Heroes of Newerth Betting Sites in 2024

In the era of Covid-19, eSports gaming is gaining traction fast, and so is eSports betting. As conventional sports games and events continue to face heavy restrictions, eSports has partly filled the void for many sports punters. After all, betting on traditional sports is quite similar to wagering on eSports.

Real-time strategies, together with the first-person shooters, are arguably the eSports that attract most players and spectators.

Heroes of Newerth eSports Betting Sites

Site name	Website	Bonus	License
BUFF.bet	buff.bet	100% bonus up to €/£/$100 (terms apply)	Govt. of Curacao
Betway	betway.com	up to $30 in free bets (terms apply)	Malta Gaming Authority (MGA)
VIE.bet	vie.bet	$100 bonus to bet on eSports (terms apply)	MGA
Cyber.Bet	cyber.bet	100% bonus on first deposit up to $100 (terms apply)	Curacao
22Bet	22bet.com	100% bonus up to 122 EUR.	Curacao

Today, only a handful of strategies dominate eSports gaming. League of Legends and Dota 2 are likely the first games to come to mind. However, Heroes of Newerth (or HoN) also deserves a word of appreciation.

Our review will explore the main aspects of this super-popular multiplayer online battle arena game, its current position in a world dominated by Rainbow Six Siege and Dota 2, and where, and if at all, HoN betting still takes place.

The Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Experience

Heroes of Newerth is a free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) – a genre that usually encompasses real-time strategies such as League of Legends and Dota. Blizzard Entertainment deserves much of the credit for popularizing MOBA eSports games. Heroes of Newerth, like LoL, draw inspiration from Blizzard’s iconic games StarCraft and Warcraft3.

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos played a uniquely important role in the expansion of real-time strategies and it essentially introduced the concept of the multiplayer online battle arena.

The original Defense of the Ancients (Dota) was a custom map for Reign of Chaos and its extension, The Frozen Throne, and was based on the “Aeon of Strife” map for the original StarCraft. If you’ve played Blizzard’s strategies before, you’d be familiar with the idea behind the MOBA gameplay.

A Word About Heroes of Newerth

Heroes of Newerth was developed by S2 Games in 2010, though its roots can be traced back to almost a decade earlier.

S2 Games has several popular titles under their belt. From the role-playing fantasy Savage Resurrection to the collectible card game Brawl of Ages, the company established itself as a prolific and steady developer. But no game has brought S2 Games more esteem than its flagship product – Heroes of Newerth.

The game came out in 2010 and preceded major eSports games including Overwatch (2016) and Starcraft II. At the time, Heroes of Newerth became an instant success, drawing several millions of players already in the closed beta tryout. When released publicly, it included a ton of new features such as team matchmaking, in-game voice communication, and an offline map editor.

S2 Games was established in 2003, with Savage: The Battle for Newerth as its first product. Savage was in itself a unique success and was one of the rare games at the time to blend elements of first-person shooter and real-time strategies. But the real value of that game was that it became the key inspiration for S2 Games to start the development of what is to become their best-known game.

Heroes of Newerth Gameplay

A Heroes of Newerth match is similar to that of pretty much all battle arenas.

Matches feature two teams positioned on the opposite corners of a map, with the goal of each team to destroy the main structure of the opposing team’s base. For WarCraft III that was the Tree of Life and titular Frozen Throne, or the World Tree or the Sacrificial Shrine, in Heroes of Newerth.

The teams play with specific heroes who possess different abilities and specialize in different areas. Some heroes are better at ranged attacks, others are powerful melee fighters. Some can easily destroy towers, others are healers. Unlike some MOBA games (such as Starcraft 2), Heroes of Newerth matches do not focus on resource gathering, but rather on making the chosen characters stronger throughout the match.

The diversity of hero characters in fantasy strategy games like HoN is part of what makes them so engaging. With Heroes of Newerth, players earn gold by killing or assisting in killing enemy heroes or creeps, or gain experience points if they are close enough to see creeps or heroes die. Players cannot control more than one hero, though they can be allowed to take control of other players’ characters during the game. All characters usually have four abilities, with the fourth and ultimate ability unlocked after players reach the necessary level.

HoN Match-making Options

The format of Heroes of Newerth players can customize matches based on a different game mode. There are various mode and match-making types, some of the most popular of which include:

• All-pick – all heroes are available and players have 90 seconds to choose characters
• All-random – heroes are chosen randomly and players receive 250 gold as a result
• Duplicate Heroes – one hero can be chosen by more than one player.
• Co-Op – when players form a team to fight against computer bots or AI

How Does Heroes of Newerth eSports Compare to League of Legends?

When first released in 2010, Heroes of Newerth generated widespread interest in the eSports gaming community and professional teams were excited at trying their hand at a brand new game. It’s not that there was a shortage of eSports to play at the time. League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients, among the MOBAs, and Counter-Strike Global Offensive were breaking records as most-played eSports even in the early 2010s. However, S2 Games saw a need for a MOBA game that would preserve the qualities of the traditional battle arena but introduce certain new elements that would give the game its own distinct panache and separate it from the crowd. Therefore, Heroes of Newerth was born.

