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Value betting on ESPORTS

Is this the new hack of smart gambling?
VidaBlue
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Value betting on ESPORTS

Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:31 pm

I've been arbing online, value betting online and for the last 1½ years value betting in shops on outlier odds (from sharps or groups of softs). The latter has been most profitable for me, since limits are basically as a fresh new online account everytime (but there are other hassles with offline betting off course). However, markets seem to be getting more efficient and bookmakers are getting more reactive to odd movements - a development no different from any market that has money flow I suppose, so if one does not constantly renew the approach to finding value bets, the quantity of those opportunities will decay over time.

On the positive side, constantly new betting markets emerge. Betting on E-sports has grown a lot. I've developed techniques for finding value bets on my local shops, and some of those are huge when leaned up against sharps or large bookmakers (pinn/bet365).

But since Esport betting is kind of immature, I am much more wary of leaning against pinnacle and other "sharps" than I would be in soccer for instance. Some of the markets have quite high liquidity, such as CS:GO moneyline in a major tournament. Others are of very low liquidity - it could be O/U 1.5 barons in a LOL match.

I have 2 questions to the forum:

1. What are your experiences determining value in ESPORTS?
2. Does anyone know some historic ESPORTS odds database, that I can use for modelling the efficiency of the sharp odds?
Last edited by VidaBlue on Wed Jun 19, 2019 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Thu Nov 14, 2019 6:33 am

VidaBlue wrote:
2. Does anyone know some historic ESPORTS odds database, that I can use for modelling the efficiency of the sharp odds?
Were you able to find an answer to this? I am beginning my valuebetting journey and I think I have found what looks like a v soft bookie in my country.

If you were able to find database of closing odds - which bookmakers had the most efficient prices?
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Thu Nov 14, 2019 2:55 pm

Esports is still new in betting and its very dynamic. I think is not suitable for valuebet yet.
VidaBlue
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Thu Nov 14, 2019 9:02 pm

It is great to get some response on this post.

During the last 6 months I have placed 974 Esport bets with an ROI of 3.25 %. More than 80% have been cs:go or League of Legends. After the first 301 bets, I had an ROI of 14.02%. - I was thrilled, but then it started going downhill - maybe there's some seasonal variation. I am steadily value betting now, but with stakes around 50% of my bets in other sports, while I build up some experience. I have placed all those value bets with calculated EV in the interval of 5-15%, so with 3.25% being the result, obviously no line is clearly sharp in all cases.

@downunder
G'day mate! I have not been able to find a database with Esport odds. Instead I just began betting on the side which I assumed was the soft one. Now my betting history is reaching a substantial size, so I can apply some filtering and in some cases I have even switched to betting cautiously at the other side (the sharp bookie) instead. Those bets are not included in the 974 above, so I am a bit behind with the book keeping.

@wolfie
By being "suitable", I suppose you mean having substantial evidence than one side is sharp and the other one isn't?
I think you can value bet in any market, but depending on how mature the market is, betting will be different. Maybe the life span of a betting market can be looked upon this way: in the beginning there is little liquidity and high margins, but it is an inefficient market with huge discrepancies which leads to opportunities. I think Esport betting is at this stage. A very mature market at a much later stage has high liquidity and low margins. Those markets have becomes very efficient over the years shaped by substantial data, advanced models, algorithms, sharp traders and bots. This is the case with american baseball for instance.
I think there are numerous examples of sport bettors who have been very successful in both type of markets.

Users, please share your experiences and data on esports betting, so that we can help each other get smarter on this subject.
Last edited by VidaBlue on Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Sun Feb 16, 2020 6:37 am

Hi VidaBLue, i start to look for valuebets in Esports recently, and my strategy its just look for pinnacle odds (as a sharp) and compair with 365 (as a soft), there a lot of value, and different odds, but its dificult to know if pinnacle is really the sharp on this market, cause its a new one, and  every time a bet in 365, the lines in pinnacles, keep going up, and coming next of 365, and 365 just stay the same line. Gonna make this strategy for some months, and come with a feedback, but i not really sure, that pinn is a sharp one.
if you can show your results, gonna be very thankful
sorry for my english =)
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Sun Mar 08, 2020 8:16 am

I have not found any sharp sites, i tried a few, but none looks sharp at all. If you find any, please let us know.
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Sun Mar 08, 2020 5:44 pm

pinnacle odds are correct one in more than 95%
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Tue Mar 10, 2020 2:19 pm

Pinnacle have few esports games. And how do you know pinnacle is sharp? Based on some statistics? or just by human eye?
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Fri Mar 13, 2020 11:35 am

For about 3 years I am arbing with pinnacle some esports, and all the money goes to other known soft bookies :)
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Fri Mar 13, 2020 1:00 pm

VidaBlue wrote:

I have 2 questions to the forum:

