Best CS:GO Betting Sites 2024
Best CS:GO Betting Sites 2024
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular online games and one of the biggest esports titles that sits at the forefront of the esports industry.
Released in August 2012 as the latest title in the long-standing Counter-Strike series, CS:GO captured the hearts of tactical first-person-shooter games fans worldwide.
And most importantly, it continued where its predecessors in CS:GO Source, and CS 1.6 left off – to become one of the biggest esports titles in the industry.
Thanks to its growing popularity and the rapid development of the esports betting industry, CS:GO did not need long to become extremely popular amongst bettors, and the sportsbooks quickly took notice.
Nowadays, it’s tough to find a sportsbook that doesn’t offer esports betting, and those that do will undoubtedly provide an excellent selection of CS:GO betting markets.
So if you’re looking to get into the world of esports betting, you can’t go wrong with CS:GO.
Of all esports titles, CS:GO is the easiest to understand and to bet on and present a perfect gateway into the world of online esports betting.
Current CS:GO Betting Odds
Finding CS:GO betting odds is extremely easy because any sportsbook that offers esports betting is guaranteed to accept CS:GO bets.
And that includes all of the major sportsbooks, including Bet365, Betway, Unibet, 888sport, William Hill (Caesars), and all other legal, licensed, and regulated operators.
Caesars is another great option for punters looking to bet online on esports. Having purchased William Hill, a long-standing brand founded in the United Kingdom close to 100 years ago, Caesars moved into the sports betting market and opened itself up to esports betting. You can certainly find some great CS:GO odds on their site. As a world-renowned company, they have some great free bet offers and make betting on the go easy with their excellent app.
Betway has grown in prominence in esports betting and covers some of the most popular titles out there. They offer a good market depth, ensuring that you can bet on all the major CS:GO tournaments and top teams. Being licensed and regulated in the US makes them a dependable site for all your esports betting needs.
Some sportsbooks such as FanDuel and DraftKings even offer DFS contests, providing you with even more ways to bet on the world’s most popular online FPS title.
FanDuel is one of the big sportsbooks that have moved into esports and particularly daily fantasy contests. You can find a range of different options to bet on CS:GO. FanDuel is highly reputable and you can trust that your deposit is safeguarded. Also be sure to download their app which is as user-friendly as one would expect from one of the leading US sports betting companies. Be sure to check out their fantastic free bet offers!
But while sportsbooks do an excellent job in offering CS:GO betting markets, not all are very efficient in it, so you can still find instances where the sportsbooks will make mistakes and price the games wrongly.
Admittedly, they had improved and are more efficient in setting the odds than how they were years ago when only a couple of teams were above everyone else, such as Virtus.pro and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
But they’re nowhere perfect, providing CS:GO bettors with plenty of excellent betting opportunities.
Why People Love CS:GO Betting
CS:GO Is Easy To Understand
Before you can start betting on any esports title, you need to know a thing or two about it.
And that process is very quick with CS:GO, which is a game that is very easy to understand.
It Is Exciting To Watch
CS:GO, while a tactical first-person shooter that is more slow-paced than CoD, is exciting to watch thanks to unique strategies and breathtaking plays, which there are plenty in professional games.
There Are Plenty Of Tournaments
Out of all esports titles, CS:GO has the most tournaments, competitions, and leagues, mainly because there are more CS:GO professional teams than LoL or Dota 2 teams.
As a result, there are many competitions to follow, watch, and bet on.
Reasons To Try CSGO Betting
CS:GO Betting Sites Offer Great Odds
As noted, sportsbooks still struggle in properly pricing CS:GO games, and while they have become better at it, they still make enough mistakes to provide bettors with excellent odds to take advantage of.
Betting On CS:GO Is Exciting
Watching CS:GO is highly thrilling, but you can further improve your experience by betting on it.
Nothing gets your heart racing as much as watching your favorite team play in a crucial match while you have a few bucks placed on them to win.
Non-Stop Action
With multiple tournaments running at any time of the day, there is always some action to bet on.
Be it early in the morning, at noon, or late at night, CS:GO never sleeps.
How To Bet On CS:GO
If you want to bet on CS:GO, there are many ways to do it, but no matter which strategy you use, you have to follow a few simple steps to ensure you start your CS:GO betting endeavor the right way.
