Alternative trading markets - eSport

Any markets not covered in the other boards
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laurencestanley
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:42 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

CLOWNSHOES wrote:
kerberus wrote:Totally agree Dallas. Spotted below the other day - where do you post it?
YouTuber Nepenthez charged over video game gambling site.
bbc.co.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37385555
Crossover between reality,virtuality,legality,advertising and experimentising????? or trialling. Or sumtin' like t'at (I t'ink)

Wait, what exactly were they doing ? Article isnt very clear to me :|
That article isn't great so I'll try to summarise as best as I can in an ELI5 fashion:

The most popular "first person shooter/fps" eSport is a PC game called Counter-Strike. The idea is to kill all the opposing team or plant/defuse a bomb in specific areas. The guns used in game can be styled with "skins" which are basically just artwork on the guns. These "skins" can be bought directly from Steam (the gaming platform behind Counter-Strike) for real world money. They can also be traded between players. All of a sudden you have a completely unregulated currency.

On top of this, Steam has an API which developers can use to make interfaces for players to trade skins between each other. Skin gambing sites started to pop up all over the place (completely unregulated) where players can bet skins on casino table games and/or bet on pro eSports matches.

Sounds dodgy? It gets worse...

Video streamers like the one mentioned in the BBC article were broadcasting their gambling activities online for all ages to watch. There were some cases of these streamers actually OWNING the sites themselves but broadcasting as if they were new players.

"Hey, look at this cool site I've just found. I've just won $1000 worth of skins on it" etc... There were various flat-out denials of any financial ties to the companies despite some streamers actually being company owners.

It gets worse...

The casino table games (roulette etc) were operated using "provably fair" systems. Instead of using random number generators, all of the rolls were pre-determined.

And worse...

The video streamers had access to the pre-determined dice rolls and would bet big on camera to show big wins whilst encouraging others to sign up to their site.


All that aside, is anyone else betting on eSports (using regulated bookies!)? I noticed Betfair opened up some eSports markets for a day or two again this week but I don't think any money was matched.

Still, plenty of money to be made from the bookies who haven't even figured out how to suspend the markets at appropriate times yet! IEM Oakland 2016 final is this weekend and I'll definitely be watching/betting on that if family life allows!
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Dublin_Flyer
Posts: 688
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2012 10:39 am

To add a bit to Laurencestanleys summary, in a way it's similar to the UltimateBet/Absolute Poker cheating scandal a few years ago. There was a superuser/God mode where one player could see all the other players cards and bet/bluff/fold accordingly. This wasn't just 5 quid buy-in tournaments, this was live cash games!
Potripper was one of the users of the superuser account, a quick google or youtube will show the footage of it.

Personally I wouldn't go near betting on eSports where players are competing remotely. Too many variables like players modifying game code on their pc or one having a higher spec pc than another etc.

Where the players are in 1 room on an identical shared system like Xbox or Playstation, then I'd consider it if it was something I had followed lately.

I watched some of the live streaming Fifa 15 tournaments a couple of years ago, there's generally a hierarchy and after watching a few games it's easy to spot the reckless/ultra safe/showboating players and reckon how they'll do further on in the knockouts, similar to predicting the group games and knock out stages of your regular football tournament.

I never heard about Nepenthez getting charged, he was actually one of the entertaining youtubers I watched. :roll:
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laurencestanley
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:42 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

Dreamhack Masters - Las Vegas starts tonight around 6pm. For those who are unaware, it's a major Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament with a prize pool of $450k. 16 of the top Counter-Strike teams will be playing. Although it's not the biggest prize pool for CS:GO (I think that's $1m or $1.5m, haven't had my coffee yet), it will be great to watch. The commentators are usually quite kind to new audiences and should explain what's going on if you've never seen a CS:GO tournament before.

Here's a site detailing the first game of the day. You'll find stats for both teams on here as well as links to watch the tournament for free (legally, might I add). Click on the team names for more detailed stats. You'll want to pay attention to each teams ability to play certain maps & the economy in-play (teams earn money to buy better weapons etc). The first team to win 16 rounds takes the game.

http://www.hltv.org/match/2307904-astra ... vegas-2017

Don't be put off by the fact there is 0 money in the exchange. Most big bookmakers will take large bets and have silly odds as as they still don't know how to price games in-play.

