Betting guide 101

Made mostly for new people in betting, but might also be useful for some experienced bettors who want to improve their profitability.

Join our bettors gang at McLaren Betting group!

Introduction

So, you want to start betting on CSGO. If you are already an experienced bettor in other sports, some of the concepts i'll cover are not new for you, however CSGO betting has its own potholes.

First of all, you need to learn how to control your bankroll and emotions. There is no point in grinding bets for a week just to lose the whole br after unlucky streak or a rage bet. I identify 3 types of bankrolls:

1. Low bankroll - usually around $50 or less, hard to make anything good out of it but possible to turn it x3-x5 with enough patience. Suits best for just for fun betting
2. Medium bankroll - $100-$250, up to $500. This is a more solid amount to work with. Perfect to learn the basics of bankroll management and can get you pretty far if you are successful. However, these amounts might start to affect you psychologically, as it becomes higher risk.
3. High bankroll - $1k and above. This should be your ultimate goal in betting, because with high bankrolls you can afford betting very tight and still end up making a decent amount over time. Not recommended for inexperienced bettors even if you can afford it as you might lose control over big amounts very fast.

My tips will be aimed more at medium/high bankrolls, but if you have low money to start with that's not a problem. Learn and build it up, and eventually you will be there!

Basic bankroll management

Your goal in betting is making profit over a selected period of time. Not getting rich in 1 or 2 days, but also make enough for it to not be a waste of time. In order to achieve that you need to follow tight bankroll management.

For medium banks my best recommendation would be: 0.5-1% for low confidence bets, 2-3% for solid bets, 3-5% for the bets you think have to hit. The last category is a bit tricky though, because something bad can happen any day and it's best to stay in the first 2 bet sizes.

For high banks I would recommend: 0.35-0.75% for low confidence bets, 1-2.5% for solid bets, 2.5-3.5% for the must hit bets. Again, it's always better to risk less but stay safe than be greedy and lose fast.

Following this type of bets should keep you away from losing too much even if you are on a losing streak, but at the same time it gives you solid profit when you are winning.

CSGO Betting

In CSGO there are 3 main types of matches: BO1 (one map), BO3 (3 maps, first to 2 wins), BO5 (first to 3 wins). There are also bo2 matches, but they are very rare and usually happen in lower leagues that are not worth betting on.

- BO1 Matches:

Bo1 matches are known to be the more risky ones, because an underdog always has an advantage if the start is good. Each teams bans a map from the mappool 1by1 until one is left, most of the times the side is decided from a knife round. If the odds on a bo1 match are heavily favoring one team it's always better to either skip that match or lowbet the underdog (or go for +handicap, which i will cover further).

Another problem with BO1s is when it is the first stage of the tournament and some teams haven't played in a while or just not warmed up enough, the tendency is that in first matches one of the teams might underperform a lot compared to their normal form

Bets on BO1:

• Game winner - Nothing special, you pick a team to win. Like i mentioned before, sometimes it's better to lowbet the underdog unless there are better options for side bets
• Round handicap - There are two types of round handicap: - and +. For -handicap, for example, -3.5, a team that you chose has to win 16-12 or less. This is calculated by 16-3.5=12.5, therefore as long as their opponent has less than that the bet is won. For +handicaps situation is similar, but if you choose +3.5 your team has to win at least 13 rounds (or 16 if it goes to overtime). This kind of bets are often very profitable when you choose a favorite team with -handicap instead of game winner bet, but there are some risks when the handicap is too big
• Round total - Total over26.5/under26.5 or other values. What this means is the game has to pass (or not pass) a certain amount of round. For 26.5 the game has to end with either 16-11 or higher for over, or 16-10 or less for under.

- BO3 Matches:

BO3 is the most common format for CSGO, as it is a better way of determining a better team. Each team bans 1 map, picks one map, then ban the rest of the maps until 1 is left. Sometimes it happens that teams trade map picks, which can be very annoying when you bet on individual maps, but it's also possible to call that before.

Bets on BO3:

• Game winner - Again, nothing special, just straight up winner. Advantage of the bo3 compared to bo1 is that there are less chances for an upset when a team is heavily favored, because if they lose one map they are still in and can always bounce back.
• Maps total - Over/under 2.5 maps. If you bet on over2.5 that means each team has to take a map, but it doesn't matter who wins in the end. Under 2.5 maps means 2-0 for one of the teams, the winner doesn't matter either.
• Maps handicap - +1.5/-1.5. For -1.5 handicap bet to win, the team you choose has to win 2-0, similarly +1.5 is taking at least one map. If you are expecting an upset and the odds are good, it's good to bet on +1.5 and underdog to win, that way you cover the match bet just with 1 map win, but if they win 2 you are even better
• Betting on maps - Basically the same as BO1 bets, but inside a BO3. Each map has it's own handicaps, round totals etc. Good for the situations when you are confident in a team on a specific map, but not to win the whole series.
• Correct score - 2-0/2-1/1-2/0-2. Pretty straight forward

- BO5 matches and bets on BO5:

Bo5 matches happen quite rarely, and they are used mostly for big finals. Depending on a format of the tournament, sometimes a team that got to the finals through upper bracket has 1-0 map advantage, that way they only need to win 2 maps while their opponents have to win all 3. But there are also bo5 matches when all 5 maps are to play until one of the teams get to 3. Bets on bo5 are pretty much the same, except the maps totals and maps handicaps

• In a bo5, +1.5/-1.5 means either 2 maps to win or 3-0 respectively. Bet for winning at least 1 map or 3-1 is +2.5/-2.5
• Total maps are over/under 3.5 and over/under 4.5

Extra tips

A lot of small details are often missed by many people, but they are actually pretty important when it comes to choosing the right bet.

• Looking at the stats all the time

Statistics are important. But what's more important is how teams play in recent matches, what the tournament is, how close the past matches were, etc. I will give a simple example, which happened in reality. Imagine a team that has a terrible winrate on a specific map, losing it to everyone all the time, but the games are pretty close instead of being destroyed. Then, after 7 losses in a row, that team suddenly beats a favorite on that same map, not even letting them pass 10 rounds. Some can say this is just luck, but their win was just a matter of time and it happened to be so lucky to be in an upset

• Team ranking

Again, a common mistake is to look at who is higher in the ranking and bet on them. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that at all. Anyone can lose to anyone in top 10-15, and outside top15 the situation is even worse, especially in a bo1.

• Tournament importance

Let's imagine one given team is playing two tournaments at once and one of them is something like Lootbet cup or Home Sweet Home, while another one is a closed qualifier for a much more prestigious one. And let's suppose the qualifiers match is after the other one. Chances are, that team will lose the first match even if they are favored to win, simply because they dont want to focus too much and waste their energy to try and win. They will most likely take it as a practice for some setups and warming up, then go to another match and be ready to win there.

• Match importance

Same way that some tournaments are less important than others, some matches are too. For example, when during a group stage one team performed so good that they are qualified regardless of the result of the next match, they could often relax and not take it serious, because why would they? It doesn't mean that the underdogs will always win in such matches, but their chances certainly increase by a lot. Another example would be when a match is for 5th/6th place decider. Most of the times the teams are sad enough with failing the tournament and won't play to their full potential in such a match.

If you found this guide useful, or if you want to talk with me or anyone else about the matches, you are always welcome in our group! Join here, and let's get the wins together!