1. What are your experiences determining value in ESPORTS?
2. Does anyone know some historic ESPORTS odds database, that I can use for modelling the efficiency of the sharp odds?
1. Ive been playing CSGO myself for many years. Also i bet on those matches myself only prematch tho. I would say info and knowledge about teams is very important.This has brought to me most success if we are only talking about csgo. Valuebetting purely by odds comparison/analyses works only if you bet on dropping odds. 4 example. You see that on bet365, odds for home win are 1.3 and then you bet on other soft bookie with odds 1.6-7. i would say tho that bet365 is somewhat sharper in smaller games compared to pinnacle simply because of liquidity and games not offered in Pinnacle. I think more chances are on inplay betting but that requires a very good knowledge of the games so not a suitable recommendation for you.
Im not a pro in CSGO betting, sample size is not big and i try to keep it that way. Its very unpredictable game compared to "normal" sports and therefore i try to keep my approach in a way that less is more:)
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:49 am

macola wrote: pinnacle odds are correct one in more than 95%
I definitely do not agree
sheep wrote: Hi VidaBLue, i start to look for valuebets in Esports recently, and my strategy its just look for pinnacle odds (as a sharp) and compair with 365 (as a soft) ... if you can show your results, gonna be very thankful
Sure, during the last 10 months I have had the following results:

Overall (ROI / betcount)
All games: 3,46% / 1598
CS:GO: 1,65% / 776
LOL: 5,60% / 659

Soft books (ROI / betcount)
All games: 3,55% / 1305
CS:GO: 1,67% / 560
LOL: 5,20% / 585

Pinnacle (ROI / betcount)
All games: 2,43% / 293
CS:GO: 1,53% / 216
LOL: 13,92% / 74

No red numbers! And most of this period has been just testing using lots of assumptions. During the period I have stopped many bad runs and started betting the "sharp" side instead. I'm betting mostly sharp now, because I'm staying much at home - since my last accounting about a month ago (these stats), I have made hundreds of bets on sharp. This year I will probably bet more on sharp than on the group of softs.

I believe that in the end sharpness is a 50/50 distribution between softs and pinnacle. Pinnacle is usually best at moneyline I would say - softs usually do better in special games.

I have not yet included bet365 in the equation, but I will do so in due course, in order to increase my pool of references.
Last edited by VidaBlue on Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Wed Apr 29, 2020 8:11 am

Hi VidaBlue,

Thanks for your insight. From my understanding you have built an automatic scraper right? Can I ask how you get the Pinnacle markets? Their API do not offer access to e-Sports.

Also, would you say in general that Bet365 is sharper than Pinnacle on esports?
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Wed Apr 29, 2020 1:39 pm

@Littletroll1

API is always the preferred choice and easiest - pinnacle is nice to offer such a solution, although not available for e-sports for the usual customer as you point out. Screen scraping and OCR is also done to some extent but in general sites do not like this kind of usage. There are other methods as well that are being used. Automatic notification, when a reference bookie launches new odds. Manual quick checks of odds on very specific markets, with the help of scripts. Getting data chunks from result sites and services. Nothing is fully automated. Automation is in the form of "technical assistance" for manually placing the bets.

I am not going into the specifics with pinnacle or (other bookmaker), but in general the data acquisition is always limited to speeding up on patterns that have been approved and betted on manually before.

Wrt bet365 I don't know. It will take some time to study this, but I suspect that bet365 is generally better at the opening lines. What are your experiences?
Last edited by VidaBlue on Wed Apr 29, 2020 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:14 pm

Thanks, regarding scraping that is my experience too.

Unfortunately I don't have enough data to conclude anything yet, but so far it looks like Pinnacle is sharper than softs on prematch. Out of 150 bets, I got 104.5% ROI. So it's still too early to say, but it's looking ok.

I don't have any numbers right now with Bet365 as reference on prematch market, although I'm profitable using them as reference for live esports. I tried using Pinnacle as reference for a bit on live esports, but the odds moves are very big and they open/close the odds all the time, so it's difficult.

What are your thoughts about creating model for player specials in CS:GO? Just following Pinnacle or would you take more bookies into account?
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Re: Value betting on ESPORTS

Thu Apr 30, 2020 8:32 am

Thank you for sharing @Littletroll1
Littletroll1 wrote: Out of 150 bets, I got 104.5% ROI. So it's still too early to say, but it's looking ok.
Are you willing to elaborate on this number such as average odds, average stake and number of wins of your population? 104.5 ROI seems impossible if it is calculated as the return from the invested turnover, because that would correspond to something like 150 bets with odds 2.045, all wins, no losses. Is your definition of ROI maybe based on initial bankroll size?

My thoughts on a model for player specials in CS:GO: I would not follow any bookmaker. I would take on a new approach, for me at least: modelling from scratch.

I usually look upon sports betting in evolutionary steps:

1. Bonus hunting
2. Arbing
3. Value betting
4. Modelling

I know that many arbers would disagree with arbing being one step behind value betting, and I am sure that there are talented arbers out there who have developed very advanced techniques in order to continue within this category. On average though, I think the required skill increases with each step and value betting requires studies that are irrelevant to the arber. Value betting is still kind of simple compared to modelling, because it doesn't create anything new, it simply compares and evaluates the work done by others, such as the bookmaker's odds.

Choosing player specials in CS:GO, is just to choose a niche in which I think I would have a chance. It would be too ambitious first hand to aim for a NBA O/U model for instance. I would most likely fail and lose motivation. The drawback of a niche, is that the liquidity is low. If the model deems succesful, it won't be possible to stake much money there - there's also the risk of the market disappearing completely. Pinnacle offers low liquidity lines and other bookmakers do as well, but I think it is a good beginner's project. If it fails, I might try again in a different niche.

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