If you are into Counter-Strike betting and esports gambling, then you have probably heard about Fantasy Esports. If you’re not quite sure of what this entails then stay tuned. In this piece, we will go over the early beginnings of ESL and fantasy CSGO, where you can place your fantasy bets, and plenty more.
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What is Fantasy Esports?
In the early days, daily fantasy betting was mostly related to soccer and basketball. However, as Esports betting is becoming increasingly popular, it’s only natural that more and more esports sites have integrated Esports fantasy to their website.
It all started with ESL Fantasy which mostly promoted fantasy CSGO teams. Now you are probably wondering what’s ESL fantasy? To make it short, fantasy esports is a type of online game where you are assembling your own team. Once you have made your selections, your team will achieve points based on the results of their performance in the CSGO live tournaments. Competing against other players and winning prizes is what makes fantasy esports so fun to play.
How to play free ESL CS:GO Fantasy?
Sadly, 2020 saw a halt to ESL fantasy. From our perspective, ESL Fantasy offered great service to esports fantasy fans and here is why.
All of the pools were free to play and anyone could join. There were no fees or anything similar. Account registration was very simple. The method was exactly the same as with the other fantasy sites. You could create your own team which was going to compete and earn you points. If you made great picks, you were in for rewards. And that was the best part: even if the service was free there were always prizes up for grabs. In most scenarios, you could win gaming chairs, Intel processors, Paysafecards and various other sponsored merchandise.
ESL fantasy offered 7 various esports. By far the most popular one was CS:GO, followed by League of Legends, Dota 2, World of Tanks, Overwatch, Paladins, StarCraft II.
As stated on their site, ESL is looking to focus on other aspects of their site and highly unlikely they will return to ESL Fantasy. This is why we want to provide excellent alternatives to ESL fantasy that can be found below. Just keep reading.
CSGO Fantasy Esports Betting
You can probably understand that CSGO fantasy is the most popular fantasy esports on the market. Mainly because there are several methods where you can earn points. For instance, in Dota 2 and League of Legends, there are only two ways to earn points. Killing someone will grant one point while dying will lose you one point. There is no third option.
However, there are several ways to earn points on CSGO Fantasy. Kills, assists, and headshots will all account towards your summary, while the only way you can lose points is dying by your roster. This is what makes CSGO fantasy so interesting. Now that we have sorted out all the basics, let’s go over bookmakers that are offering Esports and CSGO fantasy betting.
At the time of writing, there are only a few sites that will provide fantasy CSGO. DraftKings esports is the best thing that happened to daily fantasy leagues. There are various other esports available there as well. You can find more information about DraftKings fantasy CSGO down below.
Truth be told, it is sad to see that, popular bookmakers such as Betway, ArcaneBet, GG.Bet and similar bookmakers did not step up in this department and hooked us up with fantasy CSGO gambling. If given the chance, fantasy esports would take the entire gambling industry to another level.
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DraftKings
Before we start, it is important to mention that DraftKings is a sportsbook fully focused on daily fantasy sports & esports betting. Alongside fantasy CS:GO, there are various other fantasy esports and sports available for you to play on.
When it comes to fantasy CSGO, there are a lot of CSGO fantasy leagues that you will enjoy. Remember that most of their markets are based around daily fantasy matches. This is why you will see the various teams and players available.
DraftKings will allow you to place fantasy bets on the best CSGO players of all time and other top tier prospects. One of the best CSGO betting tip that we can give you is to always have several star players in your team as they are the hard hitters. Keep in mind that there are various pools that you can join. Classic pools, salary cap pools and freerolls are all available here.
It is also crucial to mention that DraftKings will match your first deposit with up to $/€ 20 in free play credits with our exclusive offer available here. This welcome bonus will allow you to test things out with a small deposit.
There are also several ways of funding your account which will make things even easier. Credit cards(VISA, MasterCard, Discover and AmericanExpress) are all accepted. On top of that, you can use PayPal and GiftCards.
