League of Legends

The game was released in 2009 as a completely free to play online e-sport and grew quickly, reaching 32.5 million players by 2011, 11.5 million who play monthly. By 2014 the developer Riot Games claimed the game has 67 million active monthly players.

The level of interest in LoL is so huge that the 2015 World Championship had over 32 million viewers, that’s more than the Women’s FIFA World Cup in 2015.

It has since continued to grow, with top tournament prize pools reaching over $2 million, and audiences worldwide continuing to be engrossed in a game that requires a huge amount of skill to conquer.

It means that, if you want to bet on LoL tournaments, a little research is all you need to know who is likely to come out the winner, as skill, more than chance, leads the way to success bets.

Minions are non-player controlled characters that are spawned in waves every so often from the home nexus; they will walk across the battlefield toward the enemy nexus and will attack any enemies in their way. They are comparatively very weak compared to the champions, and indeed the turrets.

The turrets are positioned outside the nexus of each team. They deal out high levels of damage and are high in health and so take time to defeat. Obviously, being turrets, they cannot move.

Inhibitors are structures that, when destroyed, allows your team to start spawning super minions.

In order to manage to make it across the battlefield, and into the enemy base to destroy the nexus, the players need to level up by gaining experience.

Experience can be gained by defeating the enemy’s champions, minions, and turrets.

Levelling up will give a champion access to:

• New and more powerful abilities
• Increased power in existing abilities
• Improved attributes

Killing enemies will also give you gold that can be spent on new items to help improve your champion. These items can be purchased in the item shop found in your home base.

If you want to learn more, watch this great video that introduces the gameplay of LoL in 13 minutes.

The Match Format

League of Legends tournaments normally have two main stages. The groups stage and the knockout stage.

Maximising success during the group stage

The group stage involves a round robin league table, based on each team in the league playing each other a number of times (normally twice). The matches during the group stages are usually best of one game.

Best of one matches can be a little difficult to call. Much like in traditional sports, in a one off match, anything can happen.

This might mean a weaker team getting off to a strong start in a battle that the more favoured team cannot overcome, and before they know it, the match is lost.

That’s why gambling on a single match during the group stages is a dangerous bet and generally best avoided. Yes, you may have an absolutely nailed on result when the difference in ability between two teams is very large, but those winning odds will be poor anyway.

During the group stages it is generally more advisable to look at betting on the overall winner of the group. Yes it is a bet that won’t pay off for a while, but the winner of the league is rarely decided by chance.

Betting on the knockout stage

The knockout stage of a League of Legends tournament will normally be played with best of 5 matches.

Best of 5 match’s means that the informed punter can have real success with their bets, as the number of matches played will mean luck is unlikely to make an impact in the overall result.

This means that careful study of the teams, their form, and their skill can lead to you making quick returns. If you don’t fancy spending the time analysing then you can always bet on the favourite. They’re much more likely to come out on top than in a best of 1 match.

If a team is extremely strong compared to their opponent, then you can look at handicap bets in order to lengthen your odds.

We’ll look more at handicap bets later in this guide.

Researching Your Bets

If you’re going do engage in LoL betting you need to ensure you have all the data to help you make your bets intelligently.

League of Legends has a variety of excellent resources in order to do this, including:

• Watching matches to get a feel for the sport
• Analysing past history between teams
• Form roster changes

Where to go from here

You now know a great deal about League of Legends eSport which is fantastic. The next step is for you to check out our beginners guide to e-sports betting where you will find out everything you need to know to make your first e-sports bet.

If you think you already know enough and you want to make your bet right now then check out our best lol betting sites reviews where you’ll find clear and detailed guides that will let you know who you should place your eSports bets with, and will give you all the very best bonuses to get started.