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It’s that time of the year again when Santa don’s his suit, feeds up his reindeer and sets off on a round the world journey delivering presents to people.
Christmas has arrived and due to the fact 
that I won’t be around for a large part of the next week or so, this is a special article which will cover the best eSports betting available from now, through Christmas and up until the first few days of the New Year.
Of course, for some League of Legends, Dota 2, StarCraft 2, Hearthstone and Counter Strike:Global Offensive players, it will be a busy period with a number of top quality events scheduled for the festive time of the year.
I hope you have had a profitable 2015 betting on eSports and I hope you will continue to follow us as we take you on the best that eSports betting has to offer in 2016 and beyond.
Here’s some top events to watch out for at your chosen eSports bookmaker over the festive period.
Dota 2 Star Ladder Star Series Season 13 and i-League Season 4 Qualifiers
The lengthy qualifying process for this Premier Dota 2 event based in Minsk, Belarus sees the very best Dota 2 teams competing for a place initially in the Offline Event:Group Stage 1 and then from there, onto the Offline Event Playoffs (Stage 2).
The Star Ladder Star Series Seaso 13 & i-League Season 4 competition started a while back with qualifiers conducted in four geographic localities. Europe & CIS, Americas, China and South East Asia.
In Europe, Alliance, Virtus.Pro, Vega Squadron and CIS Rejects had already earned their place in the LAN finals in Belarus. However CIS Rejects have since been replaced by Team Spirit.
The final place for a European team will be decided when Team Secret facing off against the winner of OG v Team Liquid (played on the 22nd December). The winner of this final game will then join the other four qualifiers in the finals Stage 1.
Complexity Gaming are the sole qualifiers from the Americas stage after a testing competition, while the Fnatic are the other sole geographic qualifiers from the South East Asian section after coming through qualifying dropping just one game in the process.
From the Chinese qualifier three teams have claimed their place in Minsk, LGD Gaming, EHOME.cn and Wings Gaming.
These ten teams will join Evil Geniuses and one other team who will be invited to the event to the Group Stage of the LAN event in Minsk starting in the New Year.
There’s only a couple of matches to watch out for in the European Qualification section over Christmas, but this is one tournament that should bubble nicely ready for takeoff in the New Year.
HomeStory Cup XII offers top quality StarCraft 2 betting
Another Premier level event coming to a close on the 20th December is this week’s HomeStory Cup XII, which will attract many of the best StarCraft 2 players to the German city of Krefeld to 
compete for a prize pool of $25,000.
Kicking off on the 17th December, this is a tournament with a different. Organised by Dennis “TaKe” Gehlen, a StarCraft 2 legend, he invites star players from around the globe into his studios in the city of Krefled to compete and socialize with each other.
Played on the Legacy of the Void version of the game, the competition boasts two group stages, a Round of 32 stage with eight groups of four players and a Round of 16 stage with four groups of four.
There then follows a Bracket stage which is a knockout competition featuring the remaining eight players in the quarter finals. The winners of each match progressing into the semi finals. Both matches in the quarter and semi finals are best of five matches.
The winner of each semi then moves on to the final, which is played over a best of seven format.
32 players will participate, eight from qualification direct and 24 by direct invite from the tournament organiser. Players taking part include some of the more famous names in StarCraft 2 gaming including HyuN, Snute, Bly, Lilbow, PitDrogo and MMA.
There will be plenty of matches to bet on in the run up to Christmas with two Group Stages seeing at least five matches in each group (a total of 60 matches guaranteed) before we head into the Bracket stage where there will be another seven matches until the winner of the event is known.
Heading into the New Year now and there is likely to be some quality betting options available at the GPL 2015 Season 3 event, taking place in China from the 18th December through until the 3rd January 2016.
The Golden Professional League has already seen a length qualification process which has seen 16 of the best Chinese StarCraft 2 players make it through to the LAN finals, known as the Premier League stage.
The 16 qualifiers comprise of 7 Protoss, 4 Terran and 5 Zerg players and the competition will start on the 18th December with the Group stages. This will go through until just before the new year when the first Group Stage is completed.
The top two players in each group will then progress to a second group phase and from here, the top two players in each group will qualify for the semi finals, with the winner of those matches contesting the final on the 3rd January.
CS:GO Acer Predator Masters Continues Into January
Keep your eyes peeled over the coming couple of weeks for the latest action taking place in the Acer Predator Masters Season 2 competition, which is mid-way through the online group stage qualifiers at the present time.
Sixteen top CS:GO teams from Europe have been divided into two groups of eight teams and will battle it out against each other in a series of Best of Two matches to decide which of the four teams in each league will make it through to the TakeTV Studio in Krefeld, Germany in the New Year to compete in the LAN finals.
The groups have been drawn as follows:
- Group A: HellRaisers, mousesports, Lounge Gaming, KILLERFISH eSport, DenDD, ?, SK Gaming, Team LDLC.com White
- Group B: E-Frag, G2 Esports, Penta ESports, London Conspiracy, Planetkey Dynamics, Vexed Gaming, EZskins.com, Flipsid3 Tactics
Over the coming weeks the Group stage matches will be played to completion with the top four in each group moving on to the next stage of the competition in Krefeld in the New Year.
Keep your eyes peeled across Christmas and the New Year for more eSports betting opportunities with your chosen bookmaker and have a very enjoyable Christmas and a fantastic New Year. We look forward to seeing you again in 2016!
