This is a guest contribution by Florian a long time eSports enthusiast and co-founder of Esports-betting.pro. If you would like to submit a contribution please contact Bill Beatty for submission details. Thank you.

It has been anticipated for quite a while, and a couple of days ago it happened! The prize pool of the International 2017 (aka TI7) exceeded $20,770,460, therefore setting the new all-time high in the history of eSports prize money for a single tournament. For insiders, this might not really come as a surprise, but if you are not familiar with the eSports scene, you might wonder where all this money is coming from and how it can be that the winning team, consisting of 5 players and a coach, will earn next to 10 million dollars just for playing video games for a couple of days. In this article, we will look at where the money is coming from and dive deeper into the World of competitive Dota 2 and the betting markets evolving around it.

Before we get into more details about the International 2017, let’s take a short look at Dota 2. The game is published by Valve which is probably most known for its game and software client Steam. Dota 2 got officially released in mid-2013 and is a free to play 5 vs 5 Moba (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena). The goal of the game is to destroy the base and ultimately the nexus of the other team. If you want to see more, check out the video of the finals of last year’s International below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzloD-t_Adk?rel=0]