Among the best betting sites in Nigeria, there are many that offer exceptional esports betting opportunities. Read this article to learn how to bet on esports, why you should do so, what are the best sites for it, and much more.
💻 Betting on Esports
The number of established professional sports has not really changed much in years. With the exception of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), there is only one new sport that is rapidly taking over the world. That is esports.
The esports industry is witnessing phenomenal growth at this point. So much so that it is being touted as the next big billion-dollar industry. The sport is becoming more and more formalised and professionalised as a result of the growth.
Some of the best-known esports teams, such as TSM and Cloud 9, are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The annual revenue generated from esports is in the billions of dollars range already. It is estimated that there are currently close to 30 million esports fans in the United States alone.
However, the far more impressive figures are the growth figures. The esports market is projected to grow phenomenally in the coming years. Most of this growth is projected to come from Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe.
With the rise in esports popularity, many punters are now looking for guides on how to bet on esports. This is just such a guide which tells you all about how to bet on esports from Nigeria. Despite the fact that esports have not taken off in Nigeria or Africa in the same way as the rest of the world, esports betting is a massive industry.
🖱️ How to Register on a Betting Site and Bet on Esports?
If you want to know how to bet on esports, you should know that there is a process. You need to follow certain steps before you can bet on esports. They have been explained below.
1. Choose an Esports Betting Site
The first thing you need to do is to find the best site for esports betting. The factors that you need to look at to make this decision will be explained later in this article. Use those guidelines to make the best choice for yourself.
2. Register for an Account
Once you have identified the best site for you, then you need to sign-up for an account. All sites have a registration option where you need to provide basic details such as name, address, phone number, and so on.
Moreover, this is the step during which you can claim welcome bonuses using the appropriate promo codes if available.
3. Make a Deposit
After you have created your account, the next step for you would be to inject some real money into the account. Because you need real money funds to make your bets.
Even if you get a bonus after meeting the terms, you may not be able to claim or use it unless you deposit real money.
4. Choose the Best Bet for you
Once you have the funds in your account, you are ready to place bets. But here you need to be a bit more cautious. You should spend time researching and identifying the best esports for you.
Whether you want to do League of Legends betting or other esports is an important decision. Then you have to choose the best esports tournaments, teams, players, or matches for you.
5. Place your Bet
Finally, after you have gone through all the steps explained above, you can place your bet. Select the event and the bet you want to place. Then input how much you want to bet and confirm your bet.
▶️ The Different Types of Esports Bets
A large part of understanding how to bet on esports involves understanding the different bet types. Some of the most common types of bets have been listed and explained below.
Over/Under Bets
Over/Under bets are one of the most common types of bets. It involves predicting whether the total score of a match will be over or under a given range. The range will be decided by the sportsbook.
Odd/Even Bets
Odd/even bets are similar to over/under bets except for a crucial difference. For odd/even bets, you need to predict whether the total score of a game will be an odd number or an even number.
Match Winner
Match winner bets, as the name suggests, involve predicting the winner of a given match. This is one of the simplest bets you can place on esports events.
Group Winner
Esports tournaments may have group stages before knockout stages. So, when you want to predict the group winners, you can use the group winner bet to do so.
Tournament Winner
The concept of tournament-winner bets is the same as match-winner or group-winner bets. But they involve predicting the ultimate winners of the tournament instead of a specific match or group stage.
Accumulator Bets
Accumulator bets are those kinds of bets where you combine multiple bets into one. This allows you to increase the odds and consequently the expected returns of your bets.
Handicap Betting
Handicap bets are those bets where you have drastically unequal teams competing against each other. The favourites are burdened with a handicap to make the bet interesting.
There are traditional handicap bets and Asian handicap bets. In the latter, the draw option is removed. Since there are generally no draws in esports, all handicap betting is Asian handicap betting.
↗️ Betting Value
One of the most effective betting strategies for all sports but especially esports is called value betting. It involves identifying an advantage that you may have over the sportsbook.
Assume, for the sake of this example, that you want to bet on the popular esport Dota 2. You then identify one of the Dota 2 betting sites underestimating the likelihood of an event. Therefore, the odds offered by the site for the bet will be higher than what it should actually be.
