How Great Successes And Failures Shape The Skin Betting Market

Posted on June 7, 2016 - Last Updated on October 13, 2021
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With Twitch releasing its new live stream clipping service, Clips, third-party services like OddShot and PlaysTV are facing extinction. As a result, questions regarding Clip’s influence on the skin gambling scene are raised.

Do skin gambling highlight clips have an impact on the betting community? Let’s run through some of the most famous skin betting incidents and discuss how they can affect viewers’ perception of the skin gambling terrain.

Wins

Single bets

Probably the most famous single bet clip is mOE winning $70,000 on CS:GO double. Because it occurred at a time where bets of this size weren’t recorded, the community gave the clip a lot of attention.

As the first to record such an incident, and possibly even the first to win a CS:GO bet of that amount, mOE’s video went viral.

Winning streaks

Winning streaks help website traffic because they make the game’s random number generator (RNG) look favorable.

Skin betting services benefit most from winning streaks. For website owners, streaks suggest an untrue attribute of their services. Namely, that the RNG of their website favors the player.

In reality, the more the user plays, the more he is expected to lose. So, these clips encourage players to go for the long run — an approach that ultimately favors the service owner.

Snipes

Snipes are often considered the most entertaining way to win a bet. They’re unexpected and lead to short moments of incredible tension.

As snipes result from unlikely situations, they can generate huge amounts of positive publicity for betting sites.

Losses

All-in

All-ins are extremely risky.

Clips showing all-in losses have the potential to reduce revenue for skin betting services. Viewers see this as a reason not to use the website because they prove to be the cause of someone’s misfortune.

At the same time, any type of publicity is coupled with benefits. Viewers who consider themselves especially lucky are not affected by other people’s failures. Either way, one can argue that viral all-in losses result in a total net loss for the website because new players will have learned to gamble in a more reserved fashion.

Losing streak

Losing streaks are especially common with dice games.

Websites like CS:GO Diamonds allow you to make several bets in a very short amount of time. Surprisingly, most people do not develop the same sort of hate that they often accumulate toward other websites.

Notice how Summit1G keeps playing despite losing several tens of thousands of dollars in skins within a few minutes. Because dice games have a vast array of settings, players’ first instincts are to blame themselves instead of the service.

After all, maybe it’s just the strategy that caused the loss.

Accidents

Accidents show that sometimes betting services do not have the necessary safeguards to prevent people from making mistakes.

These tend to occur in roulette and jackpot websites where the timing of your bet causes a difference in the result. If you place your bet during a busy pot, but the website is so loaded that your skins are deposited the following round, your bet can fall under unexpected odds and lose.

People who suffer from accidental losses will be reluctant to return to the same website. Conversely, negative publicity can lead to new customers.

In this case, the net sum spills over to the positive side. Onlookers are led by the notion that they would never make such a silly mistake, allowing the esports betting service to fully reap the benefits of exposure.

How can we use this information?

Overall, one can interpret popular betting events two different ways.

From the perspective of a bettor, famous events unveil the extremes of a betting service. If you don’t like what you see from the clips, those websites aren’t for you.

Conversely, if a clip excites you, go ahead and try the service.

From the perspective of a site owner, popular events act as publicity. Whether the exposure is positive or negative, it should lead to net-gains for the service.

Knowing this, the system can be manipulated to be more snipe, win-streak and accident-prone, as these incidents yield the highest number of new customers.

Martin Stuessy Avatar
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Martin Stuessy

TFT mourner. CS:GO addict. Philosophy @ Ohio State. English/German/Spanish/French in order of ability. Culturally confused. Writes about esports, CS:GO and other topics. Follow @MartinStuessy on Twitter.

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