World of Tanks is a massively multiplayer online game which was created, developed and published by Wargaming. The game first entered the world of eSports with the World Cyber Games in 2012. It is free to play for everyone, but has in-game purchases of premium features.
The game itself is a hugely entertaining battle arena with tanks from the previous century battling it out in World War 2 scenery styled maps. Each player controls one tank or armoured vehicle (light, medium or heavy tank, tank destroyer and self-propelled gun) and controls where it moves, where it shoots and can also communicate with teammates via chat, which is either in voiced or in written form. Matches are won when all of the opposition vehicles have been destroyed or when their base has fallen.
The game features several different game modes and each has a series of maps which is specific in its own way. The most important aspect of the game for gamers however, is the player against player gameplay. This battle scenario is also the basis of every eSports match.
World of Tanks is a very popular choice for punters who prefer an eSports match which involves strategic placement of bets and carefully calculated risk taking. There are four main markets on offer for this heavily armoured game and they include the match winner market, the handicap market, the outright winners market and the specials market.
The most popular World of Tanks market is the match winner one. It is also the one market which you are definitely going to find in the betting offers of most bookmakers which is not the case with the other markets.
The best way to explain the mechanics of this market is by looking at a match from a World of Tanks tournament. Let's take a look at an example from the 2017 Wargaming.net League and the match between DING and Savage Squad. The match is played in a best out of nine format and DING are considered as big favourites and are given odds of 1.33. Savage Squad are considered as more of an underdog and have odds of 3.25. This distribution of odds means that backing DING, the clear favourite for the win will be much less profitable for you than backing the underdog, Savage Squad. However, the risk of losing your money will also be much lower.
The handicap betting market is very similar to the match winner market and the only difference is the slight starting advantage which one of the teams gets from the bookmaker. This starting advantage is usually expressed as +1.5 or +2.5. If we take a look at the same match from 2017 Wargaming.net League but this time through the lens of the handicap market we will notice that, now, Savage Squad has been given starting advantage of +1.5 with which the chances for a winning bet on the underdog suddenly increase and now their odds for the victory are 2.00.
In addition to the match winner and handicap market, is the outright winners market, also known as futures market. This market enables punters to bet on which team will be the winner of a specific tournament, which team will reach the final or which team will progress to a certain stage of the tournament. These bets test a punters knowledge on how a tournament plays out and require knowledge of previous tournaments and the form of teams coming into the tournament.
The last type of betting markets available to World of Tanks punters are the specials markets. They are actually a series of different betting markets such as a specific map winner, Correct Score, Total Number of Kills, First Blood, Over/Under and many others. These markets are more reliant on the luck of the punter especially when it comes to so-called coin flip markets in which the chances for any of the two outcomes is 50%.
Some of the more popular markets in this category are the First Blood betting market in which a punter should predict which team will get the first kill on an enemy tank and the Over/Under bet in which the betting enthusiast can choose whether a map will be played for a longer or shorter period of time than what has been given by the bookmaker.
When it comes to having a winning World of Tanks bet nothing beats doing your homework. When we say doing your homework we are actually referring to the process of analyzing each team's performance stats coming into a match, the previous encounters between two teams, as well as looking at roster changes and squad cohesion.
One of the first things which you should do if you want to have a winning bet is to look at the results of the team you are planning to back. If the team has been into a great run of form before a match then that team is a much better candidate for your wager than a team which has either been on a losing run or which has had mixed fortunes in recent matches.
Another good tip to always locking on a winner is to look at previous encounters between teams. If a team is a proven arch nemesis of some other team then their victorious record against is likely to remain unchanged in their next match up as well. On the other hand, if a team is regularly destroyed by a certain squad of players then they are also likely to continue with the same type of losing performances in the future.
In addition to this, it is also quite helpful to look at roster changes inside a team. And since World of Tanks teams feature more players than most other eSports it is paramount that these players know each other completely. However, if there is a certain change in personnel inside the team then team cohesion might suffer and a previously victorious team can begin to falter.
Finally, if you are looking to always have a winning bet you should also be on the hunt for teams which are playing as a one whole unit. This is important for several reasons and one of the most important ones is that oftentimes players like to outshine their team mates and will go to great lengths to do that. However, this is often disastrous to the performance of the team and teams which contain individuals such as these often are on the losing side of the match up.
World of Tanks' biggest tournament when it comes to eSports is the Wargaming.net League. It is held in four world regions. Each region has 12 teams competing except for North America which has 10. The tournament's prize pool is $300,000.
The regional tournament is divided in two phases. In the first phase 8 teams progress and stay in the tournament whereas the rest of the teams face off against one another in the second phase of the tournament. The culmination of the Wargaming.net League are finals where the best fight to be their regions champion. All games in the tournament are played in a best of nine format.
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