popular eSport for more than ten years, and it earned a whopping $73.5m in total prize money across over 2,400 events.

The most successful market for Lol is South Korea, as eight of the top ten earners in this eSport are coming from this country. There are around eight million concurrent active players every day, so while it cannot compete with other games that can be played on consoles, LoL is by far the most popular PC game.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

We all remember the legendary Half-Life and later Counter-Strike. The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is launched eight years ago and is one of the leading esports games globally. With frequent updates to the game, a lot of events every year, and a lucrative market in weapon skins and knives, CS:GO earned its right to be one of the most popular games for eSports betting.

All the major bookmakers, including bet365, Betway, Unibet, and Betfair, are offering betting on CS:GO, which is also the case with the rest of the games on this list. Since 2013, this eSport awarded over $91 million in prize money.

Fortnite

Fortnite has around 300 million registered users at the moment, and it’s practically impossible to find a gamer who didn’t hear about it. Even though some will say Fortnite isn’t a proper eSport because of Epic’s tendency to make changes just hours before big tournaments, it still cannot erase the fact that Fortnite gave over $80 million in prize money in the last two years.

It’s launched in September 2017 and took the world by storm and thanks to the amount Epic awarded in 2019, Fortnite quickly surpassed most of the competition to reach the third place of all-time highest prize total, behind CS:GO and DotA 2.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is League of Legends’ biggest competition. While LoL is more prevalent in Asian nations, the top 25 earners in Dota 2 are spread across 16 different countries, including the US, France, China, and Romania. Still, Dota 2 doesn’t have such a significant amount of players like LoL with the average player count for the previous several months of just under 400k, approximately only 5% of what LoL reportedly gets.

On the other hand, Dota 2 is better than every other title when it comes to funding. The annual event is called The International, and prior to that event, the players have the availability to play the “Compendium” in-game, which contains all sorts of content. Last year, The International had $34.3 million of prize money and over $200 million over the years.

Call of Duty

The competitive Call of Duty scene is present for years now, and what separates it from other eSports is the fact that it launches a new title almost every year. At the moment, the most popular COD game is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and like it’s the case with other games such as Overwatch, the COD League has switched to a franchise-based system.

Considering this game can be played on different platforms, we don’t know the approximate number of players around the world. What we do now, however, is that Modern Warfare has passed the $1 billion mark and that Call of Duty is still one of the most popular franchises ever.

This was a list of five most popular games for eSports betting, and we’re going to talk about every one of them in future articles, so stay tuned.