PandaScore Esports Betting Report — October 2021
October 2021 was one of the busiest months for esports on record.
The big 3 esports for betting all had blockbuster tournaments, drawing in viewership in the millions and plenty of people taking a punt on their favourites teams and titles.
The big 3 esports for betting all had blockbuster tournaments, drawing in viewership in the millions and plenty of people taking a punt on their favourites teams and titles.
It was the busiest month on record for our traders.
We had Dota 2’s The International, the League of Legends World Championship, the tail end of IEM XVI Fall and of course the absolutely enormous PGL Major.
And that’s just the S-tier tournaments!
With several big CS:GO tournaments concluding, running or starting through the month of October, the shooter still firmly holds the spot as the number 1 turnover earner for bookmakers.
PGL and IEM both running during October meant that CS:GO and first-person-shooter (FPS) fans had plenty to chew on. With LoL Worlds and Dota 2’s The International also running, it was the busiest month to date for our traders!
Of not is that with both of the world championships for LoL and Dota on, their positions flipped in terms of ranking by total turnover. There are many contributing factors to this, including that during the LoL regular season, the franchised league structure of competition lends itself to more games, and thus more opportunities to bet. However when measured pound for pound in a tournament setting, Dota 2 proves to be the more popular among the two.
With 3 to 4 of the biggest tournaments on this year’s esport calendar happening all at once, the prematch/live split was always going to be interesting to see.
We’ve found that League of Legends often attracts more prematch bets compared to CS:GO and Dota 2. Considering Worlds is the biggest event of the year for the title, it’s contribution could be a big reason why we see the split lean more towards the 50–50 than the 60–40.
The PGL Major was the biggest event for viewership ever in CS:GO, breaking records with a peak viewership of nearly 2.75 million people. It was a much hyped event with some absolute banger matches, so it comes as no surprise that with sky high viewership numbers and great matches that it generated plenty of betting activity.
PGL had a healthy lead over second place, but with The International coming in at second for the month of October, it demonstrates the size and popularity of Dota 2’s biggest event with esports bettors.
It’s also worth noting that with Worlds, it’s the first time that LoL has made the top 10 since the PandaScore monthly reports began in August. Worlds is absolutely massive for viewership, and an event that many consider the zenith of esports events. But for betting it was still outperformed by IEM XVI Fall’s European season, a testament to CS:GO’s long standing betting culture.
For the CIS region, having their IEM Fall competition make the top 10 is a huge win. It’s place here amongst in amongst an incredibly busy CS:GO calendar is indicative of the strength of the organisations in the region, as well as the interest and engagement of esports punters with their home teams.
Our top 4 markets stayed the same as the previous month of September, but from there we saw a decent amount of differentiation.
Match Winner 2-Way for League of Legends took the number 5 spot, the first LoL market to make the top 10 since reporting began. Considering the simplicity of this market and LoL punters preference for prematch betting, this market’s placement in the top 10 rankings makes a lot of sense.
The presence of of an additional Dota 2 market, ‘Match Winner 3-Way’ is also indicative of the popularity and interest in The International as well.
The top 10 matches of the month is where we really see some differentiation. The final of Dota 2’s The International topped out all matches for turnover. Team Spirit vs PSG.LGD was a barn burner of a final that went to all 5 games. PSG.LGD once again fell at the final hurdle while Team Spirit, a huge dark horse at the tournament, surprised absolutely everyone. The hype of the series, the back and forth of it all resulted in it being the top match of the month.
For the PGL Major, the Challengers Stage was the first leg of the 3 stage competition. Run in a Swiss System format, there were plenty of games on and towards the end, some very high stakes.
The MOUZ vs BIG matchup was the second last series of the Challengers Stage, with the winner progressing onto the next leg of competition. BIG took home the first map 16–10, before MOUZ recovered to take the final maps 16–12 each.
October 2021 was the busiest month on record for our traders, and record breaking month in many aspects both viewership and betting related. The fact that LoL esports year round is often the leader for viewership metrics, but the total event came in at 4th with no matches making the top 10 is indicative of the more mature betting cultures that exist in CS:GO and Dota 2.
Coming into November and December, there is a lot to look forward to and learn. In particular, results from the Valorant Champions Tour will be very interesting to measure against the performances of the big 3.
