Bets on Dota 2

19.12.2021

Today we will discuss the intricacies of betting on one of the most popular eSports disciplines - Dota 2. During the 2020-2021 pandemic, bets on eSports, and especially Dota 2, have become a real outlet for bettors. Dota 2 took a place in the TOP-5 of the most popular disciplines for betting, and even after the return of real sports, it continues to firmly hold its position.

What is Dota 2

The most popular MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game. The full-fledged version of the game was released in 2013 by Valve, after League Of Legends, but rapidly surpassed it in popularity in a matter of months. Now professional skating rinks at major tournaments gather a larger audience than many football events.

***

The first Dota 2 competitions began to take place in 2011, even at the beta testing stage. Even then, they possessed impressive prize pools, and now this discipline is the absolute record holder for the size of prizes in the main tournaments. At the last The International, the grand prize was over $ 40 million!

***

The essence of the game, as in all games of the MOBA genre, is to destroy the enemy structure (throne). The thrones of the two teams are on different sides of the map, which is always the same. The team has five starting heroes, each of which is controlled by his own athlete.

There are only three paths between the thrones - the top line (top), the bottom line and the middle line (middle). All approaches to the thrones are fortified and guarded by defensive structures, and the rest of the map is inhabited by neutral creatures that are also quite ferocious.

Starting heroes

The Dota esports team consists of five players. Each of them must choose their starting hero and block another one for the enemy to use, this process is called draft.

After choosing, the player strengthens his character with spells and special abilities, and then develops him throughout the game, using the experience and resources gained during the battles. Heroes cannot be killed, they respawn in their starting zone after each loss of all health.

There are a huge number of heroes in the game - more than 100, and their number is constantly growing. Each of them has their own unique skills and abilities. A properly selected team is able to drag the skating rink solely on the basis of absolute harmony between the skills of the heroes.

In competitive Dota, the distribution of roles in the team is almost always in effect. Heroes are usually divided into three main and two support, the distribution of starting positions depends on their roles:

Kerry is the main hero in the team. It is he who gives the most at the late stage of the game, but at first he is weak and very dependent on supports until he acquires artifacts for damage and survivability.

Initiators and Disablers are heroes who begin hostilities. As a rule, they work over a large area and have the skills to immobilize or neutralize enemies.

Foresters are heroes who are mainly involved in farming experience and gold in neutral forests. At the initial stage, the skating rinks help the rest of the team to develop vigorously.

Supports are support heroes. They protect carries at the beginning of the game, get experience and gold, are engaged in healing, casting spells and reconnaissance.

Tanks are the main defenders in battle. They take on most of the enemy's damage, have stamina and a lot of health.

Escapers are heroes who have the ability to move quickly. They either teleport or can become invisible to enemies, which gives them the ability to unexpectedly appear in the right place on the map.

Pushers are heroes who specialize in destroying enemy creeps, towers, and other defenses.

The roles of heroes in Dota 2 are rather arbitrary, many heroes have characteristics from different role models, but almost everyone has a basic specialization. It is important to correctly distribute specialists of different roles according to positions in order to gain an advantage in team coherence over the opponent and effectively resist the selected enemy heroes.

Dota 2 line and best bookmakers for betting

The best legal bookmaker for betting on Dota 2 is the only esports bookmaker in Russia, GGbet. They have the most extensive lineup, the lowest margins and the best tournament support. Also noteworthy are the lines of the offices of “Parimatch”, Winline, “Zenitbet”, “Baltbet”, “1X Stavka”.

Offshore bookmakers are out of competition with BC Pinnacle. They offer the best esports limits as well as the lowest margins in the world. Excellent lines for Dota 2 are at the "eights" (888.com), as well as at foreign e-sports bookmakers: GG.bet, lootbet, EGB and other offices geared towards e-sports. The average level of margins on decent tournaments is only 4-7%, moreover, it is systematically decreasing as the popularity of this discipline grows.

