The Week Ahead In eSports Betting Is Dominated By The League of Legends World Championship
Published: Oct 1, 2015 - Last Updated: Jul 14, 2023
The growing popularity of eSports ensures that most weeks, there are a steady supply of tournaments from around the globe that punters can bet on. Between the most popular games such as StarCraft 2, DOTA 2 and Counter Striker: GO to name but three.
Occasionally however, there comes along an event which dominates eSports betting and the focus of eSports gamers more than any other. That time is now with arguably the biggest eSport event of the year in progress across Europe over the next four weeks, the League of Legends World Championship.
Let’s take a closer look at this event which will dominate many eSports betting markets for the month of October.
League of Legends World Championship preview
With a staggering prize of $1m for the winning team, dropping down to a $250,000 prize for the runner up, Riot Games have really pushed the boat out for the 2015 version of their League of Legends World Championship.
Many punters will have already been familiar with the tournament having had the opportunity throughout the year to bet on a large number of qualifying events across Europe, Korea, China, East Asia and North and South America. Indeed, it is fair to say that the LoL World Championship is a truly global event.
After many months of competition, the thousands of teams participating have been whittled down to the final 16, the best League of Legend teams in the world at present.
Over the next four weeks, the competition will progress at four different venues around Europe until in the Finals on October 31st, we will crown the new League of Legends 2015 World Champions.
The action kicks off today, October 1st at the Le Dock Pullman centre in Paris, France with the first of two Group Stage phases.
In this first phase of the Group Stage, which lasts from Thursday 1st October through to Sunday 4th October, each of the 16 teams will play three group games against the three opponents within their group. Teams will play matches staggered over the four days.
Having played each team once, the second phase of the Group Stage then begins next week, also at Le Dock Pullman, when on consecutive days from the 8th through to the 11th October, each Group will play a second round of games.
However this time, rather than having matches spaced out over the four days, one group will play all its matches on one day. Group A on the 8th, Group B on the 11th, Group C on the 9th and Group D on the 10th.
Following the conclusion of the second phase of group matches on the 11th, the eight teams that qualify in the top two positions from each group will progress to the knockout phase, which is scheduled to start with the quarter finals in London England at the SSE Arena.
From the quarter finals in London, we move on to the Expo in Brussels for the Semi Finals a week later before the two final teams make the trip to Germany to contest the final at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin.
Who will take over the mantle from Samsung Galaxy White who were the 2014, million dollar winners of the event?
Checking the odds on the Win Outright market we find that Team SK Telecom T1 are the favourites to win with Bet365 offering odds of 6/5 on them to win the event. Edward Gaming are 7/2 shots, with LGD Gaming 9/2. Other prizes see KT Rolster as 8/1 shots, Invictus Gaming 12/1 and Europe’s best chance of success seemingly is Fnatic who are a 14/1 shot.
If you think an outsider has a chance of success then Bangkok Titans are the 300/1 outsiders for the event with paiN Gaming also a long odds chance at 200/1.
With this being a huge eSports event it’s good to see many bookmakers offering a wide range of different betting markets on the tournament, rather than simply outright winner or match odds bets. You can also bet on which team will win each of the groups, how the team will perform against the field, which qualifying region the winner will come from, whether a team will lose a map and many more.
What is certain is that for the next month, League of Legends World Championship betting is going to be hugely popular across the full range of eSports betting sites. Remember you can tune in to watch the games unfold Live online via Twitch.
Other big eSports matchups to bet on this coming week
It would be tempting to think that League of Legends is the only eSport in town this week but this is indubitably not the case with plenty of other high quality action coming up over the next few days.
CS;GO fans will be well aware for example that the PGL CS:Go Championship Series Season 1 Finals are scheduled to take place this weekend in Bucharest, Romania with the four remaining teams ready to fight it out for the $40,000 first prize.
After an exciting group stage four teams made it through to the finals:
- Virtus.pro
- fnatic
- Team SoloMid
- Team Liquid
The action kicks off on October 2nd with the first semi finals seeing Virtus.pro take on Team Liquid and Fnatic facing off against Team Solomid.
The competition will then progress through until Sunday’s Grand Final where the winner of the $40,000 top prize will be declared.
StarCraft2 2015 Proleague news
In StarCraft2 news, the finalists of the 2015 Proleague Playoffs have now been decided after an enthralling semi final clash between CJ Entus and Jin Air Green Wings earlier this week. After two close games, it is Jin Air Green Wings who have emerged as being SK Telecom T1’s opponents in the final after a stunning victory over CJ Entus.
The Green Wings won the first match in dramatic style on the sudden death final map after the teams were all square after the first six match ups. Rogue proved to be the hero for Jin Air as he defeated herO to clinch the first match in the best of three series.
The following day, things looked likely to go to the wire once again after the teams shared the first four maps to tie 2-2, however player sOS of Jin Air proved to be the match winner defeating hero and then ByuL in successive match ups to hand Jin Air a 4-2 victory and a place in the final.
The final will be played next week on October 10th (and we’ll bring you a bigger preview of that in next weeks article).
CJ Entus player ByuL will be in action this weekend however in the 2015 Global StarCraft II League Season three final when he takes on INnoVation of SK Telecom T1 to be declared the champion and of course, there’s more than a few betting sites taking bets on this big individual match up between two of the best StarCraft II players in the world.
Since: August 10, 2015
