Bettors really believe Miami is going to win the MLS Cup

It’s difficult to describe the impact that Lionel Messi has had on MLS’ Inter Miami team since his arrival. The team has won all eight of its games since he joined the club, advancing to the U.S. Open Cup final on Wednesday night via a penalty shootout — after coming back from a 2-0 deficit.

It was the first game in which Messi didn’t score a goal — a bet that the public had cashed in his first seven games.

But one easy way to measure Messi’s impact is in how much the betting public has backed Inter Miami to win the MLS Cup.

At BetMGM sportsbooks, Inter Miami had 200-1 odds to win the MLS Cup back in June, before Messi’s arrival. Despite being in last place in the Eastern Conference with 18 points, those odds dropped to 33-1 before Messi’s first game. After winning eight straight games (albeit none of them regular-season MLS contests), Inter Miami is tied with LAFC for the second-best odds at +600.

Inter Miami has the most bets (41.2%) and most money wagered (56.7%) to win the MLS Cup at BetMGM, which not surprisingly makes them the sportsbook’s biggest liability to win the title.

All of this is amazing, since Inter Miami is a full 14 points behind CF Montreal and Chicago Fire FC (tied for 8th place), which is where Inter Miami would need to qualify for a play-in game to the postseason. Inter Miami is 20 points behind Atlanta United FC and Nashville SC (38 points) for one of the seven automatic qualifying spots.

But, hey, when you have Lionel Messi on your team anything is possible. Right …?

My guess is we’re going to end up with a lot of disappointed bettors at the end of this MLS season.