League of Legends is a cult game with the largest audience in the world. Today it has over 100 million players on six continents. No other esports discipline can boast of such globality. League of Legends World Championships and invitations traditionally collect tens of millions from streams.
With this one product, Riot Games interrupted Valve, which owns DOTA 2, CS:GO and several dozen other games. The success of League of Legends is largely due to the patronage of the creator company. Riot organizes not only World Championships and Invitational, but also regional leagues in North America, Asia, CIS, Oceania and other parts of the world. The product is constantly being developed and actively advertised. In fact, Lol has become a kind of symbiosis between the first Dota and WOW – incredibly popular variations of Warcraft.
The organization of professional tournaments at a high level and the availability of the game predetermined its popularity. Betting on LoL has been available at bookmakers for almost 10 years now. And among the current “big four” (DOTA 2, SCII, CS, LoL), it is League of Legends that is the leader in terms of betting volumes in legal betting shops, the size of the audience, prize money in tournaments.
General information and history
Without Warcraft and the first Dota, there would never have been League of Legends. This is a cruel irony in relation to Dota 2, another extremely popular MOBA game. After all, it is a sequel to Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (Defence of the Ancients map). But back in 2009, the world saw the real heir to DOTA I – League of Legends.
Moreover, the implementation of LoL was carried out by people who were directly related to the Dota map. The first experiments began in the mid-2000s. In 2006, Riot Games appeared, and two years later, the upcoming release of League of Legends was announced. So the usual Dota map modification became the most popular multiplayer game in the world.
The game takes place in a 5v5 battle format, the main task of which is to destroy the opponent’s base or capture control points. In many ways, LoL resembles Dota2 with slight differences in the capabilities of the heroes (champions) in the gameplay. The basic principle is actually the same.
Already two years after the release, the number of registered players in LoL has exceeded 30 million. And already in September 2016, more than 100 million players played lolka every month. Such a huge LoL audience is the result of an early takeover of the Asian market in 2009-2010. Recall that Dota 2 appeared in 2013, by that time over 50 million had already played the League of Legends. Lol is extremely popular in China, South Korea, Taiwan in the USA where huge markets are based.
The betting niche for this discipline has been actively developing since 2011. It was then that the first professional League of Legends tournament was held – within the framework of DreamHack in Sweden. He was actually recognized as the first world championship. The competition was won by local esportsmen from the Fnatic team, which is better known to the Russian-speaking audience for its success in CS:GO. For the championship they received 50 thousand dollars.
Already for the second season of League of Legends, Riot Games allocated five million, of which two amounted to the prize pool of the World Championship. The title and “lam” was won by the Taipei Assassins team from Taiwan. This championship is denominated by the fact that it became the first official esports competition with a prize pool of 2 million. In 2013, the prize fund did not change, but records were set for audience interest. The audience of the World Cup was 32 million. At one point, the Worlds stream had 8.5 million viewers.
What to bet on: tournaments and markets
The greatest interest of the BC audience is caused by the World Championship (Worlds) and the invitational tournament (MSI). However, this is a kind of icing on the cake for the season in LoL. Championships are fleeting and can be said final. Regional leagues and tournaments take place throughout the season.
The so-called Championships Series is divided into the regular season and the playoffs. Regional Series Winners and Split Champions automatically qualify for the World Championship or advance to the Play-in Preliminary Round. From strong regions (Europe, China, North America, etc.), two teams get into the main draw at once.
Bookmakers regularly roll out a line to all the most important regional series (there are 14 in total):
- Europe;
- North America;
- China;
- South Korea;
- Taiwan.
Events from minor regions such as Turkey, Vietnam, Japan, South America also appear. Most zones have several divisions at once. Offices like GG.bet or EGB offer to bet on the events of the lower leagues.
In North America, in addition to the professional league, there are also student championships. By the way, in the USA, “lohlers” are equated with professional athletes. And some powerful players go on to college scholarships like basketball players or football players.
Long-term markets in LoL are classic: who will become the champion of the tournament/league, who gets into the top three, from which region the winner will come. Some bookmakers even offer to bet on transfers of top players who will win the MVP title. But such offers are rare.
- Matchmaking in LoL is almost the same as in DOTA 2, since the games are similar in meaning and principle. The basic line of the event in the bookmaker includes the following bets:
- Outcome: P1 or P2;
- First Blood: which team will get the first kill;
- General total: matches in League of Legends are held in the best of format, that is, the one who wins two maps wins. One option is proposed here: TM or TB 2.5;
- Who will win the first / second map;
- Handicap on cards;
- Correct score: 2:0, 0:2, 2:1 or 1:2;
- Win at least one card;
- The number of kills on the first map is usually set at around 50.5.
The best bookmakers to bet on LoL
In League of Legends, unlike Dota 2 and CS:GO, there is no extensive skin economy. Therefore, the niche of skin-betting, in which children graze with might and main, does not develop. Bets on LoL can be made in specialized eSports offices, international betting shops and legal Russian companies.
Three or four best options among specialized offices: EGB, Rivalry, Thunderpick, GG. The most extensive line is presented in GG – in the schedule of matches of the main draw of the world championships and key events in the Championships Series, bets are available on individual performance of gamers, the killing of the Baron, the demolition of towers. At the same time, the margin is kept at the level of 6-7%.