Counter-Strike: Global Offensive may have launched almost ten years ago, but it’s still a massively popular platform. Even today, millions of dollars change hands every year in CSGO prize money, and there are more professional players entering the scene every day. Statistically, CSGO is one of the most widely enjoyed esports platforms in the industry, boasting value, excitement, and constant growth in equal parts. However, people have recently been asking, ‘is CSGO betting still a thing,’ and today, we’re here to answer that question.
As you can imagine, a game that has hundreds of millions of fans like CSGO impacts multiple areas of the esports industry. Not only do hundreds of thousands of people tune in to watch CS2 tournaments live, but a fair portion of them also bet on those tournaments. In recent years, esports betting has exploded in popularity, rising to become a multi-billion-dollar industry. Of course, CSGO should make up a huge slice of that industry, right?
So, is CSGO betting still a thing?
From Games to Gains
Once upon a time, Counter-Strike was a simple video game, like any other. Today, it has risen to become a titan of the industry, standing firm as one of the most popular esports titles in history. Each year, there are countless CSGO tournaments held all around the world, and fans quite simply cannot get enough. However, in the last few years, one area of CSGO that has grown at a rapid rate is the esports betting aspect.
If there’s a competition, the chances are there will be someone somewhere offering odds on that competition. This is certainly true for esports betting, which has grown to become a massively lucrative industry. We’re happy to confirm that, yes, CS2 betting is still a thing – a dynamic, vibrant, diverse, and increasingly popular thing. But just how much of the esports betting industry is reliant on CSGO bets?
In 2020, LOOT.bet, one of the best CS2 gambling sites out there, revealed that the most popular esports title to bet on was CSGO. Through extensive research and data aggregation, the platform confirmed that more than 53% of all bets placed on LOOT.bet were targeting CSGO as an esports title. By comparison, the next most popular title was Dota 2, with a 35% share.
So, if you’re asking, ‘is CSGO betting still a thing,’ that figure alone should be enough to convince you that it is. There are plenty of people out there using the game they love to make financial games, and esports betting is the easiest way to do that.
The Other Side of the Market
When we talk about CSGO gambling or CSGO betting, we can also talk about CS2 skin gambling. This is, for all intents and purposes, totally separate from standard CSGO esports bets, and it involves using in-game cosmetic items to bet with. It’s an unregulated and unsupported practice, but almost for as long as CSGO skins have existed, people have taken part in it.
With skin gambling, quite literally anybody with CSGO skins can use them to wager, withdraw, and deposit on various CSGO skin gambling sites. However, it’s a relatively shady, grey area, and Valve, the developer behind CSGO, is firmly against the practice. If you want to make money with CSGO, it’s much more advisable to do so through traditional means – standard, safe, and reliable esports betting.
Although, this isn’t the only example of potentially malicious gambling-related behaviour in the CSGO market. For instance, through 2021, an intense CSGO gambling scandal was passing through the airwaves. As CSGO is such a huge and prolific platform in general, there are plenty of opportunities for wrongdoing to arise.
Take our advice – CSGO gambling is still a thing, but make sure you do so responsibly, using reputable platforms.
Read Also: Is CS2 Betting Profitable?