Here is our step-by-step guide on how to bet on CS:GO.
Before you can place your first CS:GO bet, you need to choose a sportsbook, which should be regulated and legal, to ensure your personal information and your money are safe.
Luckily, there are plenty to choose from, so you can focus on the essential sportsbook features once you narrow down the list.
You should always choose a sportsbook that has enough market depth to allow you to bet on any games you want with as many bet types you desire.
For example, if you want to bet with CS:GO propositions bets, it’s wise to choose a sportsbook that has a large selection of those.
Beyond the quality of the odds and market availability, you shouldn’t ignore sportsbooks’ bonuses and promotions since those can add some extra value to your betting and gain you an extra edge.
To find sportsbooks with the best promotions, check out our website and use our bonus code for extra bonuses.
After you find a sportsbook that suits your needs, all you need to do is to deposit money and decide what to bet on.
At the start, it’s wise that you stick to betting on only certain tournaments or teams instead of betting on any CS:GO match that pops up.
Quality over quantity should be your motto, and you should always bet only on teams and players that you know a lot about.
And lastly, learn how to manage your bankroll and find a strategy that suits you.
You don’t need to overcomplicate things like you should never overbet – stick to the plan and don’t overreact to losing streaks.
Those will come no matter how good you are but so will winning streaks.
Most Popular CS:GO Bets
CS:GO, compared to traditional sports or other esports titles, has a very nice selection of betting markets for you to explore.
Admittedly, you will find a better selection of markets on specialized esports CS:GO betting sites, but all regulated sportsbooks will cover the six most popular CS:GO bets, which include.
To Win
To win, or moneyline, is the most common and the most straightforward bet you can make on CS:GO matches.
It’s a bet, used to predict which team will win any given match, and there’s nothing more to it.
Round Handicap
Like you can bet on point handicaps in basketball – handicapping the favorites by X amount of points or giving the underdogs an X point advantage – you can use the same type of bet in CS:GO, only here there are no points, but instead rounds.
Traditionally all CS:GO matches are played as best-of-30, where the first team that reaches 16 gets crowned the winner.
So if you believe Virtus.pro can defeat Evil Geniuses by at least five rounds, you can bet on them with a -4.5 round handicap, and your bet will win as long as Evil Geniuses don’t win more than 11 rounds.
The same principle applies the other way around, with a +4.5 round handicap bet on Evil Geniuses.
Map Handicap
Like you can bet on round handicaps, you can also bet on map handicaps, but know that this bet is only available in best-of series, where the teams need to collect more than one map to win the match.
CS:GO games are commonly played as best-of-three (Bo3), where a team that wins two maps wins the series.
In such instances, the sportsbooks will over a +/-1.5 map handicap, allowing you to either predict that one team will win 2-0 or that the underdogs will either win the series or at least one map.
Kill Handicap
Even though kills aren’t necessarily the main goal of the game, betting on kills, more precisely kill handicaps, is extremely popular.
It works the same way as round, and map handicaps, where you can predict how many more kills will Team A have compared to Team B by the end of the map.
Some sportsbooks will even offer you a kill handicap on total kills across the series, but those bets are far less common.
Totals
Totals (or over/under) betting in CS:GO works on the same principle as totals work in basketball, football, soccer, and other traditional sports, which means that the sportsbooks will predict a certain statistic in a game, and then you can bet on whether that number will be higher or lower than the one presented.
In CS:GO, you can bet on over/under maps, rounds, and kills, and while the three bets differ, they’re all popular amongst the betting community.
Note that you can only bet on total maps in the best-of series where the teams will play more than one round.
Props
Although less commonly used than monyeline, handicap, and totals betting, props or proposition bets are still commonly used when betting on CS:GO.
There is a wide selection of prop bets divided into two sections – team props or player props.
Depending on the sportsbook you use, you will get presented with a wide variety of prop bets, which include: which player will score more kills (H2H), which team will win the pistol round, which maps will be picked, and more.
Note that the selection of prop bets will differ depending on the sportsbook you use.
Top CS:GO Betting Tips
Getting into CS:GO betting is easy, but everyone needs some help to become good at it.
Here are our top five tips for CS:GO betting that will help you on your journey of becoming a CS:GO betting expert.
