CS:GO Tournament Betting – TOP Counter-Strike Betting Events
The biggest and best CSGO tournaments are sponsored by the game’s publisher, Valve.
The 14 Valve-sponsored majors have featured $1,000,000 prize pools, making them the richest CSGO tournaments on the competitive calendar
There are many other premier events held annually; these are the top CSGO tournaments because they are organized by some of the biggest names in eSports and payout the most prize money.
Top CSGO Tournaments To Bet On
CSGO Tournaments Downloadable Calendar
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Biggest CSGO Tournaments And Events To Bet On
There are many other premier events held annually; these are the top CSGO tournaments because they are organized by some of the biggest names in eSports and pay out the most prize money:
| Event | Type of Tournament | Event Dates |
|---|---|---|
Dreamhack Open Leipzig | Challenger | Jan 24-26 |
BLAST Premier: Spring Regular Season | Non-Pro tour | Jan 31 – Feb 16 |
Dreamhack Open Anaheim | Challenger | Feb 21-23 |
Intel Extreme Masters XIV – World Championship | Non-Pro Tour | Feb 21 – Mar 1 |
ESL Extreme Masters Katowice | Masters | Feb 28 – Mar 1 |
World Electronic Sports Games | Non-Pro Tour | Mar (TBA) |
ESL One Rio | Major Championship | May 21-24 |
DreamHack Jönköping | Masters | Jun 12-14 |
Dreamhack Open Valencia | Challenger | Jul 3-5 |
ESL One Cologne | Masters | Jul 10-12 |
Dreamhack Open Montreal | Challenger | Sep 11-13 |
Dreamhack Open Rotterdam | Challenger | Oct 16-18 |
BLAST Premier: Global Final | Non-Pro Tour | Nov 2-15 |
CS:GO Major Championship Autumn | Non-Pro Tour | Nov 2-15 |
Dreamhack Open Jönköping | Challenger | Nov 27-29 |
IEM Katowice
IEM Katowice is a Valve-sponsored premier tournament and the biggest CSGO tournament on the competitive schedule. It pays out $1 million and is the closest thing CSGO has to a world championship.
Like other Valve-sponsored majors, IEM Katowice is a 24-team tournament with the following structure:
- The Legends: the top eight teams from the previous major.
- The New Challengers: 16 teams that either placed in the top two regionally at the last minor or fell in the New Legends Stage at the previous major.
Danish powerhouse Astralis is the defending champion having defeated ENCE in the Grand Finals back in March.
As this is the biggest standalone CSGO tournament of the year, sportsbooks add plenty of betting odds and lines for the matchups. It is a great opportunity to place Live Bets as you watch the games on Twitch.
Pro League Events and the ESL Pro Tour
ESL is one of the most recognizable tournament organizers in the eSport, and they offered up a full slate of six events in 2019, including regional LAN competitions in the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
In September 2019, ESL and DreamHack announced the ESL Pro Tour, a global CSGO circuit with over $5 million in aggregate prize pool.
It will combine over 20 ESL and DreamHack tournaments, which promises to create better opportunities for new players to reach the big events and a more interesting story for CSGO fans.
It also promises “a more transparent structure for new eSports fans”.
The ESL Pro Tour competitions will be split into two levels: Challenger and Masters.
- Challenger: includes the DreamHack Open stops, ESEA MDL and the ESL National Championships, and will serve as a platform for teams to reach the Masters-level arena tournaments.
- Masters: These are $250,000 competitions and include the ESL One, IEM and DreamHack Masters events, and the ESL Pro League itself.
StarLadder Berlin
The second of only two scheduled premier Valve majors in 2019, StarLadder Berlin starts in August and wraps up on September 8.
Like IEM Katowice, it’s a 24-team tournament with a $1 million prize pool. First place takes home $500,000 and second place earns $150,000.
StarLadder Berlin is the 15th Valve-sponsored major in the game’s history and is a new event on the competitive schedule.
Usual suspects Astralis, ENCE, Natus Vincere, FaZe Clan, and Team Liquid will all feature making StarLadder Berlin one of the best CSGO tournaments.
ESL One Events
In addition to Pro League events, the Electronic Sports League conducts ESL One events.