In addition, an e-sports exchange has recently appeared for betting on Dota 2 - Betsdota2. And also other opportunities, for example, offices that accept bets on Dota 2 with things - skins and in-game items, all of which are illegal on the territory of Russia, but are available on the Internet through VPN and other anonymizers.

For almost any event, you can find the following painting:

Outcome skating rinks;
Total by cards;
Handicap on cards;
Accurate card counting.

A match in Dota 2 is usually played until the victory in two cards, that is, the possible scores are limited to four: 2: 0, 2: 1, 1: 2, 0: 2. But sometimes there are skating rinks until victory in three maps, BO2 format, in which a 1: 1 draw or BO1 is possible, that is, only one map in a match.

In major tournaments, the list is expanded, and additional options are added to it: totals and handicaps for frags, total minutes for each card, odd / even on cards, even / odd for frags, first blood on each card, first Roshan, and other outcomes.

In live, the number of outcomes, as a rule, increases, and each skating rink is supplied with an individual video stream, which can be watched without leaving the bookmaker's website. Also, many bookmakers offer long-term bets - on the winners of the nearest tournaments, the passage to a certain stage, the team's MVP, and so on.

Popular tournaments and leagues in Dota 2 (with prizes):

The International - over $ 40 million;
GWB - $ 1.5 million;
DreamLeague - $ 1 million
MDL Major - $ 1 million;
EPIC League - up to 600 thousand dollars;
Omega League - 550 thousand dollars;
World Pro Invitational - $ 500,000;
DPC Major - 500 thousand dollars;
ESL One - 400 thousand dollars.

In addition to these largest competitions, there are dozens of offline events with six-figure prizes, as well as hundreds of online tournaments with more modest rewards. The development trend of D2 in bookmakers is steadily moving towards the expansion of tournaments presented in the lines.

How to bet on Dota 2

This discipline is not very suitable for prematch bets, because each rink in it is unique and inimitable. It is recommended to bet on outcomes or totals in a prematch only if you are very familiar with the lineups and capabilities of the playing teams, and the best bets on Dota 2 are made live, during the game.

Drafting teams in Dota 2 has a huge impact on the outcomes and other markets - the process of choosing their heroes and banning picks for the opponent. With just one draft, an experienced Dota 2 player is able to accurately predict the winner of the map and the approximate course of events in it. Here we can conclude that the greatest success in betting on Dota 2 is achieved by gamers who have played hundreds of hours in it.

A good strategy can be created based on the statistics of teams and individual heroes. Now there are many resources in English and even Russian, which collect all the data on numerous tournaments and events.

Among them: dotabuff.com, dota2.ru, dotapluz.ru/meta, datdota and others. In them, you can always track which team most often makes the first frag, kills Roshan, which bundles of heroes are used most effectively. Another useful tool is the Dota Plus analyzer. It was created by the same company as the game itself, and is capable of fairly accurately assessing the probability of a victory of one or another team already during the skating rinks, online.

A few tips in one line:

Get involved in the gameplay - spend a couple of weeks in the rinks, study in detail all the game characteristics. You will understand much better the capabilities of the heroes and the tactical component of the game;
Place your bets on major tournaments. Why? There are better limits, list, margin. Also, there is less likelihood of "agreements", which are not uncommon in e-sports;
Separate the levels of rosters and tournaments. Top teams often have several rosters, rotating them depending on the importance of the event. The relative level of these compounds can vary greatly;
Explore the Meta. Understanding the tactical and strategic pattern of teams depending on the current patch is very important;
Work with statistics regularly. The best statistics service is Dota2Plus. Here you will find information about both teams and individual heroes, as well as their compatibility with other playable characters;
When making live bets, choose a bookmaker with a stable platform. Live bets in an office with an unstable platform are very inconvenient: breaks, constant blocking of markets, mistakes in odds.

Conclusion

The Dota 2 betting market is one of the most promising and underrated directions in modern betting. By learning how to beat the still weak lines of bookmakers in this discipline, you can make great money, as well as create an excellent base for yourself, developing along with this young topic.