Wanna bet? Why sportsbooks are loving Inter Miami icon Lionel Messi’s impact on MLS
The score is tied in the 49th minute, Inter Miami and the New York Red Bulls are battling in front of a packed, frenzied crowd at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale. Most of the fans are wearing pink No. 10 jerseys and have their cellphone cameras focused on their beloved captain, Lionel Messi, waiting for one of his magical moments.
Meanwhile, all around the world, from London to Buenos Aires to New York City to Sydney, bettors also have their cellphones focused on Messi as they monitor the game from multiple time zones. They have placed wagers on the Argentine icon and are hoping to cash in.
Bettors can wager on whether Messi will be the first scorer in a game or the last. They can place bets on him scoring two or more goals, or three or more goals.
Will he score on a header (highly improbable at +1800 odds, per Caesar’s)? Will he score from outside the penalty area (more probable at +400). How many shots will he take? How many will be on target? Will he score on a free kick? How many assists will he have? Soccer fans all over the world are wagering on those questions every time he plays.
The menu of available Messi prop bets has been expanding across sportsbooks all over America and the world as betting on the Argentine star and Inter Miami has surged since his arrival last summer.
In the 50th minute of that game, he delivers the go-ahead goal and proceeds to dish out an MLS record-breaking five assists to lead Miami to a 6-2 victory. The stadium goes wild. Pink fireworks fill the air.
The sports gambling industry celebrates, too.
Just as Messi has had a massive impact on Inter Miami and MLS attendance, ticket prices, and merchandise sales, he is also the driving force behind the surge in league bets and handle.
According to data from Oddschecker: Sportsbooks have seen a 480 percent increase in bets on Inter Miami since Messi joined the club in June 2023, and betting on the MLS has increased by 98 percent year over year since Messi joined Inter Miami. Also, Messi has taken nearly five times the amount of “Anytime Goalscorer” bets than Cristiano Ronaldo since he joined Inter Miami.
Global sports betting platform Kambi saw a 33 percent increase in handle on MLS bets from 2022 to 2023, and that number jumps to 50 percent if it includes only bets placed after Messi joined the league last July.
“That’s incredibly unusual to have that kind of uptick in handle; and it’s been based on one player and one player alone because when we dig into the data, Inter Miami is just dominant in terms of where the interest we see from punters [bettors], they’re three and four times higher in terms of handle than any other team in MLS,” Kambi head of soccer trading Jonathon Hurst said.
“So, that pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the impact Messi has had.”
Kambi also reports that Inter Miami is by far their most popular MLS team to bet on this season with 324 percent as many bets compared to LA Galaxy. Messi is by far the most popular player (139 percent higher than LAFC’s Denis Bouanga) and 57 percent higher than his Miami teammate and close friend Luis Suarez, whose betting action has grown substantially since he reunited with Messi this season.
As far as U.S.-based Kambi bets, Inter Miami went from the fifth-most popular team last year to by far the most popular this season — 214% higher than next club (LA Galaxy). The number of bets on Inter Miami this year are 274 percent higher than they were same period last year.
DraftKings Sportsbook reports that MLS has double the handle and more than double the bets year-over-year since Messi joined the league. Inter Miami is the most bet MLS team and seventh most bet across all of soccer by handle on DraftKings Sportsbook. And Messi is the most-bet player by handle and second-most bet player by bets behind Manchester City’s Erling Haaland
Johnny Avello, the director of race and sportsbook operations at DraftKings, has been a bookmaker for more than 35 years. He has followed the growth of soccer in the United States closely during the past few decades.
He has never witnessed anything like Messi’s effect on MLS betting.
“We handle a lot of soccer; we do at least about 70 different soccer leagues and of course, Champions League, and MLS really wasn’t one of our top betting propositions until Messi got here,” Avello told the Miami Herald.
“When MLS first hit the scene in 1996-97, it was a novelty, something for the U.S. fans to cheer about after the 1994 World Cup. Communities supported their teams, but it wasn’t anything like the elite leagues, there wasn’t much in the way of media coverage. People didn’t even know who the players were, so they weren’t betting on games.”
Avello was working at the Las Vegas Sportsbook at the time. “We’d be lucky to handle 100 bucks on a game,” he said.