Gamers and eSports casters enjoy chattering about their favorite MOBAs and occasionally draw comparisons between Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends. But how does HoN stack up to an eSports juggernaut such as LoL? The simple answer is, it doesn’t, or at least not size-wise. Since first released in 2009, LoL has expanded so much over the years as to rival, and even surpass Dota 2 as the top battle arena and one of the biggest eSports overall. The 2020 League of Legends World Championship finals drew around 45 million viewers at its peak. Another big difference between the two games is the prizes for their top tournaments. The top LoL tournaments have prize pools of millions of dollars. The biggest Heroes of Newerth tournament – the 2015 HON Pre Season of Professional League 2015 – had a prize pool of just over $236,000. Notably, though, HoN tournaments can be quite lucrative for professional players. Between 2010 and 2018, when HoN tournaments were in their prime, there was more than $3,000,000 in prize money doled out between contestants.

The HoN Tournament Format

Depending on the size of the tournament, there can be as many as one hundred or more teams participating in an event. The team that passes a single-elimination format advances to the playoffs. Here, the teams usually partake in double-elimination, best-of-three matches where the best teams proceed to the finals. Each team that survives this round progresses to the finals before the top two teams move on to a Grand Final, usually played in a best-of-five format.

eSports Betting

If you’ve ever bet on football, you will find the concept of eSports betting almost identical. Almost.

As with traditional sports, eSports betting involves the prediction of a match-winner or choosing which team will win a tournament. The term eSports is used to refer to video gaming on a professional level. Make no mistake, eSports is very much a professional sport. Just to give you an idea, in 2016, LoL’s online and in-person viewership of major tournaments topped the audiences for the NBA, the MLB World Series, and the NHL Stanley Cup.

The massive popularity of eSports games has made them irresistible to online betting sites. Today, all top gambling sites have successfully incorporated eSports betting into their otherwise bland sports and casino sections. Star players and top teams participate in massively competitive tournaments which tens of millions of fans watch live on social media. High event matches follow top matches live on major sports networks such as ESPN.

High-ranked eSports betting sites have numerous markets to bet on some of the top eSports games in the industry. Dota 2, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are the three most prevalent and tend to have the most favorable odds. Fixtures for Overwatch, Rainbow 6, Valorant, Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft 2, and other games are also available, only are fewer in number, as are game-specific tournaments for each title held on a monthly or yearly basis.

Why Bet on Heroes Newerth eSPorts

Gamers that have never played strategy games are sometimes put off by the seeming slowness of the average match. However, real-time strategies have shown they can be extremely dynamic and competitive, and the momentum of a match can change in a blink of an eye. If a team is initially on the losing side, all it takes is one properly orchestrated kill or a well-executed team fight to turn the table on the opposing team.

Heroes of the Storm, while not as popular as Dota 2 or Starcraft 2, offers state-of-the-art gameplay and a fantasy world populated with unique new heroes, each of whom has distinctive skills and fighting capabilities.

No matter how skilled an individual gamer is at playing HoN, it takes teamwork to change the game’s outcome. Keeping up to date with the statistics and current forms of individual teams will go a long way in placing informed bets. If a team has lower odds it simply means it is considered a favorite and it has bigger chances of winning. However, predicting the outcome of the game correctly can be tricky. Due to the highly competitive nature of the game, a match can take an unexpected turn at any time and weaker teams have been known to leverage stronger teams’ smallest mistakes to take the lead.

Such upsets are quite rare, but not uncommon. When you do your research on the best HoN teams, you are bound to come across one called Team Fnatic. Team Fnatic is a top name on the broader eSports scene which competes in several eSports categories and has won the HoN Tour World Finals. The Thailand-based teams MiXs and eNeo – who have also competed in the HoN Tour World Finals – as well as Malaysia’s Ghm and Russia’s Cats Gaming, are also extremely competitive teams you should keep an eye for. This is only a small number of the dozens of HoN teams who play on a professional level.

HoN eSports Betting in 2021

The different bet types for a given Heroes of Newerth match on any betting site can range. From the most basic of betting options on the match or outright tournament winner to more specific bets such as handicaps, over/under a given number, or total kills, rounds, maps played, and so on. But there is a catch.

Heroes of Newerth has already been present on the eSports scene for more than a decade, and in online gaming years, that is a lot. In the meantime, multiple new MOBA games have emerged and deflected attention away from this exceptional game. This has forced the game’s developers and organizers to gradually scale down competitions, and professional gamers and almost every top team have either disbanded or diverted their talents to more competitive games.

While not as frequent as they used to be, Heroes of Newerth tournaments are still occasionally organized, typically on a local level. The majority of betting sites we reviewed had no current or upcoming betting events. The latest tournament for the game was held in early May and there were no scheduled upcoming events to bet on.

However, patience is a virtue. If you strictly want to bet on Heroes of Newerth, we are positive some event or tournament is in the works.

Regardless of HoN’s diminished popularity, a loyal fan base and passionate organizers are trying to keep the game alive by organizing at least several tournaments each month.

Despite the unrivaled dominance of Dota 2 and LoL, according to many, Heroes of Newerth remains one of the best MOBA games inspired by Warcraft III’s original custom map, Defense of the Ancients.

Possible HoN eSports Betting Sites

• BUFF.bet– Bet £10 get a £10 free bet; terms apply
• Betway eSports – up to $30 in free bets
• VIE.Bet – Up to $100 bonus to bet on eSports
• Cyber.Bet– 100% bonus on first deposit up to $100
• 22Bet – 100% matched first deposit of up to $122; T&Cs apply; +18

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