ESL Pro League S16 betting tips – Thursday, September 1

ESB brings you free Counter-Strike: Global Offensive betting predictions for three ESL Pro League Season 16 bouts on Thursday, September 1. Here are our picks for Team Spirit vs Endpoint, Natus Vincere vs Fnatic, and Ninjas in Pyjamas vs Team Vitality, with esports betting odds courtesy of BetOnline.

As one of the weakest teams in ESL Pro League Season 16, Endpoint likely won’t make it out of Group A, but Max “MiGHTYMAX” Heath and his crew can cause some damage. That’s not necessarily because Endpoint are talented enough to compete with top-tier teams, but mainly because the ESL Pro League is one of the first tournaments after the summer break, meaning many squads are a bit ring rusty.

While a strong team, Team Spirit have not played an official match since Intel Extreme Masters Cologne in early July and have been out of action for over seven weeks. Even though Spirit have been bootcamping in Serbia, they’ve also had to adjust to playing with Ihor “w0nderful” Zhdanov, who is a raw talent with no previous experience competing at S-Tier events.

These teams last met in April, when Spirit won 2-0 (16-14, 16-8), but Spirit were in a much better spot back then and they still gave away 22 rounds. Team Spirit should win this bout, but there’s a good chance they give away a map.

According to the outright betting markets, Natus Vincere (+200) are the second-best team in ESL Pro League Season 16, well ahead of Cloud9 (+500), Heroic (+700), and Fnatic, who are priced as one of the outsiders at +300. The offered outright CS:GO betting odds seem fair, but even though NaVi are bound to achieve more in the long run, they don’t necessarily deserve to be -625 favourites for this bout.

READ: ESL Pro League Season 16 preview

Betting on Fnatic might sound daring since we have yet to see the new-look international roster compete in a proper tournament. They placed second at REPUBLEAGUE Season 3 earlier this month, which is not too inspiring, but it was Fnatic’s second tournament with the new lineup and they played well.

Natus Vincere look stronger and should win, but they’re not offering any value with the head-to-head prices most betting sites are quoting, nor are we too excited about backing the current no.2 team in the world to sweep at -138.89. Fnatic are good enough to put up a fight, and there’s a good chance they win at least one map, so we’ll take the underdogs with a map handicap at even money.

Ninjas in Pyjamas and Team Vitality last met just over a week ago at BLAST Premier Fall Groups 2022, where Vitality won 16-12 on Inferno. Notably, Inferno is one of NiP’s best maps, so seeing them lose with four rounds is concerning.

But the Swedes were far from impressive throughout the Fall Groups, where they could only muster two wins against Astralis (16-10) and Evil Geniuses (2-1). Team Vitality suffered a similar fate to NiP as they were unable to claim a direct invite to Fall Finals, but they made it to the Last Chance matches with wins against OG (16-11), NiP (16-12), and G2 Esports (2-1).

Although NiP and Vitality aren’t playing to their full potential, Vitality have looked better recently and have a realistic chance of sweeping the shaky Swedes. A moneyline bet on Vitality is a solid choice, but we’re after a bigger payout on the map handicap market.


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