You can wager a substantial amount of money in such a bet. If the bet wins, you can walk away with a substantial profit. The value betting strategy involves identifying multiple such bets. The more such bets you can identify, the better chances of success you will have.
📝 Esports Betting Odds Explained
The concept of betting odds remains the same irrespective of whether you are betting on esports, football, or any other sport. The odds primarily indicate a couple of things. The likelihood of an event occurring and your expected returns from a bet.
The higher the odds, the lower the likelihood of the event occurring. For example, the most unlikely event in a given esports contest will have the highest odds and vice versa. Furthermore, odds determine how much money you can get if your bet wins. The higher the odds, the bigger your payout can be.
Strategy When Betting on Esports
Betting on esports is not drastically different from betting on sports in general. There are certain common guidelines, principles, or strategies that you must stick to. Some of them have been explained below.
Know the Game Well
You should restrict your betting as much as possible to sports that you have a decent knowledge about. You should apply this principle to all sports including mainstream sports like football or niche sports like esports. As esports is still a relatively recent and fast-developing phenomenon, it is natural that you may lack knowledge.
But you can easily gain that knowledge by following the major esports. They include Overwatch, Counter-Strike Global, League of Legends, etc. Find out about the biggest esports tournaments, the best teams, the best players, and so on. Download the games yourself and play them to become aware of the basic gameplay among other things. Only then should you start esports like League of Legends betting.
Be Rational – Do Not Bet on Impulse
When it comes to any kind of sports betting, you should take a level-headed and rational approach. Therefore, it helps if you can operate on logic and careful analysis instead of impulse or intuition. This will help you with all kinds of sports betting, including esports betting.
You should be particularly careful during live betting when emotions are naturally running high. During such moments, you should take a few steps back before making a bet and think seriously about the bet. If the bet makes sense to you from a rational perspective, then go for it. Otherwise, abandon the idea.
Set a Betting Budget: Only Wager Money That You Can Lose
One of the cardinal rules of gambling is that you should only gamble with money you can afford to lose. That is true for casino games and is equally true for sports betting. Even though sports betting involves skills and strategies, you will lose money quite often.
It would perhaps be no exaggeration to say that most of your bets may end up on the losing side. Therefore, you should make a budget and religiously stick to it. You should always take part in gambling responsibly.
🏆 Top 6 Sites to Bet on Esports
Once you have learned how to bet on esports, you need to pick the best site for you to do so.
The best thing about esports betting in Nigeria is that you have a great many sportsbooks to choose from. They include some of the biggest sportsbook brands globally. Moreover, you can access a range of exciting bonuses and promotions at each of them.
The table below lists the six best esports betting sites and the welcome bonus that you can claim at each of them. All of them have other bonuses in addition to the welcome bonus. But since the welcome bonus generally tends to be the biggest bonus, we have highlighted welcome bonuses at each site.
| Esports Betting Sites | Welcome Bonus | Bet on esports |
|---|---|---|
1xBet | 300% up to ₦189 280 | Visit 1xbet |
Betway | 100% bonus of up to ₦100,000 | Visit Betway |
Frapapa | 100% up to ₦50,000 | Visit Frapapa |
N1bet | 300% bonus up to ₦500,000 | Visit n1bet |
22bet | 100% bonus up to ₦50,000 | Visit 22bet |
💡 How We Selected Our Bookmakers for Esports Betting?
Given the number of choices available in Nigeria, you might find it a bit difficult to choose the best esports gambling site. But we can make that decision a little easier for you. You will find below a list of all the factors that we look at when choosing the best sites for esports betting.
You should also evaluate and compare sites based on these factors. Every factor has been explained in detail for your benefit.
🔹 Betting Offers
One of the most important aspects of a sports betting site is the bonuses and promotions that they offer. Thus, we also put a lot of emphasis on this factor, and you should too. The best sites for esports betting are more likely to have top bonuses, especially welcome bonuses.
Furthermore, the best sportsbooks for esports gambling tend to have a lot of offers and promotions specifically for esports. For example, they may have win multipliers, odds boosts, and many other offers for esports. That is not something you will get at sportsbooks that do not take esports seriously.
🔹 Odds
You should carefully evaluate and compare the odds before you choose a sportsbook. Whether it be a sportsbook for League of Legends betting or any other sports betting activity.