- ESL One: Cologne (July) is a 16-team tournament with a $300,000 prize pool
- ESL One: New York (September 26-29) features eight teams and $200,000 in prize cash.
Both events will draw the ire of CSGO fans around the world. At last season’s ESL One: New York mousesports was victorious.
The Europeans are set to compete against the world’s best at ESL One: Cologne 2019.
BLAST Pro Series Events
The BLAST Pro Series is a series of unorthodox and abbreviated tournaments. Competing teams play each other once (best of one) and at the end of the round-robin, the best two teams move on to the Grand Final (best of three).
The third-place team chooses an opponent from the bottom three finishers and faces them in a 1v1 aim showmatch for $20,000.
With $250,000 prize pools for the eight-team tournaments, BLAST events are lucrative but have received a lot of pushback from fans because of their format.
DreamHack Events
Like the BLAST Pro Series, DreamHack events are a series of open tournaments held throughout the competitive season.
Nine tournaments were scheduled for 2019, the most recent of which (DreamHack Open Tours in France) was won by mousesports.
DreamHack events are premier tournaments that haven’t been sponsored by Valve since 2015.
They pay out $100,000 and although they don’t always attract the world’s best teams they are highly competitive.
More Tournaments and Events To Keep In Mind
Betting on smaller CSGO events poses a challenge, as the competitors are not as well-known and are much harder to keep track of. Still, two honorable mentions stand out:
iBUYPOWER Masters
An annual invitational tournament held in Los Angeles, CA, iBUYPOWER Masters is an eight-team major tournament with a $200,000 prize pool.
After a group stage, IBP Masters becomes a single-elimination playoff with best-of-three matches.
Although the prize pool isn’t one of the largest, some of the best teams in the world participate in this event, making it a must on the CSGO calendar.
The 2019 rendition, held back in January, was the fourth tournament of its kind hosted by IBP and was won by Team Liquid, who took home $100,000.
ELEAGUE Events
ELEAGUE is another recognizable eSports organizer that holds competitive CSGO tournaments on an annual basis. In 2019, ELEAGUE hosted the Invitational 2019 in January which featured just four teams.
Powerhouses FaZe Clan, Cloud 9, BIG, and compLexity slugged it out for their share of a $150,000 prize pool in this major tournament.
The ELEAGUE Invitational was a best-of-three double-elimination event and the ninth CSGO tournament hosted by the organizer.
In the past ELEAGUE events were premier Valve-sponsored events so be on the lookout for these high-profile tournaments in the future.
How Many CSGO Tournaments Are Held Every Year?
There are hundreds of minor tournaments held annually and their prize pools are generally under $20,000 with some exceptions.
These events are harder to place bets on because top teams typically don’t participate in them.
While premier and major events are available to gamble on at major online sportsbooks, minors are overlooked.
Majors are where beginners will want to place their first CSGO bets.
Some minor regional tournaments hand out bids to major tournaments, making them more important.
Top teams compete regionally in leagues or ladders, for example, the ESL Pro League, which consists of competitions for European teams, teams in the Americas, and teams in the Asia-Pacific region.
Top performers in these leagues qualify for season finals tournaments which are some of the top tournaments to bet on.
Competitive Structure of CSGO
Counter-Strike games date back to 2000 and CSGO’s eSports scene is still somewhat old school in structure.
The Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice Major is the closest thing CSGO has to a world championship.
In lieu of a publisher-sponsored league or circuit, independent regional ladders and leagues keep teams busy on a weekly basis.
Additionally, there are so many other major and minor tournaments that top teams often have to choose which they want to participate in because they overlap.
Other premier events include Valve-sponsored majors, like StarLadder Berlin, BLAST Pro Series majors, ESL events and DreamHack Masters tournaments.
There are many other major events on the competitive calendar but the premier tournaments tend to feature prize pools over $250,000 or more.
Smaller DreamHack and Esports Championship series majors offer up prize of $125,000 or $100,000.
Betting on CSGO – Final Thoughts
Valve has allowed outside organizers to run most of the competitive scene of the eSport and it’s generally worked out well for the eSport, but its structure can be tough on beginners.
With so many events on the calendar, top teams are often scattered across several different events. he good news is that since there are so many high-profile events there are hundreds of opportunities to place CSGO bets.
Placing bets on eSports is easy to do and makes watching them much more enjoyable.
