IEM Sydney 2023 Betting Odds – Team Vitality to claim IEM crown?

The tournament will kick off on Monday, October 16, and conclude on October 22, when the top two teams clash in a best-of-three (Bo3) finals for the lion’s share of the $250,000 prize pool and a direct invite to IEM Katowice 2024.

Intel Extreme Masters Sydney 2023 kicks off on October 16, 2023, with the first round of the group stage.

Esports bookmakers have already released outright betting odds for the event and priced three teams as serious candidates to go all the way, including Team Vitality (3.75), ENCE (4.00), and G2 Esports (4.00), which are the current top-three rated teams on the global ladder in that order.

Seeing Team Vitality priced as the main favourites to win IEM Sydney 2023 is hardly surprising, considering the Bees have been considered as the top team in several of the past events. However, despite being the team to beat Team Vitality have won just one of the last four tournaments (Gamers8 2023).

Meanwhile, they placed fourth-sixth at BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023, third-fourth at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2023, and fifth-eighth at ESL Pro League Season 18. They hold a very strong record over that stretch, but seeing how they have won just one title makes you wonder whether they truly deserve to be the top dogs for IEM Sydney 2023.

G2 Esports are in a similar position. They have won just one of the last four tournaments they’ve attended (IEM Cologne 2023). They have reached the semifinals at Gamers8 2023 and BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023, but couldn’t make it past the quarters at ESL Pro League S18.

ENCE have not won a single event since June; however, they have proven to be the most consistent team in the world, with three silver medals from ESL Challenger Katowice, IEM Cologne 2023, Gamers8 2023, and two semifinal appearances at ESL Pro League Season 18 and BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023.

As we move down the outright betting market, we have MOUZ (8.00), Cloud9 (9.00), FaZe Clan (9.00), and Natus Vincere (10.00) as potential outsiders that can go all the way.

MOUZ have recently made a name for themselves by winning ESL Pro League Season 18, marking their first Big Event trophy since ESL Pro League Season 10 – Finals in 2019. Before ESL Pro League, MOUZ also played well at IEM Dallas 2023 (second); however, between the two strong runs, MOUZ have not looked great and played mostly in lesser tournaments.

Cloud9 are one of the teams that is bound to find some traction purely due to the insane amount of individual talent. But we have been saying that since the summer break ended, Cloud9 hasn’t accomplished much.

They won BLAST Premier: Fall European Showdown 2023, which is a good sign, but Cloud9 have yet to show anything in bigger events, making it tough to feel optimistic about their chances to win IEM Sydney 2023. Perhaps the transition to CS2 will help them bounce back.

FaZe Clan and Natus Vincere used to be two of the best teams in the world but are now only a shadow of their former selves. On a more positive note, NaVi looked good at ESL Pro League, where they reached the finals, yet that was their only notable tournament run of the second half of the year.

FaZe Clan have not shown anything since June, and couldn’t finish higher than top-nine in their last three tournament appearances. Much like Cloud9, FaZe hopes that the transition to Counter-Strike 2 will help them gain more traction.

Monte (21.00) had a good run at ESL Pro League Season 18, where they reached the semifinals; however, one good run doesn’t mean much. Monte’s recent success is heavily overshadowed by the fact that they’ve not attended a big event since the Paris Major in May, but they did reach the quarterfinals in France.

GamerLegion (26.00) are in a similar position as a team that did well in Paris (second) but haven’t accomplished much since, failing to place higher than top-eight across the last three S-Tier events.

Behind the top nine teams on the outright betting markets, we have BetBoom Team (34.00), Complexity (34.00), Fnatic (51.00), Apeks (51.00), Grayhound (101.00), Lynn Vision (201.00), and VERTEX (1001.00), who are priced as complete outsiders, which sounds fair.

The final group of teams have not won anything noteworthy lately, nor has any of the squads accomplished much in bigger events. On the other hand, the transition to Counter-Strike 2 should introduce a bit more volatility, which could lead to one of the outsiders producing a much deeper run than expected. 

Yet even that sounds very optimistic, knowing how big of a quality gap there is between the top dogs and the rest.