The best thing about DraftKings is that it is available in the USA. This goes a long way since we are aware that find a good esports betting site in the USA can be a hard mission for the United States residents.
DrakeLounge
This was one of the first Esports bookmakers on the market. At first, they were accepting CS:GO skins as currency, but after cease and desist letters, they switched their attention to real money betting.
At one point, DrakeLounge recognized that CSGO fantasy could be added to their betting section. Even though they made an exact copy of ESL Fantasy, it worked. Most of the pools were limited to either 50 or 100 players and they were constantly full. Even though bettors paid an average of $5 per CSGO fantasy pool, rewards were through the roof. Sometimes they were even offering high tier CSGO skins.
ESP.bet
In the early days, this was one of the best CSGO Fantasy sites on the market. They were offering a lot of similar fantasy pools as ESL Fantasy. There are all sorts of esports fantasy pools on this site, so there is a variety of bets to choose from.
Alongside ESL Fantasy, ESP.bet was offering free Fantasy CSGO pools as well, so that you could sign-up for an account and play for free. Furthermore, you had to opportunity to win skins alongside real money.
FREE Fantasy Pools
If you are into esports fantasy betting just for fun, then these types of pools are perfect for you. For instance, ESL Fantasy is always free-to-play and you can have tons of fun there while competing against your friends.
Furthermore, ESP.bet is offering free CSGO Fantasy pools as well. This time around, you can also get crazy rewards such as rare CSGO skins. In most scenarios, best 5 Fantasy players from a tournament will get a reward, so make sure that your picks are on point.
PAID Fantasy Pools
The word PAID says it all. Paid pools are always offering higher rewards. However, this comes at a cost. All of the players competing in the paid pool probably know what they are doing and they have done their math. This means that you need to be well-prepared and analyze teams and players yourself. Take note that almost all of the paid Fantasy pools are tied to a salary cap, which can be very tricky at times.
Salary Cap Fantasy Pools
As mentioned above, most of the paid Esports Fantasy pools are tied to the salary cap. This basically means that you cannot create a team of superstars. You will have to be very careful when it comes to the selection you make. In most cases, you will only be able to afford one superstar. Other places will have to be filled with “average” players, and this is where you will have to do your math. In most scenarios, your cap will be limited to $10,000, while superstar players will be worth roughly around $3,000, while the lowest rated players will be worth around $1,000.
Classics Fantasy Pools
In all of the scenarios, you will encounter Classic Fantasy Pools as free-to-play pools. This basically means that you can create whatever team you want. However, take note that you can only select two players from one team. Let’s create an example out of this type of esports fantasy pool.
If Astralis, FaZe, Natus Vincere, Liquid and MIBR are playing in a specific tournament. Classic pool will allow you to create this type of a super team:
- Device – Astralis
- NiKo – FaZe
- Natus Vincere – s1mple
- Liquid – Twistzz
- MIBR – coldzera
You can probably understand that you will be able to earn tons of points for all of these players. However, there is no way in the world that you will be able to create this selection in the Salary Cap esports fantasy pool. Hence why it is a lot easier to compete in the Classics CSGO and esports fantasy pools.
Benefits of CSGO Fantasy Betting
There are quite a few benefits of fantasy esports betting. First and foremost, this is the most budget-friendly way of gambling. What does this mean? You can literally have fun the entire day without spending more than a few dollars.
On top of that, there are various pools that will have insanely high prize pools. This means that you can win a lot of money by joining those events. The best thing about it is that entry fees are not that high.
All in all, fantasy esports betting is becoming more and more popular and it is only a matter of time before other popular bookmakers add this type of betting.
So if you’ve ever asked yourself “is CSGO dying?“, you can easily understand that we are far from this. And you can guess from the great interest of bookmakers on this title: Draftkings has also made CSGO Fantasy games available.