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eSports Betting  
 
eSports is the term that describes organised multi-player video game competitions, particularly now meaning competitions between professional players and teams. If you are new to this idea then you may well be surprised to know players battle it out for cash prizes and prestige, sometimes watched by millions of fans.

Though it might be new to you the industry has been around since the late twentieth century. However new technology, high transmission speeds and innovative services such as Twitch, which allows eSports addicts to stream video of live matches, is propelling the progaming world into the big time. Amazon think it has a big future as not long ago they purchased Twitch for $1billion, about £650. Sound investment maybe considering the sports rapid expansion which can only be bolstered by Universal Pictures upcoming 2016 release of Warcraft, a film totally based on World of Warcraft.

If a sport becomes popular then someone will think they can create a book for it, and this is no different. Well established online bookmakers are taking bets on a number of eSport competitions, including three major European bookmakers. There are four major eSports where markets are currently being made, DoTA 2, Counter-Strike, Starcraft 2 and the most popular at this time, League Of Legends, commonly known as LoL.

League Of Legends
LoL is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Riot Games organises The Championship Series which consists of 10 professional teams on each continent battling to stay in the league, the top three on each continent progressing at the end to the World Championships with a first prize of $1 million.

The most popular type of gameplay, also used in the championship, is team versus team. Here the team start with a central building, called a Nexus, protected by defensive structures and each player controls a character, called a Champion. Players begin with little gold and health but gain these through various actions in the game such as killing other champions, destroying defensive turrets and dealing the final blow to the enemy.

Gold can be used to purchase items, which will provide beneficial effects for a champion, such as being able to deal or absorb more damage and thus be more likely to kill their opponents in combat. A champion will respawn at their base not long after their death, with the delay increasing as the game progresses.

Follows of LoL can watch Championship matches through live streaming and we recommend using an eSport betting site guide if you want to bet on league of legends.

League of Legends has a large, active competitive scene. In North America and Europe, Riot Games organizes the League of Legends Championship Series. Similar regional competitions exist in China, South Korea, Taiwan, and South-East Asia. These regional competitions culminate with the annual League of Legends World Championship, which in 2013 had a grand prize of $1 million and attracted 32 million viewers online.

Starcraft 2
This game is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment. At the time of its release Starcraft 2 became the fastest selling real-time strategy game of all time, selling over three million copies in the first month.

The game revolves around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a super-species of assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced species with vast mental powers. The base version of Starcraft 2 is known as Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, which focuses on the Terrans, the first expansion, Heart of the Swarm, focuses on the Zerg race and the forthcoming expansion, Legacy of the Void will focus on the Protoss race.

There are many professional competitions and leagues for Starcraft 2, especially in South Korea where it is almost a national pastime. They even have two television channels dedicated to broadcasting professional Starcraft matches.

Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike is a first person shooter video game developed by the Valve Corporation. Set in various locations around the globe, players assume the roles of members of combating teams of the governmental counter-terrorist forces and various terrorist militants opposing them. During each round of gameplay, the two teams are tasked with defeating the other by the means of either achieving the map's objectives, or else eliminating all of the enemy combatants. Each player may customize their arsenal of weapons and accessories at the beginning of every match, with currency being earned after the end of each round.

The fourth game in the main Counter-Strike franchise is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, often abbreviated to CS:GO and this is the current format used in the tournaments that betting takes place on.

Like the previous games in the series, Global Offensive is an objective-based multiplayer first-person shooter. Each player joins either the Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist team and attempts to complete objectives or eliminate the enemy team. The game operates in short rounds that end when all players on one side are dead or a team's objective is completed. For most game modes, once a player dies, they must wait until the round ends to respawn.

In CS:GO, in addition to normal tournament circuits hosted by third-party organisations, Valve organizes or co-sponsors a series of events itself, referred to as 'majors'. These events are special in that they have large prize pools, which are crowdfunded by the CS:GO community via in-game keys bought to open in-game cases, and special in-game cosmetics - usually in the form of stickers that can applied to guns with the qualified teams logo, or used to predict the results of the tournament - are introduced into the game, and are purchasable from Valve during the duration of the tournament.

As of March 18, 2015, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments have awarded over $3.8 million in prize money, with over $1.3 million won by Swedish players.

DotA 2
DotA 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed by the Valve Corporation. It is the stand-alone sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA). The game is available exclusively through Valve's content-delivery platform, Steam. Steam provides the user with installation and automatic updating of games on multiple computers, and community features such as friends lists and groups, cloud saving, and in-game voice and chat functionality.

Dota 2 is played in matches involving two teams of five players, each of which occupies a stronghold at a corner of the map. Each stronghold contains a building called the "Ancient", which the opposite team must destroy to win the match. Each player controls a "Hero" character and focuses on levelling up, collecting gold, acquiring items and fighting against the other team to achieve victory.

To ensure that enough DotA players would take up Dota 2 and showcase the game's capabilities, Valve sponsored sixteen accomplished DotA teams to compete at The International for a one million dollar prize in 2011.

In 2015, the Dota 2 Asian Championships were held in China with a final prize pool of over US$3 million being raised through compendium sales. The American Dota 2 squad Evil Geniuses emerged winners. As of July 2015, over US$49 million in prize money has been awarded through Dota 2 tournaments, with 29 Dota 2 players winning the most money across all competitive video games and 57 of the top 100 eSports players by earnings having played Dota 2 professionally.

To date (Jan 2017) the major Dota 2 tournaments have scored the largest prize funds, the 2015 International having $18m and the 2016 International seeing $20.8m, currenty the record.

Others
The is no stopping the rise of eSports progamers and other titles will be joining soon.

Professional Status
2013 saw the US Government issue the first P-1 visas to League of Legend players making them officially players in a professional sport. The visa finally stops the inevitable battle to gain entry into the US and gives the holder the right to stay up 5 years and a whole team for a period of 6 months.

The official League of Legends eSports tournament League Championship Series was the first to be recognized as a fully professional eSport by the U.S. State Department. Danny "Shiphtur" Le was the first progamer to receive a visa acknowledging him as an "internationally recognized" athlete. For Le, a native of Canada, the visa allows him to go to the United States for training ahead of October's world championships.

Other eSports players have been granted visas previously, mostly for one-off events, but Le was the first who was able to make a salary during his stay. Convincing the visa bureau of gaming's legitimacy as a pro sport wasn't easy. "We had to get endorsements from participants and prove that this is a consistent, viable career path and people can make a living playing games," Riot Games VP Dustin Beck said.

The P-1 visa is applicable to aliens entering the US to perform in a specific athletic competition as an athlete, individually or as part of a team, at an internationally recognised level of performance.


 
 
 
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