The fanbase bets with their heart. Archives show Korean and Chinese teams consistently crush odds while Western teams get over-bet and underperform when it matters most.
East vs. West. It’s the oldest story of wars and ideas.
Except in League of Legends. It’s not much of a battle when one side doesn’t win any Worlds.
Casual bettors still go in big for Western teams, despite plenty of evidence they shouldn’t.
Where others rush in, Lucky Rebel esports bettors look the other way to find value.
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Eastern Teams Dominate Titles
Since the modern Worlds started in 2012, 12 out of the 13 champions have come from LCK or LPL. That’s a crushing 92% of titles since Riot introduced the standardized Worlds. No other sports that are bet on can show that kind of competitive imbalance. So sharps need to figure out where to find esports betting value that can still deliver a payday.
But the Korean and Chinese teams simply dominate, and we’re not sure that’s changing anytime soon. No North American team has even reached a World Finals, which in esports is last century. Trying to rep the West even a little was Fnatic, out of Europe. They did make the finals in 2018, at least. But China’s Invictus broomed them 3-0.
LCK has produced 7 champions since 2011, including ballers from SK Telecom, who’ve won 5 times in that span.
While esports bettors struggle to find an edge or a way in, the books have tried their best to keep money coming to the house. Sportsbooks regularly open lines with the LPL/LCK favorites, but then they adjust – ok, shade – as Western money comes in.
What happens then is as predictable as, well, the Worlds being won by the East. Less-informed bettors and fanbases (more on them in a minute) skew the market. By actually betting with their hearts and not their heads. They lean towards Western esports teams.
This is the opening for smart money. Because the books reply to all the Western cash coming in by shortening the odds for those teams. This takes the esports lines away from their true value.
And it lets Lucky Rebel esports players still find value on the dominant East teams.
Brains, not heart. Easy frag.
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Western Teams Underperform Odds
Why is it that, in spite of the overwhelming dominance from Eastern esports leagues over the years, Worlds still sees a ton of money coming for the Western teams?
Emotional betting still dominates esports.
Unlike much older, sophisticated betting that happens on the NFL and NBA, as examples, esports betting is still in diapers.
The old-school sports still see casual bettors go ham on their favorite players and teams sometimes, but overall, the betting action is focused on more realistic – and detached – analysis of the teams facing each other.
Esports bettors can be fanboys and fangirls with their cash. But unfortunately for them, the facts don’t lie:
- The last North American LoL team to reach just the semifinals was Cloud9 in 2018. It’s been since 2015 since any Western team made it to the World Finals.
- In 2023, the three top North American teams (Cloud9, NRG, Team Liquid) all failed to make it past the quarterfinals. (Only NRG even made it that far). This is despite betting markets sometimes giving them up to a 30% shot at advancement.
- A number of times in esports books, you’ll see Western teams priced basically as coin flips against minor LCK/LPL teams. But the West still underperforms, especially in pressure elimination matches.
For example, at Worlds 2022, North American teams – Cloud9, Evil Geniuses, and 100 Thieves – were all eliminated in the group stage with a combined record of 3-15.
The LCS has never finished with a positive group stage record in the modern era.
And still, hopium reigns. Smart, slick marketing and PR makes the Western teams look cool. And fan support keeps the Western dream alive, even though the odds rarely reflect how outclassed these teams actually are at crunch time.
Group Stage Is Where Value Lives
Sharps who know esports betting, know that the group stage is the most volatile and most and lucrative part of the event for sharp bettors.
Lucky Rebel bettors tend to be contrarian by nature. While fans cheer on the teams and get all wrapped up in who’s on the roster for the next matchup – and lay down their cash on them – the smart money is getting ready to feast on mispriced odds.
They know that the odds for lesser-known LCK/LPL teams, who are not among the top seeds, are priced much closer to their Western opponents than they should be. (Pro tip: they should be much bigger favorites than the Western squads, even if they don’t have the name recognition).
It’s not just simping for the Western side in this case. Casual bettors simply don’t have much familiarity with the lower-tier Eastern teams. But the Eastern units often crush these tight spreads before the market adjusts.
Case in point: At Worlds 2023, LPL’s Bilibili Gaming and LCK’s KT Rolster opened as slight favorites only (-150 to -200 in most sportsbooks) in several group matches against Western teams. But they covered spreads with ease. Nobody knew those less shiny names and didn’t bother to check the stats leading up to Worlds.
But that didn’t stop the bets pouring in on the Western side, and the books pricing the teams much closer together than their talent suggested. It’s just cold hard fact.
More group stage value:
Chinese and Korean third and fourth seeds routinely beat top Western seeds by wide gold and kill margins. They often cover alternate spreads at a rate of over 60% in group stage play.
On top of other metrics, books track gold margins and kill margins to set the lines. So, they likely know that the lines are closer than they should be. But the public money coming in for the West creates the imbalance and makes them shade the lines.
And if they don’t know, they catch up by the time the quarterfinals arrive.
Only by then, there might not be any Western teams still standing.