While still a niche by 2025, esports had grown into a worldwide spectator sport; millions viewed each tournament. Today, instead of wanting to “just” watch tournaments, fans want in on the action. Fans participate by demonstrating their understanding of team strategy, individual player ability, and ultimately, what will happen at the end of each match. This has created an appetite for predictive participation (now referred to as “intelligent betting”). Intelligent betting allows knowledgeable participants to make better predictions. And in places that are passionate about esports (like Mongolia), intelligent betting is creating a new generation of competitive gamers.
The Rise of Pick’ Em Contests
Pick’ em contests originated from Valve’s work with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Majors, where fans predicted the outcomes of entire brackets for rewards within the game. The model generalized across esports, making a consistent form of tournament engagement. MelBet specializes in esports pick ’em contests and has created a dedicated space for tournament predictions in major esports betting. In contrast to traditional betting, Pick ’em is risk-free betting, as players earn prizes for correct predictions within a tournament’s bracket.
It is one of the reasons why many people have been drawn to this type of gaming, because of its strategic elements. It gained even more popularity, with the launch of large-scale events, and included two official pick’em contests: the PUBG Global Championship and the Valorant Game Changers Championship, in 2023. Today’s gamer uses statistics and analysis to play games, so the focus on information gathering and decision making fits well with this growing trend.
Some key events in the development of pick ’em contests include:
- Introduction by Valve in 2013 for The International Dota 2 tournament, which allowed users to draft fantasy teams.
- Introduction of the League of Legends World Championship in 2015 with bracket predictions for rewards.
- The 2019 PUBG Mobile Global Championship, which incorporated mobile esports.
- Official ESL adoption in 2021 for Intel Extreme Masters events, which tailored international participation.
These events mark the transition of the format from game-specific use to general industry-wide adoption.
Why Pick’em resonates with the modern gamer
Participation in a Pick’em rotates the role of onlooker to analyst. By performing match research, studying form, and comparing historical contests to recent matchups, people transform passive viewership into participatory, critical exercises. As a result, Pick’em appeals to people within the demographic who grew up watching complex mechanics and value-based data measurement.
The format showcases the following traits:
- Improved critical thinking ability through research in participant stats and meta changes
- Community building through shared prediction discourse and position leaderboards
- Lack of monetization and deposit requirements makes entry free and easy, with only the knowledge needed
- Predictive accuracy earns monetary value prizes and decreases risk through staked money
The modern gamer, as evidenced by the format and trend, prizes experiences that reflect the complex strategic layers in their games.
Essential Characteristics of Top Pick’em Sites
Pick’em MelBet’s services focus on prominent events, especially the Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2 finals. Customers speculate on teams’ finishing places in the tournament and earn points based on their predictions. The service is linked to the customers’ accounts, and they can access other esports services. The company was founded in 2012, holds a Curaçao license, and serves clients in dozens of countries.
Top 2025 tournaments displayed on these platforms include:
| Tournament | Discipline | Peak Global Viewers | Notable Outcome |
| IEM Cologne 2025 | CS2 | Over 1 million | Record Mongolian stream viewership of 99,424 |
| BLAST Premier Bounty S2 2025 | CS2 | 800 | New Mongolian record |
| Esports World Cup 2025 | Multiple | Over 3 million | The MongolZ victory |
| MongolZ vs Aurora | CS2 | 180,000 (Mongolian) | National viewership peak |
These events demonstrate how pick’em integrates with live competitions, heightening involvement during playoffs.
The Role of Regional Enthusiasm in Mongolia
Here, particularly, the surprise of Mongolia became a key driver of specific game prediction formats. Attention peaked, particularly because of the Mongols’ success during the World Cup of Esports (2025). 180k Mongolians were shipped in and watched, and with 5% of the country’s population participating, a vibrant crowd emerged. The transfer of this vibrant support, making a game prediction, became a practical patron of the incredible talent possessed by the local players.
Across the region, cell phone registrations are the norm. The area showing a positive contribution to game prediction events as an expression of national pride, while self-restraint in the gaming culture becomes a positive contribution.
Implications for Gamer Behavior and Industry Evolution
The interest in game prediction, particularly MelBet, reflects the modern gamer rewards culture, the use of data to inform decisions, and the desire to compete within a community. Gamers see events as problems to be solved and of analytical interest, rather than spectacles to watch. This interest reflects a broader trend toward a more inclusive model of games, where the more a user plays, the more skill is rewarded.
As eSports develop, pick’em contests demonstrate a sustainable approach for fan engagement. They merge casual watching with active participation, fostering loyalty without the traditional engagement requirements. This progression shows future gaming audiences will want an experience centered around their knowledge of the game and the triumphs they can share. This will reshape the way competitive games interact with their audiences.
