Betway Esports Review

Betway Esports Review – Introduction:

Betway Esports launched in 2015, after Betway had opened in 2006 to little fanfare. It wasn’t until 2014 the site became noticed by the majority of gamblers after a series of advertising campaigns that saw them sponsor several major sporting events such as Premier League Darts and Carl Froch v George Groves at Wembley. Betway are an online-only bookmaker holding a Malta Gambling License that allows them to operate in the UK, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Belgium and Germany, amongst other countries.

In 2015 Betway sponsored the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Cheltenham Festival as well as becoming the official sponsor of West Ham United FC in a two and a half year deal.

Betway Esports was introduced in early 2015 and by August it was reported that Esports betting’s turnover was regularly amongst the highest ten sports on their website. In September of 2015 Betway launched their own Esports portal in an attempt to convert sports customers over to Esports and to educate the Esports community to their offering. They followed this up with sponsorship of the ESL UK Premiership, the finals of which took place at the MCM Comic Con in London.

Betway Esports – Reputation and Reliability:

We won’t beat around the bush here: Betway has had several high-profile issues with their reputation in the past. Confusing bonuses, confiscation of funds and refusals to pay out. Much effort has been put to rectify these issues and we’ve seen a massive improvement throughout 2015 and onwards.

Betway have clearly turned a corner with rectifying novice mistakes and complaints from punters have drastically decreased. We find the site and its features to work flawlessly now and are comparable to any other fully licensed and regulated betting company. We’ve withdrawn almost £10,000 from Betway and not had any issues.

Betway Esports – CSGO Betting:

Betway was the first UK facing bookmaker to make a serious leap into Esports betting. With 2015 barely in its infancy Betway informed the world that they’d be dedicating a team towards Esports betting in an attempt to be ahead of the curve. They currently offer match winner and the occasional map winner and handicap betting, depending on the size of the tournament and interest behind it. The mid-week fixtures may only be match winner, whereas you can expect a wide range of betting options for a major tournament. This includes outright markets, though for their outright markets the prices are not very competitive unless you want to bet on one of the outsiders.

Betway have also dabbled with in-play betting, which makes watching CSGO even more enjoyable. Match winner and map winners are regular in-play markets, as well as who will win the next round, and similar things like that. That’s not something many bookmakers are offering yet, so it’s worth checking out.

They also offer specials such on betting whether CSGO will become part of the Olympics, if that’s your kind of thing.

Betway Esports – Esports History:

Betway were the first mainstream UK-focused bookmaker to take Esports betting under its wing. That is possibly doing a disservice to Pinnacle, but they no longer accept British customers and outside of America, Betway is a bigger name. Betway started flirting with Esports betting early in 2015 and by August they’d launched their own Esports portal and formally declared their interest in attempting to ensure Betway become the first port of call for Esports bettors. Whilst they have priced up a wider range of different games than any other bookmaker, their focus has been on CS:GO, where they sponsored the ESL UK Premiership in September 2015, and a month later, during Dreamhack Cluj, they partnered with Ninjas in Pyjamas for a social media giveaway.

Betway Esports – Payment Options:

There are a wide range of deposit and withdrawal methods on Betway, in line what what you’d expect, including e-wallets such as Skrill, PayPal and Neteller.

Upon requesting your first withdrawal you’ll be asked to verify your identity, which is standard practice within the industry. When we had to do this it took 5 working days to verify our documents, which is quite slow. Following that was a standard 2-3 working days processing period on the withdrawal (which allows you to reverse the withdrawal, if you change your mind and would rather stake the money on another match). This meant from opening our account to receiving our first withdrawal we had to wait the best part of two weeks. This is by far the slowest we’ve ever encountered. This was back in 2014 and we believe that Betway have improved their payment processing times and that you won’t experience anything similar to this.

Once you’re up and running and your account is verified you can expect a processing time of 2-3 working days for your withdrawal, then an additional 1-2 days for it to return to your bank whereas it is instant if using an e-wallet such as PayPal.

Betway Esports – Customer Support:

Betway have several customer service channels. You can talk to them via email, telephone or live chat. If you fancy using a phone, you can reach them at 0044 808 238 9841. You can reach Betway customer support via email at support@betway.com

Betway Esports – Website & Betting Options:

Betway are one of the only betting websites with a dedicated Esports section on their site which you can find via the navigation bar at the very top of the page. The website itself is very smooth to use with very few bugs. The process of finding your way to the Esports section, choosing CS:GO and then adding bets to your betslip is seamless.

Odds are displayed by default as fractions but you can switch this to decimals by going to the top right of the page, next to the help option. There’s also instant access available to the live support, which is convenient, as some bookmakers hide this away.

You will see a rotating carousel showing the latest bets and offers. Frequently Betway offer money back should you place a 5 fold accumulator and one team lets you down. They sometimes offer other similar offers which is fantastic, as few other companies are doing this just yet.

If you look at the top left you’ll see all of the different games. Betway currently offer bets on not just CSGO, but also Dota2, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends, Smite, Call of Duty and World of Tanks. That’s a wider range than any of their competitors.

As you add your selections to your bet slip you’ll be presented with different bets types: single bets, doubles, trebles and so forth. Every bet type is accommodated for.

If you’d like to switch back to traditional sports, you can do so at the top of the page or on the left side.

Betway Esports – Sports Markets:

Betway have a fully loaded sportsbook as well as casino products. They offer a wide range of markets including horse racing, golf, tennis and football.

You can place all of the popular bets on other sports such as first goalscorer and correct score in football. There is a plethora of betting options on other sports such as golf outrights (with each way betting) and horse racing. They cater very much for the casual punter so you won’t be confused with Asian handicap markets and the like, as they aren’t available.

Betway Esports – Other Products:

Betway have other products on their website, not just sports. They have their own casino, live dealer casino, bingo, vegas and poker sites.

Recently one lucky punter won an eye watering £13,213,838.68 playing on one of Betway’s progressive jackpot slots. How much did he wager to win the jackpot? £0.25! There are plenty of jackpot slots on Betway and we wouldn’t put anyone off anyone to give it a try. We’d love it if we played our part in changing someone else’s life!

Betway’s casino offering is provided by Microgaming so you can expect an eye-watering experience. On their live casino you can play blackjack, baccarat, roulette and casino hold’em. For first time casino players there are several tempting offers to try the casino out including a bonus of up to £1000. If that’s your thing, you should take advantage.

Betway Esports – CSGO Betting’s Verdict:

Despite not having the best reputation in the past we still recommend Betway highly and we don’t anticipate any issues with them. They’ve made giant strides to embrace esports as a serious betting medium and we can be very grateful for this. They even offer in-play betting that works seamlessly. We thoroughly enjoy betting on CSGO matches as they happen. We’ve not seen many other sites even attempt this. You can sign up to Betway – highly recommended!