Nitrogen Sports esports betting review

NitrogenSports.eu is one of the world’s most popular Bitcoin sportsbooks thanks to its vast selection of betting markets, higher-than-average betting limits and convenience of anonymity. First opened in 2012 as a regular sportsbook, it boldly adopted Bitcoin as its one and only supported currency following its rise in value and was one of the first betting sites to add esports betting options. This review goes over Nitrogen Sports’s current esports betting markets, customer support, licensing and regulation, bonuses and promotions, and what type of esports bettor the site ultimately suits best.

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Accepted countries at Nitrogen

One very cool thing about NitrogenSports is players from all over the world are accepted, with no excluded countries at the time of this review. Because the only currency supported on-site is bitcoin, which transcends traditional banking restrictions, anyone can sign up and play at Nitrogen so long as you have BTC to deposit and play with.

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Bonuses and promotions at Nitrogen Sports

First thing’s first: NitrogenSports don’t have any permanent welcome bonus offer currently in-place for new sign-ups. It’s definitely rare to see a betting site not have some form of bonus to entice its new customers, but Nitrogen relies on its unique reputation as a bitcoin sportsbook specialist with high betting limits to offset the lack of extras. If you are an active member who pays attention to the site’s blog section, you will find regular free bet giveaways for betting on several esports events, including ESL One and i-League and meeting certain criteria (4-leg parlays or sharing your betslip on Twitter with certain hash-tags, etc). Free bets count up to the risk amount listed, including parlays, and your overall account balance isn’t affected by placing a free bet – if your wager loses, your balance will not change.

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Nitrogen Sports site interface

NitrogenSports isn’t the prettiest looking esports betting site on the market, with over-sized betting menus and plenty of wasted space on the desktop site, but it gets the job done in the functionality department. The left-hand side menu neatly displays all of the esports betting options under expandable menus for quick and easy access, alphabetically sorted by game and tournament. There is a special ‘Starting Soon’ hub that sorts upcoming matches across all games, and futures markets for every esports title with markets open at Nitrogen. The betslip is displayed on the right-hand side of the screen and shows all the esports matches you currently have placed wagers on, with odds and potential earnings automatically calculated.

Your current BTC balance and account details, user settings and cashier are accessible via the top nav-bar. You can choose which odds format you want the markets to be displayed in (American, decimal, or both) across the site, which helps clear confusion between the predominantly American user-base Nitrogen attracts and its international customers. In the settings, you can also self-exclude yourself from the sportsbook for certain time periods, which is an appreciated additional feature.

The mobile version of NitrogenSports is actually very well optimised, with the expandable sub-menus for betting markets and the betting slip suiting the smaller screen much better. For esports bettors who prefer doing their betting on Android or iPhone or iPad, it definitely fits the bill.

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Nitrogen Sports esports betting markets

Nitrogen Sports.eu’s esports betting markets cover the world’s most popular esports and a handful of niche titles. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends and StarCraft II are well represented, and titles rapidly rising in popularity in the international competitive gaming scene such as Heroes of the Storm, King of Glory, Overwatch, Rocket League, and World of Tanks. Occasionally, Nitrogen are known to open temporary markets for major tournaments for smaller esports titles such as Smite. We came away relatively satisfied given Nitrogen seem to cover all major and minor comps around the world in a timely manner, including ESEA, ESL One, LoL World Championships, and the Wargaming League just to name a few, so your options aren’t just limited to the annual events.

At NitrogenSports, you can place straight bets (match winner) on all esports games along with several prop markets such as map winner, over/under and handicap. Live bets, parlays and teasers are also available with great minimum and maximum limits. Game-specific bets such as First Blood (CS:GO) or First Tower (Dota) were not offered, however, which is a shame given the majority of other sportsbooks these days have been paying close attention to these side bets and actively offer them – they are especially popular among the hardcore gamer and Twitch streaming crowds dipping their toes into esports betting for the first time. We hope to see Nitrogen offer more of these game-specific betting options in the near future.

One particularly annoying issue that we identified on the site is to actually be able to place parlay bets on esports events, they must be manually activated on your account. This is done by requesting the option via a support ticket. It’s a bit of an inconvenience not really clarified in the official FAQs, and one we unfortunately had to find a solution to on our own.

Other sports betting markets at NitrogenSports

If you are an esports fan who also likes placing wagers on traditional sporting events, you will be happy to know NitrogenSports has an ample selection of betting options in the following sports.

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Payment methods at Nitrogen Sports

As already pointed out, Nitrogen is a bitcoin-only esports betting site. There are no other fiat currency deposit or withdrawal options supported at this time, so it will only suit esports bettors who have bitcoin or like to bet in bitcoin.

Before you can even wager, you must create a bitcoin wallet using either the officially recommended wallet services or a third-party wallet service of your choice before you can deposit. Once you have set that up, you link your bitcoin wallet address to your NitrogenSports account and fund your betting account via the cashier section of the site. Because bitcoin deposits rely on the speed of the bitcoin network to process, transfers are usually instant, meaning you can place your wagers almost immediately after.

NitrogenSports allows withdrawal of your bitcoin winnings at any time, with a few rules. Players must first make sure all of their deposits less than 1.0 BTC must have at least 1 confirmation, and any deposit between 1.0 and 10.0 BTC will require 2 confirmations, any deposit between 10.0 and 50.0 BTC will require 4 confirmations, and any deposit over 50.0 BTC will require 6 confirmations. In most cases, withdrawals are very fast, with winnings back in our bitcoin wallets within 24 hours. A minor quirk to note is that for any and all esports betting only, withdrawals must be manually reviewed by the NitrogenSports staff.

All recent cashier transactions are displayed on the right-hand side of the page (desktop) or at the bottom (mobile) so you can keep easy access of all of your bitcoin coming in and out of your NitrogenSports account. You can also view them in the ‘My Wagers’ and ‘Transactions’ sections, both accessible via the main menu.

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Customer support at Nitrogen Sports

Nitrogen handles all customer complaints and queries via email support and on-site ticket system where you can describe the problem or question you have in greater detail. Representatives answered our tickets within 24 hours on average and were very helpful and knowledgeable about our very specific queries on their esports betting options. We also sent them messages directly at [email protected], which was equally prompt in response.

Finally, because Nitrogen has a heavy social media presence, there are four quick links included on the top left of the page to their Facebook, Reddit and Twitter accounts – you can reach out to their reps on there for some answers or info, too. They have a separate Nitrogen Esports Twitter account which focuses especially on their esports customer base, which shows their dedication to growing out the booming pro gaming betting market.

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The Final Verdict – NitrogenSports

Nitrogen Sports has a decent selection of esports betting options available for both casual and experienced bettors. It’s perfect for those who prefer to bet in bitcoin versus fiat currency, and offers additional anonymity and privacy because you aren’t linking any personal bank accounts or cards to bet on your favourite esports. It still has some ways to go in terms of offering more game-specific side-bets which are more widely available at competing online sportbooks, such as Betsson and Pinnacle.