MLS grew, soccer began to take hold in the United States, betting on the league saw incremental increases and a small spike when David Beckham signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy in 2007.
“But when Messi came on the scene last year, that was a game changer,” Avello said. “Everything was elevated. All bets went up. Now, he’s got Suarez there, and [Sergio] Busquets, [Jordi] Alba. There’s a pretty good cast of soccer characters there. Miami is one of the top teams that gets bet I can tell you that. That growth in handle we had when Messi came on board has doubled this year over last year and more than doubled in bets, so he certainly has made a major impact.”
Hurst agreed.
“I wouldn’t say nobody got on the MLS before, but it definitely wasn’t on the same kind of standing as the major European leagues,” Hurst said. “I wasn’t around the industry to see maybe the Beckham effect in the early 2000s, definitely from a UK perspective he increased the focus on MLS, but in terms of betting, I don’t think the maturity of the market was really there like it is now with Messi.”
Inter Miami is regularly involved in the most popular game of the MLS slate from a handle and bet count perspective at the Fanatics Sportsbook and has received four times the handle of any other team to win the MLS title.
Inter Miami is the +190 favorite to win the MLS Cup per Fanatics (FC Cincinnati is second at +1050). According to Fanatics, the gap is so wide because it is based on the huge number of customers betting on Inter Miami to win the MLS Cup, not necessarily because one team’s performance thus far is that much better than the other.
“I have been in this business over 21 years, and I haven’t seen another example of a player going to a newer league that isn’t considered amongst the top leagues in the world, have such a seismic impact on the betting action, if not the league itself,” Bet365’s Aron Wattleworth said in that betting platform’s 2023 year-end report. “There aren’t enough hyperbolic metrics to measure his massive impact on the betting action. If Messi was playing or possibly playing, that was the most popular bet of the day.”
Messi’s playing status heading into each game is monitored closely by the gambling sites, as the odds change drastically depending on whether he is expected to play. For example, he is questionable for the road game Wednesday against Orlando City due to a minor knee injury, so the bookmakers will keep that in mind.
“Certainly, if he’s not in the game, it’s going to change what the odds are posted on that game,” Avello said. “It’s kind of similar to how his status affects ticket prices. People will go if he’s not playing, but prices may go down. For us, we need to lower the odds, or raise the odds if he’s playing or not playing. The guy is getting a little bit older, but he’s still a great talent and has a huge impact on the game.”
The growing trend of player-based bets over team-based bets also feeds into the Messi frenzy.
“Ten years ago, you’d pick the team that’s going to win, you’d pick the handicap line, sit back with a beer and watch the game,” Hurst said. “Now, it’s completely different. The younger punters [bettors] are focusing on players more than teams. They’re betting on Lionel Messi’s number of shots in the first half, the method of his goals, and then combining that with other things that could happen in a game.”
Hurst said combination or parlay bets involving Messi and Suarez are becoming quite popular, as Messi has scored 10 goals this season and Suarez has scored 11.
“Messi and Suarez playing on the same pitch is definitely beneficial for that,” Hurst added.
Despite the huge hike in MLS and Messi betting, the numbers still trail action for traditional U.S. leagues such as the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball and college football and basketball.
“You can’t compare anything with football when it comes to betting,” Avello said. “Whether it’s pro or college, pro basketball and college basketball are not far behind it. MLS is still going to be behind NHL, but it’s in a category just below that since Messi’s arrival. But you must remember where it came from. It came from almost nothing.”
Hurst and Avello are expecting another spike in soccer betting in America this summer for the Copa America tournament, which includes the 10 South American national teams as well as the United States, Mexico, Canada, Jamaica, Costa Rica and Panama. World Cup champion Argentina is the defending Copa America champion, as well, and Messi is the team captain.
Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens will host three games, including the final July 14.
“It’s a super important tournament for us, as we have a very large footprint in Colombia, Brazil and Argentina, so you’ll be able to bet on Messi to do pretty much whatever, including whether he’ll get a yellow card, a red, score from a header,” Hurst said. “We expect Argentina to go really far. Our dream scenario is a final with Brazil and Argentina.”
And, of course, millions of bets on Messi.
This story was originally published May 14, 2024 at 4:09 PM.