Dota2betting is a skin betting site where a user signs in via their Steam account to place bets on professional Dota2 games for the chance of a large payout, as well as being a website acting as a middleman between trade offers.
Let’s start with the betting. Dota2lounge offers user-made odds on games being played in the recent future.
For example if Evil Geniuses were to play Vegetable Esports Group, the odds would start off at 50/50 after the stake opened.
The more bets one side receives pushes the odds lower and lower, with the odds going higher for the other group.
Were Evil Geniuses to receive 100,000 bets and Vegetable Esports Group only 5,000, the odds would be heavily stacked in Evil Geniuses’ favour, causing a lower payout.
The odds for a user’s bet is locked at the time of placement, meaning if you were the first user to bet on an Evil Geniuses win the user’s odds would be evens despite Evil Geniuses odds after that dropping.
In addition to this, Dota2bettingonline’s acts as a middleman for traders, transferring any items into the Steam backpack of the multiple bots the website owns to ensure protection from scamming.
The homepage is split into two sections, to the left is the most recent trade requests put through the website and to the right are the most recent professional games on which Dota2lounge is offering odds.
What works on the website?
- User-generated odds means costs of running the service are cheaper due to not having a need to hire analysts. This allows the service to be free.
- An easy-to-use skin betting service allows new users or casual users to offer anything they are happy to lose as a stake, but also allows big money skins to be placed for more hardcore, veteran gamblers.
- A clean approach to the website makes it seem more professional than other Dota2 skin betting websites.
What doesn’t?
- The concept of value skin betting doesn’t allow for developing real profits without a user putting a lot into their stake. To get any expensive items, a user must risk expensive items too, or hope for a drastic win from underdogs.
- Dota2bettingonline’s is an independent company, which increases the risk of scamming or winning bets not being returned.
- The website’s customer support is severely lacking compared to other Dota2 skin betting websites.
More about skin betting at Dota2lounge
Dota2lounge offers the chance to place your skins at risk for the possibility of great rewards based on the result of professional Dota2 matches.
The depth of games offered depends on which major tournaments are currently being played. For example, any major every game means betting opportunities, but in the downtime between tournaments there may only be one or two games per day from side leagues.
To place a bet, after authorising the Steam Guard Mobile Authenticator and waiting the initial week long period – if you are completely new to this – you select the game you want to bet on in the right hand side of Dota2bettingonline’s homepage.
This will take you to the games bet page. Click on the team you want to vote for and look through your Steam backpack below. Click on the individual items you want to stake up to a maximum of six and confirm the bet.
A bot will then offer you a trade request through Steam as long as you have input your Steam Trade URL for your items and place the bet automatically. Simple.
Other Dota2 skin betting services offer two different types of bets: “quantity” and “value.” However, Dota2lounge only offers value bets.
A value bet works by using user-balanced odds of a single number. The single number works as a multiplier to get the value of items a user will win if the bet comes through.
For example, my $2.81 bet on Fantastic 5 to win against Ad Finem at a multiplier of 0.9 means if my bet comes through the total value of my winnings will be $2.81 multiplied by 0.9 gives a $2.66 reward which will come in the form of more skins for Dota2 heroes.
To withdraw, simply go on “my profile”, click on the “returned” tab and request a bot to send items back through a Steam trade.
What will using Dota2lounge cost you?
The house doesn’t state any taken vig for Dota2lounge – vig being a cut of the profits of each wage.
The free bet system in place for regular bookmakers is it at work here; the website runs off the profits made from lost bets as well as a donation system on the top right corner of the website.
Gosugamers offer 1 percent as a vig, so having a free system is something to cherish.
You mentioned poor customer service?
Good customer service is a staple of a good business. Steam is ridiculed for its poor customer service, and Dota2lounge doesn’t provide much better.
A basic FAQ explaining the betting and how bets are affected in unique circumstances – from cancellation of games to draws in BO2’s – provides a little clarity on hard situations. But if something goes wrong, there really isn’t much in the way of help provided by Dota2lounge.
The site offers the FAQ, a ten minute video on how to bet, a picture by picture guide on how to trade, and a page on the Steam forums where you can post a question. The only real form of contact you can have is through an email address provided on the help page, however after emailing the address I received a message failed to deliver notification.
Dota2lounge offers something, but nothing close to good customer service.