CS:GO, or Counter Strike: Global Offensive which is the full name, is one of the most popular titles for gamers with over 30 million active players on a monthly basis. CS:GO is also one of the biggest games in esports with a big scene that includes many professional teams as well as millions of viewers online.
Some of the most famous teams in CS:GO includes Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, G2, Heroic, Team Liquid and Astralis. The biggest league in CS:GO is the ESL Pro League where all the big teams are competing.
Many of the major competitions are popular to watch online. Recently the PGL Major 2021 broke a new record for viewers during a CS:GO event. The first major in over two years peaked at 2,74 million viewers, which was more than twice the previous record, also making it one of the top 10 most watched events in the history of esports.
Peaked on Google in 2016
Thanks to it being so popular CS:GO has also find its way into the betting world. Nowadays CS:GO bets can be found on almost every major betting site. With millions of online viewers the potential market is of course huge.
A good way to measure the interest in CS:GO betting is of course to turn to Google and look at the trends for keyword search. Then you will see that the number of searches for ”cs go betting” have been relatively steady during the last few years, even though there has been a decline since 2016 and 2017 when ”cs go betting” peaked on Google.
According to Google betting on CS:GO seems to be most popular in Nordic countries Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, which are the four countries in the top of the list.
Just as many other things online there was an increase in searches for ”cs go betting” in the spring of 2020. This was most certainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that many people mostly stayed at home in March, April and May of last year. In the summer searches dropped a bit to stabilize on the same levels as before the pandemic.
This together with the fact that CS:GO is one of the most common esports with bookmakers indicates that the interest for betting on CS:GO is still quite high. That’s despite the fact that many other esports also are available for betting such as Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant and Rainbow Six.
Bet on matches and maps
At the major bookmakers you will normally only find the big leagues and tournaments available for betting, like for example the ESL Pro League and the big majors. But on the betting sites that are more niched towards esports you will find minor tournaments and even national leagues all over the world.
When betting on CS:GO you can of course bet on who will win a match, but you can also bet on which team to win every map, number of rounds and the correct winning result. Many sites even offer live betting. That means you are able to bet on a match while it’s being played.