Watch Professional Games
Before you can bet on CS:GO, you need to understand the game and familiarize yourself with the players.
Of course, you can achieve that with many things, but watching professional games is the easiest way.
Play The Game Yourself
If you want to learn more about the game, playing it yourself will help you greatly.
Even if you’re not a gamer, you should at least try and play a couple of matches to get a better feel of the game.
And the best part – CS:GO is a free game, so you really have no excuse for not trying it out.
Find A Solid Sportsbook
Before you place your first bet, you need to register at a sportsbook, which is one of the easiest things you need to do but also the most important one.
It’s essential that you find a legal and regulated sportsbook with enough market depth and solid CS:GO betting odds, as only this way you can guarantee you will get the most from your bets.
Keep It Simple
The simpler you keep your CS:GO betting, the better off you’ll be.
Find a strategy that suits you, keep it simple, and stick to it.
Follow The Game Updates
CS:GO, like any other esports, changes with time, mainly due to the updates and patches the game developers introduce.
CS:GO is no stranger to updates that change the game’s meta and how the game is played – and you should always know the current state of the game before you place your bet.
Special CS:GO Betting Markets
There are many ways to approach betting on CS:GO, and there are many different bet types you will find betting on CS:GO that are not found elsewhere.
Admittedly, there are some similarities between CS:GO betting markets and betting markets of other FPS titles, but even then, there are a few unique markets that exist in CS:GO that you might not find elsewhere.
Most notable is round betting, which isn’t very common in other esports titles.
Meanwhile, bets such as “team to win pistol round” is unique to CS:GO since pistol rounds are not something you can find in any other esports title.
Likewise, betting on which player will have the highest headshot percentage falls into the same category of bets unique to CS:GO, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
Since these bets are generally more complex, they’re usually reserved for the most experienced CS:GO bettors.
But if used properly, CS:GO special bets can be highly profitable.
Who Can You Bet On?
The most common way of CS:GO betting is betting on teams, so which team will or by how much a team will win any given match/tournament.
So if you want to bet on Astralis to win the next match or the upcoming Major, you can do that.
And just like you can bet on teams, you can also bet on players, granted with different bet types and in a different way.
Most player-bets fall under the prop bet category – most notably head-to-head bets.
Meanwhile, you can also engage in DFS betting – most common on DraftKings and FanDuel – where you’re essentially betting on which CS:GO players will perform the best in any given match/tournament.
Although two different ways of betting on CS:GO, you can get information about the teams and the players in the same way – by watching professional games and checking out reputable betting sites that offer team/player stats, news, and professional betting analysis.
Why Is CS:GO Betting Different To Traditional Sports Betting
If you have ever bet on sports, you should have a pretty good idea of how betting works, how to read odds, and the terminology used in the betting world.
And while all that is useful, you should know that betting on basketball, football, or soccer is much different to betting on CS:GO and esports in general.
CS:GO and esports, in general, are far more unpredictable than traditional sports, mainly because game-changing plays can happen in a blink of an eye.
And that is also why in-play betting is highly popular and potentially lucrative for those who can spot these plays before they happen.
Getting An Edge At CS:GO Betting
Making a profit with betting isn’t easy, and even the most experienced bettors sometimes struggle to get ahead.
That is why you must get an edge over the sportsbooks any way you can – and there are a couple of ways you can do it.
The best and simplest way to gain an edge is to bet with the best odds, which you can achieve by having accounts with multiple sportsbooks.
While CS:GO odds will be available on most regulated sportsbooks, the odds they provide won’t be the same, leading to situations where one sportsbook will offer +110 on one team to win a specific match while another sportsbook will have the same team priced at +120.
But while shopping for better odds is essential, you won’t be able to place bets if you don’t know what to bet on.
That’s why it’s beneficial if you watch the games, including some lower-division tournaments in which the players from the top teams appear.
The most notable example is academy leagues which feature young players that could one day get promoted to the main team and compete in the upper leagues.
And while we talk about grabbing as much information about the players and the teams, it helps to follow their social media.
If a player gets sick or is unable to play, he will likely first make sure to inform his social media followers before the team announces it.
And if you can get ahold of that information before the general public (and the sportsbooks), you’re set to make a solid bet.
Lastly, finding a site that can provide useful information on the players and the teams, such as stats, will benefit your CS:GO betting endeavor.
