Call of Duty is a first-person shooter set of video games published and owned by Activision. It was first developed for Microsoft Windows, but later editions were adapted for consoles and handhelds as well. eSports tournaments were first played on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and have continued with all subsequent releases. That version of the game was also the first to take place in the future, as previous ones were all in the World War 2 period.
The main reason why Call of Duty is so popular with eSports enthusiasts is the game's multiplayer mode. In addition to this, the game is also popular among fans for its amazingly fast paced action and strategically designed maps which both make for an incredibly exciting matches to watch. This means that even though Counter Strike: Global Offensive is still the leading eSports first-person shooter game, Call of Duty is much faster and has more of an arcade feel to it, which certainly appeals to the millennial crowd. Call of Duty players are equipped with jetpacks, can jump up and down walls and can perform various other stunts which makes watching the game a real treat.
In terms of how the game is played, there are two teams of four players each which battle it out against one another. They do this in a series of different maps and modes and the winner is the team with the higher number of points. Normally, each team starts with 2 support players and 2 so called slayers or marksmen who are doing most of the killing. There are also different types of weapons such as rifles or grenades, which all serve a specific purpose. In terms of maps, good map knowledge is always an advantage as players can use their familiarity with a map to increase their chances of winning.
Call of Duty is really interesting to watch and is one of the most exciting video games of our time. However, it is also one of the best computer games to bet on. This is because the nature of the game is really easy to understand and you will be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't understand how a first-person shooter is played. In addition to this, the game offers a lot of options for punters to bet on, and it is a well known fact that if a game has many betting markets to choose from then it is a well renown betting product which betting enthusiasts love, and you would be foolish to miss out on it.
There are four major types of betting markets available for Call of Duty: the match winner market, the handicap market, the outright winner market, and the specials markets. The market on which most of the Call of Duty bets are placed is the match winner one. Let's take an example from the 2017 Call of Duty Championship and the match between eUnited and Mindfreak to better explain this market. The match was played in a best out of five format and eUnited were considered as big favourites and were subsequently given odds of around 1.40. Mindfreak, on the other hand, were regarded as underdogs and had odds of around 2.70. This meant that betting your money on the favourite, eUnited, would have returned twice as little as betting on the underdog, Mindfreak, but the risk of losing your deposit was twice as lower if you backed the favourite. Expectedly, eUnited came out as winners and the punters who backed them had many reasons to celebrate.
The handicap betting market is quite similar to the match winner market and the only difference is the slight or significant starting advantage which one of the teams gets from the bookmaker. This starting advantage is usually expressed as +1.5 or +2.5. Let's look at the same match from the previous example put in the context of a handicap market in which the odds compiler has given Mindfreak a starting advantage of +1.5. With that starting advantage, the chances for a Mindfreak victory suddenly increased and now both teams had odds of 1.80 for the victory. However, it must be said that this starting advantage is never a guarantee that the team which has it will be triumphant in the market. In fact, in the match which we used as an example, eUnited won 3:0 and thus successfully overturned the -1.5 starting deficit, meaning that the final result in the handicap market was eUnited 3 : 1.5 Mindfreak.
Another market which is hugely popular these days is the outright winners market, also known as the futures market. In it, punters can bet on which team will be victorious at the end of a tournament, which team will reach the final or which region the winner will be from. However, all of these bets have to be made before the tournament has started. Once the tournament starts these markets are closed for betting.
The last type of betting markets available to punters are the specials markets. They are usually a little more exotic than other markets and require a more in-depth knowledge of Call of Duty. Some of the markets of this type are: a specific map winner, Correct Score, Total Number of Kills and many others.
When you are betting on Call of Duty you want your bet to be a winning one. To do this you would normally have to have a little luck and a lot of understanding of how the game is played, in what type of form are the teams that you are backing and how coherent a team is.
Understanding a first-person shooter is not very difficult, but it is recommended that you have played the game before you had bet on it. This doesn't have to be in a competitive match or even in a multiplayer mode, it just serves to acquaint you with the basics of the game.
In addition to understanding how a game is played, an experienced punter will always look at the form of teams and their previous encounters. In-form teams and teams which have proven to be stronger in previous meetings are always good options for your wager.
Finally, when you are thinking about whether to back a team or not, it is always good to see how that team performs together. There are various live streams of eSports Call of Duty tournaments and you should check out the teams which you are thinking of backing. If they perform as one coherent unit and you are satisfied with what you see, you shouldn't delay and you should back them in your next bet.
The biggest Call of Duty tournament up until 2015 was the Call of Duty Championship also known as Champs. It was hosted by the game's publisher and developer, Activision. However, in 2016 this tournament was slightly changed and was turned into Activision's World League. As the name implies, the tournament is now a global league competition which is played out in three different world regions, Europe, North America, and Australia and New Zealand. The best teams from these regional leagues later qualify to the final tournament of the Call of Duty Championship which takes place in Los Angeles, USA. The tournament boasts a prize pot of $3 million which are given out throughout the year, and the Call of Duty Championships Finals hand out a total of $1.6 million.
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