Overview
Betway, founded in 2006, is a betting site which offers a large number of gambling opportunities, such as a Casino, Bingo, Poker and a dedicated esports section (which was launched in 2015). Betway are registered in Malta and as well as their website they also offer a mobile app which is available for both Android and iOS.
Creating an account
Creating an account on betway is straight forward. However, whilst betway is available in a large number of countries, there are some exceptions. Therefore, prior to signing up, you should check that you are eligible to open an account in your country of residence.
It is also worth noting that when opening and funding an account, betway will need to verify your details. This is typically done automatically, but in some cases you may be required to provide information to assist with this verification (such as providing a photographic ID). If this is required, you will be notified by betway.
When visiting betway for the first time, you may be met with a promotional page.
This gives details of a various promotions that are available to new customers upon their first deposit. To join betway, you can click on any of the “Join now” or “Register” links shown on this page (if you were not met with a promotional page, the Register button is shown in the top right of the main page). Doing this will open a new browser window: if no new window appears, you may have a pop-up blocker which is stopping the page from opening.
The pop-up window asks for various registration details.
Creating an account consists of completing three sections: The first section requires account information (username, password and e-mail); the second section asks for personal details; whilst the third section asks for contact details. As previously mentioned, it is important that this information is correct and you are eligible to bet on betway. You may have issues withdrawing any winnings should betway be unable to verify your details.
After completing your registration you will bet sent a confirmation e-mail.
Getting Help
If you happen to have an issue during the sign up process, betway has a variety of help topics, which can be accessed at https://help.betway.com/. If your question is not answered in these pages, there are a number of ways you can contact a representative, including Live Chat, Email, and Telephone (the links and details of this are available at https://help.betway.com/en-gb/contact-us).
Depositing & Withdrawing Money
Once you have registered and signed in you will need to make a deposit in order to place bets. To do this we can click the “Bank” button at the top of any page. On the main esports homepage, where you can clearly see the Bank link at the top right of the page.
Clicking on this link brings up the deposit page.
betway offers a handful of payment methods, including credit/debit card, Neteller, PayPal and Rapid Transfer. The minimum & maximum amounts that can be deposited vary between payment methods, and this is made clear when entering a deposit amount. To make a deposit, you click on the deposit method you wish to use and then enter the required details.
It is worth noting that if you wish to take advantage of an opening promotion, some payment methods are excluded, meaning if you deposit by any of these methods you will not be eligible for a promotion (please check the promotions terms and conditions). Additionally, making a deposit via a credit cards can incur fees with your bank, as it may be treated as a cash withdrawal.
When you deposit funds to betway your funds are held in a bank account separate to betway’s money, which means your funds are protected should betway suffer insolvency issues. Please refer to the betway terms and conditions for more details about this.
Once you have made a deposit that has been credited to your account, you can check if your balance in the top right of the screen has been updated (if not, you can click the refresh button next to your balance amount to update the balance).
If you have a withdrawable balance, you can request a withdrawal by clicking on the “Withdraw” link under the banking page.
We are unable to make a withdrawal as we do not have sufficient cash funds: if we did have a withdrawable balance I could enter the amount here for the withdrawal to be processed.
If you have an active promotion on your account and/or bonus funds showing in your balance then withdrawing funds may mean you lose these promotional funds. Additionally, as previously mentioned, you may have issues withdrawing if you account has not successfully been verified.
If you encounter any issues depositing or withdrawing money, or have any questions, then you can easily contact betway to get assistance, as previously discussed.
Betting Basics
When you place a bet, you are provided with the odds to indicate how much will be returned if you win. For example, if you were quoted odds of 25/1 and were to place a stake of £10 you would get a return of £260 should your selection win (£250 winnings and your original £10 stake returned). The fractional odds of 25/1 can be read as “25 to 1” meaning for every £1 you stake, you will win £25.
Another way to calculate this is using decimal odds. Fractional odds of 25/1 would be represented as 26 as decimal: you can calculate this by doing 25 divided by 1 and then adding 1 (adding 1 represents your original stake being returned). Therefore you can work out your returns by simply multiplying the decimal odds by your stake. The higher the decimal odds, the larger your winnings will be.