I guarantee it will be a more entertaining game than Bayern v Arsenal ;)

Laurence

P.S

The map that will be played is usually announced around 5 mins before the game. It makes a huge difference on the game outcome yet almost always, the bookies odds stay the same. Bon appetit!!!
Samo154
Posts: 93
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 11:44 am

Working today but would be interested in looking at other big tournaments is there any other dates?
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laurencestanley
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:42 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

Samo154 wrote:
Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:25 pm
Working today but would be interested in looking at other big tournaments is there any other dates?
The games tonight will be on until at least 4am tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

There are quite a few other tournaments currently running/upcoming listed here: http://www.hltv.org/events/upcoming/

The bigger the prize money, the better. Bookies will more likely have markets open and go in-play. IEM Katowice should be a great one starting March 1st.
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Euler
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Location: Bet Angel HQ

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EyePeaSea
Posts: 258
Joined: Sun Jun 12, 2011 11:18 am

I'm someone who has been playing computer games (even wrote a Multi User Dungeon game once) for the last 35 years - it's something I've always done for enjoyment and relaxation, but obviously games can only ever be a hobby, not a job... And I've lost count of how many times, years back, my kids telling me that they wanted to either play games for a living or just make a living from YouTube (in the early days of channels). Whilst not wanting to pee on their parade, I felt it was my responsibility to add some pragmatism to the discussion and gently tell them that no one makes money like that....

Now the e-sports industry is worldwide and must be worth tens (hundreds?) of millions. And closer to home, their cousin actually has a full-time job writing and presenting a very successful YouTube channel in Canada.

How wrong was I (and they do like to remind me about it...) :-)
kerberus
Posts: 366
Joined: Mon Aug 05, 2013 3:28 pm

Things may be liveniing up!
YouTube to help gamers build their audiences

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/3 ... -audiences

"YouTube has bought the rights to exclusively live-stream events like the eSports Championship Series, which kicks off this weekend.
But it's also pledging to help gamers monetise their individual channels, to give eSports a "sustainable economy"."

Hmmmmmmm...............
;)
flags
Posts: 16
Joined: Fri Oct 31, 2014 3:49 pm

laurencestanley wrote:
Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:28 pm
Im interested to hear if anybody else is giving eSports much attention at the moment?

I've been playing them all my life but have been looking into the markets (currently not listed on exchanges, or £0 matched if so) on various bookie sites over the past year.

Without too much sophisticated research, it's clear that there is a great deal of value to be had. It would be great to find ways of recording even more data than what is currently available and comparing that to odds movements in-play.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with eSports: They are computer games that people play professionally. Fifa, CS:GO, League of Legends are just some of the titles that are currently popular and attracting some betting attention.

There are tonnes of great stat sites available for free online including my favourite (for the game CS:GO): HLTV. Here's a typical teams stats page:

http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=179&teamid=6902

Interested to hear your thoughts and if anybody else is paying attention to it!

Laurence
on which bookie you play esports ? I want to try and if I want to have some thoughts from experienced ppl before trying to ...
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laurencestanley
Posts: 36
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2015 12:42 pm
Location: Manchester, UK

flags wrote:
Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:58 am
laurencestanley wrote:
Wed Sep 21, 2016 12:28 pm
Im interested to hear if anybody else is giving eSports much attention at the moment?

I've been playing them all my life but have been looking into the markets (currently not listed on exchanges, or £0 matched if so) on various bookie sites over the past year.

Without too much sophisticated research, it's clear that there is a great deal of value to be had. It would be great to find ways of recording even more data than what is currently available and comparing that to odds movements in-play.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with eSports: They are computer games that people play professionally. Fifa, CS:GO, League of Legends are just some of the titles that are currently popular and attracting some betting attention.

There are tonnes of great stat sites available for free online including my favourite (for the game CS:GO): HLTV. Here's a typical teams stats page:

http://www.hltv.org/?pageid=179&teamid=6902

Interested to hear your thoughts and if anybody else is paying attention to it!

Laurence
on which bookie you play esports ? I want to try and if I want to have some thoughts from experienced ppl before trying to ...
Bookmakers are changing their approach to esports on an almost monthly basis. You might find that there is [some] money available on the exchanges closer to/during the event. This will depend on the scale of the tournament.

It's best to have a look around all of the major bookies yourself as esports don't usually get added to various odds checking sites. Quite a lot of bookies use the same odds provider but some like Bet365, compile themselves.

Sorry I can't be any more specific but there is no solid answer right now.
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