The moment has arrived.
It’s one of the biggest events of the year in the realm of video games and esports, and now we’re just days away from the Fortnite World Cup. The tournament kicks off on July 26, but qualifying for the World Cup has been going on since April. Now that we’re finally here, we finally have the full list of participants, and on top of that, we also have a set of odds that the betting community can have fun with.
Before the Fortnite World Cup, 2018’s Fortnite Fall Skirmish Series would have the highest prize pool out of any Fortnite tournament out there with a total of $4 million. However, their record wouldn’t last long. When the World Cup came around, they would put up a whopping prize pool of $30 million — a drastic $26 million more than the Fall Skirmish Series.
With that being said, there’s a load of money up for grabs starting on Friday, and it looks like the World Cup has laid their amount on the table to be the top and most prestigious Fortnite event. Oh, and on top of that, the $30 million prize pool has their event as the highest in all of esports tournaments — the next highest is a $25 million pool from Dota 2’s The International 2018. Now, do you see how big this event is?
In this event, there’s two sets of tournaments, including one for solo players and another one for duos. As far as the odds are concerned, Tfue is currently the favorite to land the solo tournament placed at +1400, and Tschinken/Stompy are the top-dogs to take the duo version at +700.
On top of that, Bovada has also provided prop bets for the Fortnite World Cup, which we will get into later in this piece. Some of the bets that you can wager on are the region of the winner, whether or not they will be apart of an organization, and even if the winning solos player will use a controller or keyboard/mouse.
There will be a total of six Battle Royal Matches that each solos player, as well as each duos team, will be competing in. Here is the scoring system for the Fortnite World Cup:
After the six matches are over, the grand prize will then be rewarded to the player (or team) with the highest points tally. In the event of a tiebreaker, we then go through a process:
NO NINJA FOR THE FORTNITE WORLD CUP
Even if you’re not familiar with esports betting or the video game community, you may be aware of who Ninja is. He would first gain notoriety as a professional player with the game Halo, and then would cross over into the mainstream after doing a Fortnite live stream with the rapper Drake in 2018. Since that time, he’s been of the go-to streams for the Twitch community, and things even got so big for Ninja that he was even on the cover of ESPN The Magazine.
However, though Ninja is widely known in the Fortnite community and one of the most high-profile players of the game, he would fail to qualify for the World Cup. In Week 6, he would come just two points short of making the qualifiers list, and as a result, we take a big hit in star-power with the absence of Ninja.
SCORING SYSTEM CHAOS
Not only is there controversy about the scoring system that has been set up by Epic Games, but this is going to be very important to know for your wagers. There have been a load of complaints coming from both competitors and the gaming community about the scoring system for the Fortnite World Cup. The displeasure is coming from the possible undervalue of earning a victory at 10 points, creating a scenario where players who care more about elimination points will have the leverage over placement points.
With this being the case, you may want to consider this strong in your bets. Place value on the solo players and duo teams that have high elimination rates, rather than the ones who do good with placement but aren’t the best with their elimination rate. Consider this a loophole for your betting.
The only problem with large tournaments like this is that it can be hard to pick a winner because of the sizeable fields. Luckily, with as big as this event is, there’s also a number of prop bets that you can make a buck off of a little easier than a winner bet. Another cool thing about props is that most bettors are focused on winning picks, and as a result, this causes some prop bets to go under the radar and they can produce large earnings with the set odds.
Let’s go over three examples of prop bets: Region of Winner, Will the Winner Belong to an Organization?, and Will the Winner use a Keyboard/Mouse or a Controller?
It comes as no surprise that North America currently sits as the favorite on the odds-board, and they take the top-dog status in both the solos and duos tournament. They place -110 in the solos section, and they take a -125 figure in duos. However, you may want to consider placing a bet on Europe, because there’s a lot of a value with them — and that’s in both tournaments.
Remaining on the board is Asia, South America, and Oceanic, but none of the top 10 competition come from those regions. With that being said, keep your money away from those three.
Also consider this: Even though the field is large, the only ones that you can really consider to take the victory in the solos tournament are the first 11 in the odds. When it comes to those 11, six players are from North America, while the remaining five are out of Europe.
The top-dog favorite Tfue represents North America, while second-place Stompy will be the No. 1-ranked European in the tournament. And here’s another reason why you would want to consider Europe and their value: Out of the top seven players on the board, four of them represent Europe. I’m loving the profitability that can come from their +110 odds, so I would certainly place a bet on them.
When it comes to the duos tournament, you have to place a wager on Europe with their odds set at EVEN. And that becomes incredibly obvious when you consider that the two top teams in the odds — Tschinken/Stompy and Benjyfishy/MrSavage — are out of Europe, and they’ve distanced themselves quite a bit from the rest of the competition. You have to take Europe here in one of the best prop bets on the list, if not the best.
Also referred to as a “team”, an “organization” is a clique of players such as FaZe Clan, which we’ve already gotten into a little bit, and Ghost Gaming. In the odds, “Yes” is the favorite to take the cake at -150 for the solos tournament, and that’s definitely where you have to place your money. Out of the top 11 players, just two don’t claim to be apart of an organization.
This bet can become interesting, however, and that’s because of the top-dog favorite Tfue being one of the players not apart of a team. The other player not a member of an organization is Aqua. There’s certainly some value at “No” at +115 because of Tfue, and it’s worth a wager, but with the size of the field, it’s definitely risky to put all of your eggs in that basket. As far as me, personally, I’d place both a “Yes” and “No” bet, and try to squeeze as much profitability out of the “Yes” -110 odds as possible, because that’s likely to happen.
When it comes to the duos tournament, the odds are much closer, and they’re extraordinarily close. “Yes” is the slight favorite at -120, while “No” is placed right behind at -110. But I would completely ignore those figures. Literally, all of the teams on top of the odds board belong to an organization, meaning there’s zero value with the “No” bet. Place the pot on “Yes”.
There is absolutely no value with this bet. No matter what side you decide to bet on, your chance of profitability is scarce. On one end, you pretty much 99.9% guarantee that side will win, and on the other end, there’s pretty much 0.01% chance that side will gain a victory.
Check out the numbers: In the entire tournament, there’s only a total of six players who will be using a controller in the solos tournament. In the duos, there is only expected to be two teams that are using a controller. In other words, the strong vast majority of teams in the field are using a keyboard and a mouse.
Let’s go over the full list of odds for both the Fortnite World Cup solos and duos tournament, and I’ll give you my predictions of who I see winning it all. Afterwards, we’ll then get over all of the prop bets and I’ll pick those as well.
POWELL’S PREDICTION TO WIN THE 2019 FORTNITE WORLD CUP (SOLOS)
POWELL’S PREDICTION TO WIN THE 2019 FORTNITE WORLD CUP (DUOS)
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