Mayweather-McGregor fight estimated to fetch record betting handle

More money will have been bet on the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight than on any other boxing match in history by the time the opening bell rings Saturday night.
It already is the most heavily bet fight ever at some sportsbooks, from Nevada to the U.K.
On Thursday night, roughly 48 hours before the fight, William Hill’s sportsbooks in Nevada had already taken more money on Mayweather-McGregor than they did on the 2015 Mayweather bout with Manny Pacquiao, which was the previous most heavily bet fight.
Nevada Gaming Control does not track the betting on individual boxing matches and lumps boxing into an “other” category, along with UFC, hockey, golf, tennis, auto racing and soccer, on the monthly revenue reports.
In May 2015, a record $81.1 million was bet on the “other” category, and bookmakers estimated the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight accounted for $60 million statewide. They’re expecting the handle on Saturday’s fight to easily eclipse that amount, with estimates as high as $80 million.
On Thursday, two $1 million bets were placed on Mayweather. That’s one more million-dollar bet than was reportedly taken on the Super Bowl earlier this year at Nevada books.
The Westgate SuperBook had already taken more six-figure bets on the fight than it did on the Super Bowl, according to vice president of race and sports Jay Kornegay.
On Friday morning, Mayweather’s odds could be anywhere from -500 to -600 in Las Vegas. At sportsbooks in the U.K., he was down to -450. McGregor was around a 4-1 underdog.
The number of bets on just McGregor was rapidly approaching 10,000 on Friday at William Hill and was on pace to surpass the total number of straight bets (point spread and money line) on the college football national championship game between Alabama and Clemson.
Approximately 92 percent of the bets were on McGregor at the Westgate, but 77 percent of the money was on Mayweather. That’s just on the odds to win the fight. There are dozens of proposition wagers available at the sportsbooks.
Saturday’s fight is setting betting records around the globe. Irish sportsbook Paddy Power was anticipating $250 million would be bet on the fight industrywide in the U.K.
On Friday, at Betfair, the U.K.’s leading sports betting exchange, £29 million ($37.3 million) had already been traded on Mayweather-McGregor. That’s already nearly four times as much as what was traded on Mayweather-Pacquiao, the previous largest boxing market at Betfair.
The most heavily traded soccer match ever at Betfair, the 2010 World Cup Final between Spain and the Netherlands, generated £68 million in trades.