PGL Major Stockholm betting preview

Each CS:GO Major is significant and has always represented the very best the game has to offer. Similar to other esports titles, the Majors attract not only the Counter-Strike community, but the wider first-person shooter and other gaming communities to tune in during this exciting few weeks. However, this year’s PGL Major in Stockholm stands out to a greater degree. It is the first CS:GO Major in over two years, it is the first one to offer $2,000,000 in prize money, and it represents the great ‘return to LAN’.

Additionally, this tournament is being held in Sweden which has a storied history through the players it has produced as well as the competitions that have been held there over the past 20 years. With the doors once again open to fans, there will be a fantastic atmosphere at an event that’s considered the pinnacle of professional CS:GO competition.

A bookmaker’s way of showing that the Major is important to them is to give CS:GO fans the greatest experience possible by offering markets they might not provide for most other events throughout the calendar. Pinnacle’s traders are on the right track here with their large variety of nearly 100 betting options.

So let us take a peek at what is on display at the moment.

PGL Major Stockholm - To Win Outright

First up are your very standard To Win Outright and To Reach The Final markets. Given the run that NAVI are currently enjoying, it is unsurprising to see them as the frontrunners with every bookmaker out there, including Pinnacle at 3.30*. This is within five per cent of the range of our two favourites back in 2019 (Astralis and Team Liquid). Ahead of the Challenger’s stage at the StarLadder Berlin Major in 2019, I wrote the following: “I am beginning this tournament with the boldest of statements – either Team Liquid or Astralis will win this Major!”. At that time, Astralis’ form was volatile and had witnessed a gradual decline over the summer while the white-hot Team Liquid were the first North American team to ever reach number one in the world and had just won the Intel Grand Slam.

This PGL Major Stockholm will be the first in history to have two CIS teams, NAVI and Gambit, as the outright favourites. Gambit are former Major champions, having won the PGL Major Krakow in 2017 when they were led by Danylo Ihorovych "Zeus" Teslenko. Other than Abay "Hobbit" Khassenov, who has been back with Gambit for just over a year after a brief period spent with other teams, the other four members of the 2017 line-up have either retired or floundered in the years since. Meanwhile, NAVI, have been runners-up on three occasions but have never lifted a CS:GO Major trophy.

Looking over the odds for the To Win Outright market for the PGL Major Stockholm, we might segment the two aforementioned CIS squads, Team Vitality, G2 Esports, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Heroic as the primary contenders. That’s already quite a lengthy list considering there are only 24 teams in contention. Looking at the To Win Outright odds even further, we could also segment Team Liquid, Astralis, Faze, Spirit, mousesports, and Virtus.pro as teams that are secondary contenders for the title. Arguments can be made for even more teams to be added into the mix to have a run deep into the latter stages of the tournament. So, despite NAVI being listed at a 35% implied probability to win, this is the most wide-open Major we have seen in CS:GO history.

If you are wishing to back the favourites though, there is a line for NAVI vs. The Field, which bumps the team up to 3.70*. Coming into this event, they are clearly the most accomplished CS:GO organisation never to win a Major title and are currently the most talented five-man roster to have not lifted a Major trophy. Additionally, NAVI’s Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev is arguably the most talented CS:GO player never to claim a Major title, having been a top-10 player for five straight years (he is on a pace to earn the title of best player in the world again this year). The PGL Major Stockholm will be the first period of time post-Astralis era (2016 – 2019) in which NAVI are overwhelmingly favoured to win a Major.

NAVI or Gambit?

So, what happens when NAVI face Gambit? The other CIS powerhouse team hold an 8-3 head-to-head match record against NAVI this year. That said, their map record is significantly less dominant at 17-13, with Gambit falling to NAVI in two best-of-five grand final matches at the StarLadder CIS RMR 2021 and the DreamHack Masters Spring 2021. For the first four months of the year, it certainly looked as though Gambit might be better than their CIS compatriots.

The format being what it is, we won’t lose much value by not backing any of the eight teams already through to the Legends stage. The best teams to back at this time might be those in the Challengers stage. And this group is incredibly talented, being comprised of many former Major winners and finalists. Nearly half of the teams in this stage have one or more players who are considered to be in the top 20 in the world.

The opening two stages are identical with the New Challengers and New Legends stage being played in a 16-team Swiss System format. The first two or three matches a team plays are best-of-one, while advancement and elimination matches are all best-of-three. There has only ever been one team in the Challengers stage to start 2-0 and not make it through to the Legends stage − TYLOO at IEM Katowice Major 2019.

The opening round matches have been posted for the Challengers stage and the odds are about as lopsided as you might expect for matches where some of the top teams are facing each other in a best-of-one match. Currently, the closest two matchups at Pinnacle are Entropiq (59%) vs. paiN (41%), followed closely by Virtus.pro (60%) vs. BIG (40%). This opening round offers some fantastic opportunities to get involved from the outset.

We’ll be sharing my predictions for the tournament as it draws closer, including some further looks at the large variety of proposition markets, some dark horse rosters, and some opening round bets!

*Odds are subject to change.