League Of Legends Spring Playoff Matchups Spell Excitement This Week In Esports Betting

[toc]For evidence of how much esports have taken off, look no further than the burgeoning esports betting industry. During the past two years, it has gone from a fringe market on only a handful of specialist sites to become one of the fastest growing betting markets in the world, offered by almost every major betting site.

Furthermore, as the popularity of esports betting has grown, so has the number of esports betting events and the number of markets. There are now a plethora of esports betting opportunities each week.

So let’s begin our look at some of the best esports betting for the week, including some of the biggest matches of the season for League of Legends fans.

League of Legends Spring Playoffs Reach Exciting Climax

The League of Legends Championship Series is a massive global event that features different qualification events across the globe. The main series take place in Korea, North America, Europe, China and Taiwan, but there are also growing events in Russia and Brazil.

The past couple months have seen the Spring Series taking place in each of these qualifying regions. Now, these big qualifying events for the World Championships, which take place later this year, are coming to a close. Outstanding matches are set to take place to decide the series winners.

North America NA LCS Spring Playoffs

In the North American event, Team SoloMid will take on Cloud9 on April 23. After a solid qualifying campaign, Team SoloMid are the 4/6 favorites on Bet365, while Cloud9 are ranked as the outsiders but still a good chance at 11/10.

The two teams met in the round-robin stage over two games, and both finished in 1-1 draws. Both were undeniably the best teams in the North American section, qualifying with 15-3 (Team SoloMid) and 14-4 (Cloud9) records.

Punters can also bet on a crucial third place match between Phoenix1 (1/2) and FlyQuest (6/4), which will take place April 22.

European EU LCS Spring Playoffs

Similar to the North American playoffs, the two top quality teams of the European Spring Split, G2 Esports (12-1) and Unicorns of Love (11-2), will contest the final. Bet365 currently has G2 Esports as the 2/5 favorites to win the title outright, and Unicorns of Love are 7/4 shots. The teams met once during the Spring Split, and G2 Esports came out on top.

The third place match promises to be a closer encounter, with Fnatic the 11/10 shot against the favorites Misfits at 4/6.

Korean LCK Spring Playoffs

Once again, the two teams that have arguably been the best League of Legends teams of the past two years, current World Champions SK Telecom T1 and their fierce rivals KT Rolster, will contest the final of the Korean event.

SK Telecom are the 8/15 favorites following a superb qualifying campaign that saw them drop just two points out of a possible 18. KT Rolster are 11/8 for the win, having picked up 12 points during the Spring Split, but then they performed superbly in the playoffs, defeating both their opponents (MVP and Samsung Galaxy) 3-0 on their way to the final.

The final starts April 22 and could be the highest quality final of all the Spring Playoff events.

Chinese LPL Spring Playoffs

Things are not quite so clear cut in the Chinese playoffs with the two quarterfinals from each bracket yet to be played, although the two teams that have qualified for the semifinal in each bracket are already known.

In Bracket A, Royal Never Give Up have been seeded into the semifinal and will face the winner of the match between Edward Gaming (2/5) and Newbee (7/4). In Bracket B, Team World Elite earned the semifinal bid and will face the winner of OMG (5/6) versus IMay (5/6).

Currently, punters can get 6/4 on World Elite being the overall Spring Playoff champion, with Royal Never Give Up a 9/4 shot. Edward Gaming are 10/3, and then it is the three outside bets of OMG and IMay at 12/1 and Newbee at 16/1.

Once this event is finished and the seedings clear, any promotions and relegations from the Challenger events across each of the qualification sections will take place ahead. Then, it’s on to the second phase of qualifying, the Summer Series of events.

As always, check out the latest odds at Bet365.

Kiev Major 2017 begins April 24

League of Legends action may own this week, but on the Monday, April 24 one of the biggest esports events of the year will get
underway in Kiev at the National Palace of Arts. Sixteen of the very best Dota 2 teams will gather to compete in one of the Dota Major Championships events — The Kiev Major 2017.

This huge event boasts one of the richest prize pools of the year with Valve putting up a $3,000,000 fund for the teams to share. The group stage begins Monday to rank the teams first through 16th for the seeded knockout competition.

The lucky winner of this event will take home a cool $1,000,000; that is double the $500,000 on offer for the second place team.

Eight qualifiers earned the right to line up against the eight invited teams in this event, and the two groups of qualifiers are as follows:

• Eight Invited Teams: Wings Gaming, OG, mousesports, Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, Thunderbirds, Newbee, and Team VGJ
• Eight Qualifiers: Digital Chaos, SG e-sports, Team Secret, Virtus.pro, iG Vitality, Invictus Gaming, Team Faceless, and TNC Pro Team.

In the opening group stage, the teams will play four rounds of matches. The team with the best winning percentage will be ranked at the top and the team with the worst at the bottom. Teams will always play an opponent with the same record as them throughout the group phase until all 16 seeds are known.

At this point, the teams are seeded with the top seed taking on the 16th seed, second seed taking on the 15th seed, and so on. From then on, it is a straight knockout competition comprising best-of-three matches, apart from the Grand Final, which will be best-of-five.

Bet365 is offering a wide range of different bets on the Kiev Major. The current favorites are OG at 7/2. However, this promises to be a very open competition with both Invictus Gaming and Evil Geniuses ranked as 9/2 shots, with Team Liquid another potential winner at 11/2. Virtus Pro (8/1) and Newbee (9/1) round out the group with the shortest odds.

Outside of that half-dozen teams, Wings Gaming and Team Secret are both 14/1 chances. There are IG Vitality and Vici Gaming at 18/1 shots, Thunderbirds at 25/1, TnC at 33/1, Team Faceless and mousesports at 40/1, and Digital Chaos at 66/1. The rank outsiders are SG e-sports, who are a massive 300/1 to win the event.

Bet365 also offers betting on which team or teams will reach the final, plus a market on the region of the winner.

Image credit: Lee peiming / Shutterstock.com