Dota 2 Live Betting Guide for Beginners

Introduction to Dota 2 live betting

Dota 2 betting refers to betting on Dota 2 esports events while they are underway. This way of betting is a great choice if you are knowledgeable about the game, enjoy watching professional tournaments on twitch.tv, and other streaming platforms, and have a good sense of how a match will evolve based on its current state.

dota 2 esports live arena

The main difference between typical Dota 2 esports betting and Dota 2 in-play betting is the following: when you bet live on Dota 2, you have a lot more information at your disposal. That’s because you not only know what the two opposing teams have done in the past but also what choices they’ve made for the particular match they are playing and how they measure against each other. So if you have a decent understanding of the game, Dota 2 betting allows you to make more accurate predictions by providing a clearer picture of what you’re betting on.

Dota 2 Betting Sites

Check out the top 3 bookmakers offering the best betting odds:

Rank Operator Max. Bonus To the Operator
300$
100% on deposit
$
20% on deposit
90$
100% on deposit
Esports Bonus Comparison

Dota 2 Game Play

Dota 2 is a complex electronic sport with hundreds of elements and mechanics that need to be grasped before being able to play the game at a decent level. This esport has a variety of game modes but in professional tournaments, it is only played in one way, known as Captains Mode. Before the start of each round or game, the two teams (consisting of 5 players each) are allowed to ban 6 heroes (per team) and pick 5 others from a pool of over 100 options. Then they proceed to do battle on a two-sided map split by a river.

dota 2 live esports

Dota 2 has a mixture of role-playing and real-time strategy elements. Heroes evolve in an RPG-like manner, gaining gold and experience as they kill enemy heroes, creatures and structures on the map. They also have abilities and can use their gold to buy items, thus becoming more powerful as the game goes on. The ultimate goal is to bring down the opposing team’s Ancient, which is the most important building inside a team’s base. You should think of it as the equivalent of the king in chess, and the road to annihilating this structure requires intelligent planning and a great deal of team play.

Dota 2 Tournaments

The MDL Chengdu Major is one of the main Dota 2 tournaments hosted in China, with a prize pool worth $1,000,000. It is hosted in November and it is the last competition of the year with a 7-figure purse.

The International is the best paying esports tournament in the world, with tens of millions of dollars in prizes. It takes place in August and it is hosted in different countries each year.

EPICENTER Major is the top Dota 2 tournament hosted in Russia, offering a prize pool of $1 million. The event takes place in April, May or June, but it was postponed in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic

The MDL Disneyland Paris Major is a flagship European tournament that takes place in France every spring. Its prize pool is $1,000,000 and the amount is split among the 16 participating teams.

The DreamLeague is a Dota 2 event spanning over the course of several seasons. Each event is hosted by a different European city, but the prize pool is the same $1 million and 16 teams compete for a share of it.

Dota 2 Live Betting

The thing that makes Dota 2 in-play betting so exciting is the large variety of options that you can choose from once you’ve determined a highly probable event that will take place within the match you are watching. If you’re knowledgeable about the game and can spot patterns regarding tactics, drafts, and playstyles, you can quickly discover asymmetries (advantages for one team or disadvantages for the other) and predict with high accuracy that one of the teams will reach a certain goal before the other. These asymmetries can be related to any aspect of the game, and the types of goals that can be reached by either team usually correspond to the types of esports betting odds offered by the bookmaker.

For example, you can often bet that team A or team B will be the first to kill Roshan or destroy an enemy Barracks or get to 10 kills on the scoreboard. Such objectives often go in the stronger team’s favor and yield fairly high returns compared to a more casual bet, such as a victory in favor of the better side.

The main principle that you should follow when engaging in Dota 2 live betting is to make your preparations ahead of time. Learn all you can about the two opposing teams before the start of the match, and then corroborate this knowledge with the one you gain by looking at the specifics of the confrontation itself (such as the hero compositions picked by each side and the choices made after the start of the game). The better you are prepared for a given match, the easier you will spot highly probable outcomes while it is taking place. Subsequently, you can make wiser bets and more money that way. Just one carefully analyzed encounter can bring a lot more profits than dozens of other matches in which you placed a bet without really knowing what to expect.

