It is no secret that Brazilian esports fans are some of the most passionate in the world. Whether it’s the Brazilian League of Legends Championship hitting 336,000 concurrent viewers, the millions of followers on social media or the sky high viewership numbers of FURIA during IEM Katowice this February.

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It comes as no surprise then, that when reviewing betting performance in CS:GO, the biggest performing events of 2020 had some Brazilian flavour to them. Peaks in bet volume coincided with spikes in bets on Brazilian teams, especially when these teams made deeper tournament runs.

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🎮 June 2020

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June included several big tournaments including BLAST Premier: Spring, the tail end of DreamHack Masters Spring and the first 2 stages of cs_summit 6 which included 4 Brazilian teams, FURIA, MIBR, Yeah Gaming and Team One.

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Both the BLAST and DreamHack events saw Brazilian stalwarts FURIA and MIBR feature heavily. At the North American BLAST they finished second and third respectively, while FURIA secured the DreamHack Masters North America title with a 3–0 victory over Team Liquid.

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In what was one of our best performing months of 2020 in terms of bet volume, Brazilian teams featured in 6.83% of all top flight matches, with bets on matches featuring a Brazilian team accounting for 10.93% of total CS:GO turnover. With Counter-Strike already established as the nexus of esports betting, having a portion of this size attributed to largely 2 teams (FURIA, MIBR) is no small feat. This noteworthy presence wasn’t just confined to the month of June.

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🇧🇷 FURIA a difference maker

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November saw FURIA make a run through the BLAST Premier: Fall 2020 Showdown, including two 2–1 victories after losing the first map. The Brazilian team’s performance earned them qualification to the Fall finals, and the back and forth nature of the series they played led to another strong performance for bet volume. While not as jam packed as June was for Counter-Strike matches, November saw Brazilian teams compete in 4.48% of matches and account for 10.83% of all CS:GO turnover.

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Big name competitions in December including BLAST Premier: Fall 2020 Finals and the Intel Extreme Masters Season XV — Global Challenge also featured a Brazilian presence, particularly FURIA. Despite finishing in 5th-6th place at both of those major tournaments, total bets attributed to Brazilian teams accounted for 14.24% of total turnover, while featuring in 7.58% of all matches that month.

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🐼 Panda Prediction for 2021?

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There’s a demonstrated appetite amongst Brazilian esports punters for CS:GO, particularly for betting on their national representatives. This crossover between a passionate Brazilian bettors and the scale of the CS:GO market itself demonstrates how much is to be gained by bookmakers. When Brazilian teams have a notable tournament footprint and make deeper runs, we’ve sen a larger share of overall bet volume be attributed to these teams.

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Offering matches and markets suited for Brazilian tastes could yield higher overall bet volumes. In particular, catered or more specialised options and experiences for this audience offers great potential for bookmakers to capture their share of the flourishing Brazilian market and establish themselves as a trusted betting provider in the region.

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In our first instalment, we discussed why Rocket League can solidify its place as a top 4 betting product in 2021. Keep an eye out next week to learn more about the best performing League of Legends competition outside of Worlds!