Admittedly, you should never follow the stats blindly and instead put more focus on what you see while watching games, but you should remember that stats never lie and can show you information on teams that you might have missed.
CSGO Tournament & Prize Pool
Counter-Strike tournaments have been around for over a decade now.
The first competitions were mostly smaller LAN events between friends, but as time went on and CS became more popular, the tournaments transitioned into professional events, with sponsorships and massive prize pools.
The CS:GO competitive ecosystem is different from many other esports titles in that it doesn’t have a league but rather many tournaments hosted by different tournament organizers.
Those include ESL, BLAST, DreamHack, PGL, and more.
The tournaments are further divided into Tiers, from small C-Tier events to S-Tier events (formerly known as Premier Tournaments), featuring some of the best teams globally and massive prize pools.
Some of the biggest S-Tier CS:GO events include BLAST Premier, which is a series of tournaments that runs across the year and concludes with BLAST Premier World Final that features a $1 million prize pool.
Besides BLAST Premier events, we also have ESL Pro League, a tournament that happens twice a year, lasts for roughly a month, and features 24 teams competing for the lion’s share of the $823,000 prize pool.
Most S-Tier evets see thousands of viewers tune in to watch the world’s best CS:GO teams compete for the coveted titles, but out of all S-Tier events, none can compare to CS:GO Majors.
A CS:GO Major is the game’s equivalent to a World Championship, and it welcomes only the top CS:GO teams from all corners of the world to compete for the Major title and the largest slice of the prize pool.
Majors traditionally happen twice a year (in February and September), usually offer a $1,000,000 prize pool, and are hosted by one of many prominent tournament organizers.
In 2021, the PGL Major Stockholm featured an increased ($2,000,000) prize pool due COVID-19 made hosting Majors impossible throughout 2020.
It also reached record viewership numbers, with the finals topping 2.7 million viewers.
A Brief History Of CS:GO Betting
There is no clear date when CS:GO betting began, but we know it was viral in 2013-2016 on the skin betting sites.
By many, those were the golden days of CS:GO, when players such as Robin “flusha” Rönnquist, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, and Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács were at their peak, competing in some of the largest esports events the esports scene has seen.
But on the betting side of things, those were the dark days of CS:GO, as most betting was done via shady and illegal websites.
However, as time went on, skin betting slowly died out – mainly due to Valve’s interference which shut down most of skin gambling sites – and we moved away from betting with skins to real-money betting.
Nowadays, sportsbooks hold CS:GO at the same status as any of the major traditional sports, offering extensive coverage of all major events and more than enough betting markets to you to choose from.
Is CS:GO Betting Legal?
CS:GO betting is legal. But it wasn’t always like that.
In the earlier ” skin betting” days, betting on CS:GO was hardly regulated and, in some cases, even illegal, but those days are long gone.
Midway through the 2010s, many sportsbooks became aware of CS:GO’s popularity, and they did not hesitate to start offering betting markets on the esports title, which quickly found its place on most sportsbooks.
Nowadays, betting on CS:GO is completely legal, safe, and regulated, in contrast to how it was in the days of skin betting sites.
However, you should know that the only way to ensure a safe betting experience is to bet on a legal and regulated sportsbook, which can guarantee some level of safety, unlike offshore sportsbooks.
Difference Between Skin Gambling & Real Money Bets
Betting on CS:GO started with skin betting, which came to be shortly after Valve released cosmetic weapon skins in 2013.
In the years that followed, more and more skin betting sites started popping up, but it was soon revealed that most of those sites were rigged and operated illegally.
Valve took action and sent cease and desist letters to over 20 skin gambling sites, which led to many betting sites closing down their doors.
Although some still operate to date, legally, skin betting as we knew in 2013-2016 is long gone, and the CS:GO betting is now mostly done with real money.
Whether it was the right call to shud town skin betting almost entirely is up to debate, but the transition to real-money gambling ensured a certain level of security that we couldn’t enjoy years ago.
Nowadays, CS:GO betting is as regulated as betting on sports, which should give you the ease of mind that you’re just as likely to get scammed by betting on NFL as you are betting on CS:GO.
So as long as you bet on legal and regulated sportsbooks, your money and personal information should be in safe hands.