Odds determine your expected returns. It also determines which betting strategy would best work for a site. That is to say, the odds are the single biggest factor that makes risking your money on sports betting worthwhile. However, that is not usually a concern that you need to have with the best esports like Dota 2 betting sites. Almost all of them will have comparable odds.
You may not find a single specific site that offers the highest odds for every single bet. But the odds at all the top sites will be more or less close to each other. One site may offer the best odds for a particular bet, while another one may have the best odds for another.
🔹 Esports Markets
If there is something more important than welcome bonuses or the odds, it has to be the availability of esports betting markets. Unless you can do League of Legends betting or some other esports betting, no other feature of the site will matter to you.
Many Nigerian sites offer esports betting today. But some focus on it more than others. For instance, you will find more choices in some of them compared to others. The best esports betting sites are the ones that provide the widest variety in terms of esports betting markets. You should be able to bet on a variety of esports, including Counter-Strike Global, Overwatch, League of Legends, and many others.
Moreover, you should be able to place a wide variety of bets on a wide range of esports competitions. Esports bets can include some very complex bets, so the best sites should incorporate the greatest possible number of betting markets.
🔹 Live Streaming
In the current climate, live betting is a major activity among punters worldwide. Thus, the best sportsbooks tend to focus on the live betting experience on their sites to a large extent. There is nothing better than live streaming when it comes to enhancing the live betting experience. But this is not a feature that you will find in most sportsbooks. Only a select few provide it.
Since it is a rare feature, only those sites that provide live streaming of esports events can be called the best esports betting sites. However, this is more of a nice-to-have feature, so make sure that all the other important aspects are suited to you.
🔹 Licensed Bookmakers
Before you look into anything else, you should check the legal status of the site. It has to be properly licensed to provide esports betting services in Nigeria. The relevant licensing body in the country is the National Lottery Regulatory Commission.
You can usually check the legal status quite easily because licensed sportsbooks openly share this information. For example, you will typically find the licensing date, licence number, and licensing authority information on the sportsbook’s website.
You can easily cross-check that information against the publicly accessible database of licensed bookmakers. This is a step that you should always do so that you do not risk going on the wrong side of the law. There are plenty of legal esports betting sites for you to choose from.
🔹 Mobile Betting
Since we do most of our online activities online, there is no reason why sports betting should remain an exception. The good news is that many sportsbooks have made great progress in this regard. Almost all the major esports betting sites have incredibly user-friendly mobile sites at the very least. In most cases, you can access every feature that is available on the desktop site from your smartphone or tablet.
However, the best option for mobile betting is a dedicated mobile app. Not all sportsbooks provide this, but some of the top sites for esports betting do. Therefore, you should choose sites that offer a dedicated mobile app for your device if you are serious about mobile betting. We also place a great emphasis on this factor in our reviews and rankings.
🔹 Customer Service
Amidst all the exciting features and bonuses, the customer service aspect of a sports betting site is often ignored. But that is not how we look at things. Customer service may not be essential for your day-to-day sports betting, but it becomes crucial when you find yourself in trouble. For example, every time a deposit or a withdrawal does not go through or the site crashes, you will need quick customer service.
Therefore, you will be better off over the long-run betting on a site that has 24×7 customer service. Moreover, there should be multiple ways to contact the customer service team, so that wait times are as short as possible.
❔ Frequently Asked Questions About Esports Betting
You have to create an account on one of the best esports betting sites before you can place a bet on esports. After you create an account, you have to deposit money, choose your bet, and confirm your bet.
None of the esports is easier or better for betting than the others. It boils down to your personal preferences. As a general rule of thumb, you can start with League of Legends betting. It is the biggest esports game right now.
Yes, you can bet on teams as well as the performance of individual games during esports betting.
A draw is generally not a feature in most esports. For example, it is impossible to draw in major esports games like Counter-Strike Global or League of Legends. Thus, you cannot generally place draw bets during esports betting.
If you wish to bet on Dota 2, there are several Dota 2 betting sites for you to choose from. Pick any one of them, create an account, make a deposit, and bet on your favourite Dota 2 teams.
Skin betting is a unique form of gambling available in the esports space. Skins are prizes that gamers win during multiplayer esports tournaments. They can then be exchanged for virtual currencies using which gamers can gamble.
