Resolve a name to an id

You rarely start with a UUID. You start with a name.

Skip the lookup

Teams, players and tournaments accept a slug wherever a path id is expected, so if you know the slug you don't need a lookup at all:

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $ESPORTSODDS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.esportsodds.gg/v1/cs2/teams/natus-vincere"

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $ESPORTSODDS_API_KEY" \
  "https://api.esportsodds.gg/v1/cs2/teams/natus-vincere/h2h?opponent=faze"

Sub-resources and the ?opponent= parameter accept slugs too. Matches have no slug — a match id is always a UUID.

When you have a display name, not a slug

Filter the list by slug and cache the result:

import functools

@functools.lru_cache(maxsize=512)
def team_id(slug: str) -> str | None:
    rows = get(f"/v1/cs2/teams?slug={slug}")["data"]
    return rows[0]["id"] if rows else None

?slug= returns the single matching row — or an empty page — in the normal list envelope, and never depends on paging position.

Cache aggressively: teams and players change far more slowly than anything else in the API, and a cached id costs you nothing.

Building a slug from a name

Slugs are lowercase and hyphenated, but not always a mechanical transform of the display name (Natus Vincere → natus-vincere, but FaZe → faze). Guessing works often enough to be dangerous and fails silently, returning an empty page.

If you're matching user input, walk the list once and build your own index:

index = {}
for team in paginate("/v1/cs2/teams", limit=500):
    index[team["name"].lower()] = team["id"]
    index[team["slug"]] = team["id"]
    if team["short_name"]:
        index.setdefault(team["short_name"].lower(), team["id"])

At limit=500 that's a handful of requests for the whole roster, refreshable weekly.

Store the UUID, display the slug

Slugs are stable but not guaranteed permanent — an organisation rename can change one. For anything you persist, store the UUID and treat the slug as a display convenience. A UUID never changes.