Dota 2 — The International: what is confirmed

No dates yet

The season block above is blank because the next edition has no announced dates. A date quoted elsewhere without the publisher's own announcement behind it is a guess.

What to look for when it is announced

• The dates, in the publisher's own announcement.
• The venue and host country, which decides what the tournament clock looks like from Helsinki or Dublin.
• The platform, stated in text on the organiser's own page — not inferred from what happened last year.
• The format, because a group stage into a double-elimination bracket prices very differently from a straight knockout.

How this market behaves when it is live

There is still something useful to say about betting the game itself, because the mechanics do not change between editions. Matches are best-of-three in the bracket and best-of-five in the final rounds, which makes series-score markets the main event and the single-map price a secondary product. Drafting is long and consequential, so a price posted before the draft is pricing a different game from the one played. Patch cycles reset the meta hard enough that six-month-old form is close to worthless, and books lag the community's reading of a new patch by days rather than hours.

What a longer series does to the price, worked

A single map of Dota 2 cannot be drawn, so a series price follows directly from the chance of winning one map. Suppose the stronger team wins any given map 60% of the time. In a best-of-three it takes the series with probability 0.6 × 0.6 plus 2 × 0.6 × 0.6 × 0.4, which is 0.36 + 0.288 = 64.8%, a fair price of about 1.54. In a best-of-five the same edge becomes 68.3%, a fair price of about 1.47. The 2-0 correct score alone is 0.6 × 0.6 = 36%, a fair 2.78. Longer series reward the better side, which is why a final at best-of-five is priced shorter than the same pairing in the bracket.

The tail risk to know about is roster instability: in this scene, line-ups change between tournaments more freely than in traditional sport, and an outright backed in the summer can be a different team by autumn. Read the operator's rule on how a roster change affects an ante-post bet before you place one.

What is listed above

Several bookmakers here price esports, so they appear in the list above.

In the meantime, our Worlds page covers the one esports event this season with confirmed dates, and our Counter-Strike page covers the deepest esports market. To compare the operators, use the esports betting page, or the full betting-site list.

18+ and betting on things that are not happening yet

18+, or the legal age where you live. Ante-post markets on a tournament with no announced dates tie up your money for an unknown period at a margin you cannot compare, because almost nobody else prices it. That is a poor trade, and skipping it is the sensible call. The responsible gambling page lists free international support if the urge to have something running is the thing driving the bet.