American odds are the final way you can view odds on betway. American odds are given based on a stake of £100 and are either positive (representing how much you would win using a £100 stake) or negative (representing how much you would have to stake in order to win £100). So, using fractional odds of 25/1 as an example, American odds would be quoted as +2500, as you would win £250 with a £10 stake (the return would still be £260, as your £10 stake would be returned).
On betway you can switch between these odds very simply by using the drop down near the top of the page.
Placing your first bet
The betway website offers a wide selection of sports to bet on – the main categories are listed down the left hand side of the website, but as we are already on the esports section of the website, we can just focus on the betting markets currently available. These are available in the middle of the website.
There are various events listed. We can change the events we see by clicking on the tabs at the top. These filters include: popular markets; currently in-play markets; coupons; and All Esports (which is currently selected). We are interested in the “CS:GO Toyota Master Bangkok” tournament. Clicking this link shows the upcoming matches in this tournament.
As you can see there are two matches listed. In the first match, pro100 Vs. TyLoo, we think pro11 will win and we want to stake (i.e. place a bet) of £10 on them winning. To do this we click the odds (30/11) next to pro100 which will add this selection to the bet slip. By entering 10 into the stake box, the estimated returns are updated.
If you wish to place this bet, then you would click the “Place Bet” button on the bet slip (as our balance is empty, we are instead asked to deposit money). You will then be notified if your bet was successfully placed or not.
The placement of this bet is called a single bet: your bet will either win or lose based on the outcome of a single bet. However, you are able to place a multiple bet (also known as an accumulator), where you are betting on the outcome of multiple matches. For example, in addition to pro11 winning the first match, we may also think that Heroic will beat Renegades in the second match of the day. If we click on both these odds, then they will both be added to the bet slip.
You can now see that the bet slip is longer and split into two sections. The first section contains the single bets, like earlier, and you could place two single bets in the same way as above (and the two bets would be independent). However, there is now a multiples section which has odds of 2.34. By entering a stake here you are betting on the result of both matches, so if you were to lose one or more legs of your bet (i.e. one or more of your choices lost) then you would lose (all parts of your bet must win). If you wish to place a stake on the multiple, you only need to place a stake in the multiples box (you do not place a stake in other boxes unless you wish to also place single bets at the same time).
You can have larger multiples, so you can add new selections to your bet slip using the same approach as above. You can also remove selections from the bet slip by clicking the “X” next to a selection.
When a bet is placed, it cannot be cancelled. However, for most bets on betway, you have the option of cashing out. This means that you can settle your bet early for a given amount (this given amount is quoted by betway). This becomes potentially useful during in-play. In-play betting is where you can place bets on an event that is currently happening. If a bet you had placed was doing well during a match, you will likely be able to cash out for a profit; similarly you can cash out if your player is doing worse than you expect (likely for a amount less than your original stake). You can see the cash-out option on your existing bets (under the “cash out” next to the bet slip). You are also able to place new in-play bets for most events, although the odds can change very quickly in reaction to events happening during the match.
eSports betting on betway
Now we know how to place different types of bet, we can explore the different types of eSports markets on betway. For each esports match that is listed on betway, you can click on the opponents of the match to see what markets are available for that match. So, we can click “Heroic – Renegades” to bring up the extra markets for this match.
We can see that there is a range of markets that allow you to place bets on different elements of a tournament/match. The available markets will vary depending on the type of tournament, as well as it’s popularity.
Conclusion
Betway is a major player in the betting world and esports is a growing part of their offering with it now being one of their main categories on offer. This means that there is a good selection of events and markets available for each event. Betway offer a large number of betting opportunities and the layout is clean and consistent across all of these sections. Each category has a specific colouring (e.g. the esports category makes use of purple) which makes it easy to identify which section of the site you are in.
For a new user, or one who wishes to bet on a large number of sports or categories, the large number of events and consistent design make it a good choice. It is straight forward to register and they often run various promotions, such as free bets. The registration process is straight forward and you can bet on the go with their mobile apps. It also provides a good support section which makes it easy to get help, should it be needed.
As well as esports betting, Betway also provides the esports inside (essentially an esports focused blog). This blog claims to offer expert advice and esports betting tips and whilst it covers a range of topics, the number of updates can be sporadic. However, it is a nice addition to those who wish to learn more or get additional information about the esports industry.
