Los Angeles FC are the new favorites to win the 2023 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs. This Saturday night they take on the Houston Dynamo in the Western Conference Final. Win that, and they are back in the Audi Cup Final for a second successive year. The Black and Gold are heavy odds-on favorites to defeat Houston, and with the match taking place at the BMO Stadium in LA, they will be roared on by a partisan home crowd as they try to retain the Western Conference title. In our latest MLS soccer betting picks, we look ahead to the match and tell you if LA will do it again or if Houston Dynamo is likely to pull off a shock win.
Only four teams now remain in the battle to win the 2023 MLS Cup playoffs. Over the weekend, Philadelphia Union, Orlando City, Sporting Kansas, and the Seattle Sounders all exited this year’s competition and can now focus on planning for 2024.
The four remaining sides, FC Cincinnati, Columbus Crew, LAFC, and Houston, will all be in action again this weekend, and as you’re about to read, there are new favorites in the betting to win the 2023 Audi MLS Cup.
For weeks, FC Cincinnati has been the favorite to win the 2023 MLS Cup. This was fair enough. After all, as we’ve said on enough occasions on this website, Cincinnati has been the most consistent team in the MLS all season.
But the Orange and Blue aren’t the defending champions. LAFC are. Due to their tough draw, Los Angeles were the +400 second favorites ahead of their away semi-final at the Seattle Sounders. This meant Cincinnati led the way at +250, with the Sounders third in the betting at +600.
But since their backs-to-the-wall 1-0 win over Seattle on Sunday, LAFC now finds themselves as the new favorites to win the MLS Cup at +137. Cincinnati is close behind at +150. Columbus Crew is the third favorite at +350, with the Houston Dynamo at +800.
Moving on to the betting for the match between LAFC and Houston, and it’s no surprise that the best MLS betting sites make Los Angeles the favorite to win the conference final. They have a home advantage and are the higher-seeded team. A lot of the cards are already stacked in their favor.
On the money line, the best soccer betting sites make it -163 for a win for LAFC, a Houston win is +375, and the draw is +333.
In the props markets, both teams to score is -125 (yes), with no at -106. A bet on over 2.5 goals is -138, with under 2.5 at +107.
More match betting options are available on our odds table, and more information about the sites we get our betting odds from is on our best online sportsbook reviews page.
So far, LAFC hasn’t looked anywhere near as dynamic as they did in 2022, but yet here they are in their second consecutive Western Conference Final. On Sunday in Seattle, a goal from Denis Bouango at the 30-minute mark was enough to give LA the win, but that maybe doesn’t tell the whole story.
The Sounders had the better of the possession with 70%, and they also had 16 shots on goal, compared to LA’s seven. In the shots on target count, the Sounders had eight, LA just two – but one of those two shots on target was the significant one!
Houston Dynamo is in good form, and had the better of their match over the No.8 seeds, Sporting Kansas. In the end, a solitary goal from Franco Escobar after 39 minutes was enough to send Houston into the final. Houston did deserve to win. But they didn’t look overly convincing.
Considering Ben Olsen’s team had 64% possession, they still only managed three attempts more on goal than Sporting (15-12). Of those shots on goal, both sides hit the target on four occasions. You have to imagine that the Dynamo will need to do a lot better if they are to have any chance of upsetting the defending champions this Saturday night.
Los Angeles may not be playing as well as they did 12 months ago, but as they proved on Sunday, they are extremely hard to beat and very battle-hardened. It looks like it’s going to take a lot to stop Steve Cherundolo from making the MLS Cup Final again.
Houston is in good form. They are growing in self-belief every week under Ben Olsen. But even considering all that, it’s hard to see them stopping LAFC on their home patch.
Los Angeles knows how to win these matches, and they have big-name players who can win big games. It would be a shock if Houston upsets them. So we are making a win for LAFC, our betting pick.
Check below for our list of the top sportsbooks where you can wager online:
About the Author
Dean is primarily a fan of English football who regularly attends games, and combining his hobby with his job, he is now a full-time sports betting writer. Rather than going down the educational route into sports journalism, Dean learned his trade by writing for his English football betting website since 2009, where he now boasts nearly 15 years of experience. After writing about football daily for years, Dean has taken the skills he learned and now uses them to great effect writing for numerous affiliate sites across the internet. A general all-around sports enthusiast with a passion for English football and cricket, Dean is also well able to turn his hand to writing about golf, tennis, F1, boxing, snooker, darts, and North American sports. Combining his extensive knowledge and experience with British humor and wit, Dean has developed into a trusted voice within the sports betting industry.
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