LoL esports betting on leagues and tournaments

Riot Games develops League of Legends and publishes its esports calendar. A season is cut into three splits. Each split starts with regional play in the LEC, LCS, CBLOL, LCK, LPL and LCP, then hands over to an international event: First Stand after Split 1, the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) after Split 2 and the World Championship (Worlds) after Split 3. The splits are regional events. First Stand, MSI and Worlds are global events.

The first regional split runs from 12 January to 8 March. The second runs from 30 March to 21 June, and the third from July to October.

Series are played as Bo1, Bo3 or Bo5, meaning best of one, three or five games. The EMEA Masters playoffs and the CBLOL Finals are Bo5.

Beyond the six leagues, EMEA Masters began in 2019 as European Masters, replacing the EU Challenger Series, and brings together the top teams from Europe's regional leagues. The LCS and CBLOL also hold promotion qualifiers.

Bookmakers file League of Legends under an esports group, and the events they carry differ. Betway, William Hill, Unibet and Midnite all hold a Gambling Commission licence.

Bookmaker	Where League of Legends sits	Events named
Betway	Popular events in the esports section	World Championship, MSI
William Hill	Esports competitions	World Championship and other series and tournaments through the year, League of Legends Asian Games
Unibet	LOL group in the esports competitions	World Championship, World Championships Play-In, EMEA Masters Final

Midnite carries League of Legends series and has betting rules specific to them.

Worlds is the annual professional League of Legends world championship. Riot Games hosts it as the culmination of each season, and teams play for the title and the Summoner's Cup. The first edition was held in June 2011 at DreamHack Summer in Jönköping, Sweden, with eight teams. The venue now rotates between countries and regions. The 2014 edition was the first hosted in several countries, and the 2017 edition was the first with a play-in stage. Since 2014, teams have earned championship points across their splits and playoffs to qualify.

The 2026 edition runs from 15 October to 14 November. The Play-Ins are Bo5. A Swiss stage then starts on 23 October and runs to 31 October, with Bo1 and Bo3 series. The quarterfinals are Bo5 and are played from 3 to 6 November, and the semifinals are Bo5 on 7 and 8 November.

Betway has a World Championship page for League of Legends that gathers its matches, with a More Bets link beside each. Unibet lists the World Championships Play-In as its own competition.

MSI was created in 2015 as Riot's second official international tournament. The first edition was held in Tallahassee, Florida, with one team from each major region and one international wildcard. The 2020 edition was cancelled and replaced by the Mid-Season Streamathon, a live stream event for a cause. In 2021 MSI was played at the Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík, Iceland, behind closed doors, and the 2022 edition was held in Busan, South Korea. In 2026 MSI runs from 28 June to 12 July.

First Stand opens the international calendar and runs from 16 March to 22 March in 2026.

LEC

The EU LCS and the NA LCS were both established in 2012 and played their first seasons in 2013. The EU LCS became the League of Legends European Championship, the LEC, in 2019, the year the league became franchised.

LCS

The LCS began as the NA LCS. It moved to ten permanent teams beginning in 2018, and by December 2018 it had been rebranded as the LCS.

CBLOL

The Campeonato Brasileiro de League of Legends grew out of the Riot Brazilian Champion League, established in 2012. It became a franchised league in 2020.

LCK

The League of Legends Champions Korea grew out of The Champions, established in South Korea in 2012. It became a franchised league in 2021.

LPL

The League of Legends Pro League began in China in 2013 with eight teams. In April 2017 it announced it would become franchised, removing promotion and relegation. In 2019 Riot Games and Tencent formed a joint venture, TJ Sports, to oversee League of Legends esports operations in China.

Liga Latinoamérica

The Liga Latinoamérica was created in 2018 as a merger of the Liga Latinoamérica Norte and the Copa Latinoamérica Sur. The league ceased operations in 2024.

An outright, or tournament winner, bet backs one choice to win a whole event. It is settled on who wins the event overall, not on any single series, so a team can win series along the way and the bet can still lose. A match bet is decided when one series ends. An outright rides on the whole event.

At Worlds, one winner bet sits across every stage of the tournament. Bookmakers also build markets around the same event that are not a plain winner bet, so read the market name and any wording beside it before you place a bet.

The bookmakers we rate for this game are on League of Legends betting sites.

Betway

Rated 4.2 out of 5 in our Betway review for UK players. Betway lists four common esports bet types: match winner, map winner, tournament winner and correct score. Tournament winner is the outright winner of an event. Betway says its markets for the biggest events, the League of Legends MSI among them, run from outright winners through to map-by-map and live in-play betting. Esports is marked in-play.

Unibet

Rated 3.9 out of 5 in our Unibet review for UK players. An Outrights view sits beside Featured, Next to go and Competitions in its esports section. The Worlds outrights include a first-time winner market with yes and no choices and a winner market that leaves out Gen.G, and they close on 23 October 2026 at 06:00. Unibet offers cash out, live streaming and in-play betting on its sportsbook.

William Hill

Rated 3.8 out of 5 in our William Hill review for UK players. William Hill gives each esports competition a Matches tab and an Outrights tab, including the League of Legends Asian Games. Live matches carry a Live marker, and in-play information is subject to delay.

Midnite

Rated 3.1 out of 5 in our Midnite review for UK players. Midnite settles League of Legends totals on inhibitors, dragons and Baron Nashor under its own betting rules. Each inhibitor counts once, even if it respawns and is destroyed again. After a surrender, bets on towers or inhibitors settle as if the winning team had destroyed the minimum number of extra towers or inhibitors needed to win normally. In-play data at Midnite is subject to a delay. The maximum payout for esports is £25,000.

Set a deposit, loss and time limit before a series starts. Esports matches run at every hour and in-play prices move quickly, so fix the budget for a match before it begins and keep to it. A free bet, a price boost or a big final is never a reason to raise a limit or chase a loss.

Betway, William Hill, Unibet and Midnite all offer deposit limits and self-exclusion. Betway and William Hill add session reminders, and Midnite offers loss limits and a Cool Off. Gamstop blocks every site licensed in Great Britain at once. You must be 18 or over to bet.

If gambling is causing harm, call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133 (England and Scotland) or the NHS Wales Helpline on 0808 2819 265 (Wales).

When a bookmaker changes a term, a market or a figure, our team reads the bookmaker's listing again and corrects this page. How we check facts is explained in how we rate. Corrections can be sent to info@esportsbookies.co.uk.

• Our team tests the bookmakers and checks every fact on this page
• lolesports.com One page read.
• wikipedia.org 2 pages read.
• betway.com Used for terms and safer gambling tools. 4 pages read.
• williamhill.com Used for games. 4 pages read.
• unibet.co.uk Used for offers and safer gambling tools. 5 pages read.
• midnite.com Used for support. 4 pages read.
• gamblingcommission.gov.uk Used for the licence register. 4 pages read.