Dota 2 Live Streaming

When big Dota 2 events take place, these events are broadcasted live on Twitch or other streaming platforms. Each tournament organizer has its own preferences and partnerships, so you need to always get informed with regard to this aspect ahead of time.

When engaging in Dota 2 live betting, watching the match that you are betting on is pretty much a must. As a result, Dota 2 live streaming services are quite important and it’s of great help to have such services offered directly by the bookmaker. That simplifies matters quite a bit and allows you to place your bets with greater speed, simply because you don’t have to switch tabs. If your preferred bookmaker does not offer Dota 2 live streaming services, consider splitting your screen in two so that you can watch the game and place bets on the fly without having to switch tabs and potentially lose some important in-game event.

dota 2 esports game

Among the top esports bookmakers available on the market, BUFF.BET, Betway, and Arcanebet offer the best Dota 2 live streaming services. If you do not want to search for such services on your own and want the bookmaker to provide them for you, consider signing up for one of these three.

Dota 2 Betting Tips

Anyone can bet on the outright winners of a series and the victorious team at the end of a match. If you want to spice things up and bet on special markets with a high margin of winning, these 5 tips will help.

1. First Blood – every popular esport has such a bet and in Dota 2, you win by indicating the team that scores the first kill. You should focus on hyper-aggressive teams who are willing to take many chances early on, in an attempt of securing a lead.

2. Minute of First Successful Gank – this is a betting market specific to Dota 2 and it depends more on individual players than the team. You need to watch many games to identify the best roamers in the competition, but also the solid laners.

3. Creep Score by X Minute – you can bet on the team that has killed more creeps by minute 10, 15 or 20. The better team is not always ahead in this category, as it’s more important what champions are drafted. Some are better in early game, so it’s vital to identify the team that has such heroes in its composition.

4. First Tower Destroyed – this is a great bet to place on an underdog team that is mobile and has active roamers. The most successful teams at destroying the first tower are the ones that gank well and convert aggressive plays into success lane pushing.

5. First Roshan – betting on the team to kill the neutral monster first is a straightforward business. The better team is more likely to be ahead at the time Roshan spawns, but team composition also matters. It is wise to bet on the team that has the better late-game composition, as this is when the fight for Roshan unfolds.

Where to Find the Best Dota 2 Betting Odds

BUFF.bet

This bookmaker offers great betting odds and a wide variety of them. Its main focus is esports and its coverage includes every important Dota 2 competition, as well as qualifiers for LAN events.

Buff.bet is a trustworthy bookmaker, being entirely regulated and having a license issued in Curacao. Some of the main features that make it attractive are the following:

The most important Points:
BUFF.bet
65 / 100 Points
  • Welcome bonus worth up to €100 if players use the bonus code GET100
  • Real money payment methods, including bitcoin
  • Competitive odds for live esports betting
Go To BUFF.Bet

Betway

Betway is one of the most famous bookmakers in the world and its extensive coverage of esports make it a great choice for those with an interest in Dota 2 betting. Like Esportsbetting.com, it provides excellent welcome bonuses, an intuitive website, the possibility to bet using your mobile devices, over a dozen payment options, great customer support and availability in many different countries, such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and others.

The most important Points:
Betway
84 / 100 Points
  • Well known and trustworthy operator
  • Dedicated esports section
  • Generous welcome offer
  • Licensed by the UK Gambling Commission
Go To Betway

Arcanebet

Arcanebet is an esports dedicated bookmaker, covering pretty much everything that happens in esports, not just in Dota 2 but many other titles. Its coverage is both wide and deep, giving you the chance to bet on a vast number of in-game events for every Dota 2 encounter. So in addition to the standard match winner bet, you can place many other types of bets and take full advantage of your Dota 2 knowledge.

The most important Points:
ArcaneBet
79 / 100 Points
  • Dedicated to esports betting
  • Extensive coverage of esports markets
  • Generous welcome offer
  • Accepts Bitcoin
Go To Arcanebet

Dota 2 in-Play Betting in a nutshell

Dota 2 betting can definitely spice up your tournament viewing experience and allow you to make money while watching the world’s best teams compete. It will quickly turn you into a very serious student of the game and provide you with a concrete way of putting your esports knowledge to use.