PandaScore Esports Betting Report — September 2021
Esports is the fastest-growing vertical in the broader betting space, but understanding the shape of that growth is also incredibly important.
At PandaScore we want to help educate everyone in the space about some of the finer points of what the market actually looks like so they can make smarter, more informed choices.
So here’s your monthly esports betting breakdown for September 2021.
With close to 80% presence, CS:GO dominated the turnover numbers for September 2021. A major contributor to this was the conclusion of the hugely popular ESL Pro League, where Na’Vi continued their run of success to take the win over French outfit Vitality.
This was supplemented with a high number of top-level games in the BLAST Premier Fall competition and many mid-tier CS tournaments. It meant that September saw PandaScore provide operators with the highest number of CS:GO matches to offer their customers of any month over the last 12.
League of Legends and Dota 2 swapped places in September as well. This is due to the fact that aside from the final days of LPL competition at the start of the month, all of Riot Games’ franchised leagues had a player break to travel and prepare for the World Championship in October.
While many teams were preparing for Dota 2’s The International as well, some tournament organisers saw a gap in the market this month and offered competitive tournaments for players and punters alike.
September saw a return to the general expectation of a 60–40 split between live and prematch betting.
Keeping in mind the presence of CS:GO in total turnover, a significant contributor to the change compared to last month was the structure of the BLAST Premier Group Stage itself, as well as many of the other Counter-Strike tournaments that ran.
The BLAST group stage did not run its group stage in a round-robin format, but each group ran its own double-elimination bracket. This meant that there were fewer games being played at the same time, and the stakes were also heightened considering every series counted.
With LoL notably absent, it comes as no surprise that Counter-Strike competitions dominated the Competitions standings. As mentioned, the ESL Pro League was an enormous contributor to total turnover, in particular thanks to the Playoffs which were absolutely massive and had an average concurrent viewership of 133,908 people.
Backed by BLAST Premier Groups Fall, a suite of mid-tier competitions and IEM Fall firing up at the tail end of the month, CS:GO dominated the top 10. As noted, the tournament run by Beyond the Summit (BTS) provided quality Dota 2 content for punters in the quiet period before TI10.
The dominance of CS:GO markets is par for the course for September 2021, with the #4 sport of ‘Game Winner 2-Way’ for Dota 2 being quite attractive for punters looking to bet on that game something to note.
Another key takeaway from September is the presence of our PandaScore player props in the top 10. Coming in at #9, our ‘Game Player Kill Over Under’ proved to be a popular market for CS:GO punters and a strong indicator that there’s an appetite for this new innovation in esports betting.
Being the best team in the world for the entire year, Na’Vi always attract a lot of betting attention. Hailing from the CIS region where esports betting is more familiar with punters, the team also attracts a lot of ‘homer’ betting the same way that Team Spirit does in Dota competitions.
The first place spot for Vitality vs Na’Vi is well deserved, with the grand final series reaching a peak viewership of over 750,000 people. It was a barn burner of a series, with both teams winning maps back and forth before coming to the 5th and final map. In what was an incredibly high pressure and super clutch situation, Na’Vi managed to take the series right at the death, winning in the 30th and final round to clinch the title.
You also can’t discount second place in the top 10. The semifinal between Na’Vi and Heroic truly went the distance in a best-of-3 series. A 3 game series can have a maximum of 90 rounds excluding overtime — this series played 89 with no overtime. It went back and forth, Na’Vi winning 16–14, losing 16–13 and then finally taking a 16–14 win on the last map. An absolutely cracking series.
In a month largely absent of LoL and Dota 2 competition, we are looking forward to sharing what will be a blockbuster month of October. Dota 2’s The International, the World Championship of League of Legends and more top-tier CS:GO competition left punters with a glut of options to choose from in October.
