How to win big predicting esports with Prosper

Written in partnership with Prosper.

Prosper is the world’s largest real-money pick’em competition. Launched by Hive Gaming on Jan. 24, Prosper Ultimate allows players to win money by predicting the final statistics of esports matches. Players can use entry tickets (obtainable as rewards or for $1) to place their pick’ems and get started.

New players may find the task of correctly predicting a number of stats daunting. But there are ways of thinking that can help them improve their chances. While not everyone will be able to win big every time, the simplicity of Prosper allows anyone to use their knowledge to become an experienced player.

Counter-Strike kill counting

The main game on Prosper right now deals with CS:GO. The goal is to correctly pick each player’s kill count in a given match. To receive the grand prize, you must be correct about all 10 final kill totals. The prize you receive will increase for every correct guess, so you don’t need to be perfect to come out ahead.

Knowing the matchups is key to playing on Prosper. Teams can be close together or far apart in terms of skill level. A team could also be on a hot streak, while the other is struggling as of recent. If a game is close and goes the full duration or even to overtime, the kill totals will keep climbing.

Know the teams

Understanding the matchup isn’t all there is to predicting properly. You must also be aware of how the individual players stack up on the server. CS:GO is a complex esport in that there are different roles despite every character being identical in-game.

Teams have entry fraggers whose job it is to go in first to get a kill and likely die soon after. They have AWPers who use the powerful scoped rifle to rack up kills on defense. Support players and secondary riflers may not always open with kills but can easily clean up in post-plant scenarios. Knowing the roles and how each player fits in and fulfills them is crucial to calculating their potential kill counts.

With a little research, it’s not difficult to know which players on a team will likely be topping the frag charts. But guessing how players will finish in relation to each other is crucial to your success with Prosper. If one team has no dedicated AWPer, their opposing AWPer could be uncontested and rack up even more kills than usual. Every match will have a different dynamic and knowing this is key to making your predictions.

An educated guessing game

In the end, Prosper is still a game of guessing. Nobody can know exactly what will happen on the server. All you can do is make your research count and give your best educated guess. Players can have off days, maps could be unfavorable, any number of variables could go off the charts. You could try and predict these variables or just play it safe with statistics. Prosper offers an auto-pick feature that will make a decision for you based on the last 20 matches if you aren’t confident in making your own.

If you want to have the best shot at winning, you must understand the players’ roles and current form. Following the esports scene and knowing which players are playing well and why will increase your chances of guessing right. Combining knowledge with intuition is how you’ll achieve your best results with Prosper.

To get started playing pick’ems with Prosper, visit its website here.