From a betting perspective, Saturday night’s big fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor is arguably boxing’s Super Bowl. So it only makes sense that sportsbooks are offering plenty of proposition bets to fill up the wagering menu, here in Las Vegas and at offshore shops. **video
Perhaps the most intriguing prop offer: That this fight will actually not happen! Bookmaker.eu decided to throw that up on its betting board, asking whether the bout would be canceled before the day of the fight. Yes opened at +350, and No was a -550 favorite.
“We always thought the fight being canceled or something happening prior the fight to derail it was a possibility. Not a great possibility, but certainly a possibility,” said Scott Cooley, odds consultant for Bookmaker.eu. “Well, the bettors didn't ever think there was a chance. The fight cancellation prop got hammered pretty good.”
Indeed, by the time Bookmaker.eu closed the prop, No had been bet up to a -1350 favorite, with Yes falling back to +600. Cooley said his shop also offered a prop on whether either fighter would test positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
“The PED prop was even worse,” he said, noting No opened a -1100 favorite and exploded to a massive -7100 before Bookmaker.eu closed it.
At William Hill US shops here in Vegas and around Nevada, director of trading Nick Bogdanovich can hardly keep up with the action on props, particularly bettors taking Yes on: Will Mayweather get knocked down?
“That’s getting a lot of action, and it’s the prop with the most liability too,” Bogdanovich said earlier today, noting No opened -700 and Yes +500. “Now we’re at -400/+320. In fact, I’m gonna go lower right now, just because they’re just gonna keep taking it. So I’m going to -360/+300.”
The William Hill prop seeing the most action – but not creating quite as much liability – is: Will the fight go the distance, 12 full rounds? No opened -300 and Yes +350, and the prices have moved to -250/+210 respectively.
“It’s drawing real good action,” Bogdanovich said, adding his 100-plus shops have seen $25,000 in wagers on that prop alone. “Everything to do with this fight, we’re doing huge action.”
MGM Resorts books could echo that statement. Randy Madayag, sportsbook supervisor at The Mirage on the Vegas Strip, said the prop bet cash is flooding in, and much of it one-sided.
“I just know we’re heavy on everything McGregor right now, especially the round props – McGregor anywhere in the first five rounds,” Madayag said. “On Round 1, we’ve got $300,000 in liability to McGregor. It opened at 40/1, and now it’s 15/1. People think if he’s gonna win, it’s gonna be early and quick – a puncher’s chance.”
The prop drawing the most money at MGM books is McGregor to win by knockout, with $100,000 in action so far, taking those odds from the opener of 6/1 down to 3.5/1. MGM also has a three-option round prop for each fighter: to win in rounds 1-4, 5-8 or 9-12.
“We’re heavy on McGregor on all three options,” Madayag said. “We’re just getting pounded on pretty much anything McGregor.”
But there is at least one prop at MGM where Mayweather has created liability: Floyd winning by knockout has drawn $70,000 in action, hiking the price to -170 after being as low as -120.
Dave Mason of BetOnline.ag said his shop, much like MGM books and surely many others, has some serious first-round liability on The Notorious One.
“Anything with McGregor’s name next to it, we’re in the red,” Mason said earlier this week on Covers’ “The Sharp 600” podcast. “For instance, McGregor to win in Round 1 pays, good lord, that’s down to 20/1. That was like 33/1 just the other day. We’re so darn exposed on that. If that one simple prop hit, McGregor wins in Round 1, we lose more on that one prop than we would any MLB game this whole season. So that tells you how much people are betting this stuff.”
Cooley said the Bookmaker.eu prop with the biggest handle is also the one creating the most liability.
“We offered the round total as a prop, along with higher/lower round totals, and the sharp bettors slammed the Unders,” Cooley said. “The fight total started at 9.5 rounds, but after adjusting the vig over and over, we were forced to drop the number to 8.5, and we're still taking Under money. We also had props of 11.5, 10.5 and even 7.5, and basically every bet came on the Under.”
And of course, with McGregor going outside his UFC/mixed martial arts comfort zone, one prop that had to be on the menu was whether the fiery Irishman would be disqualified. At Bookmaker.eu, No opened a -600 favorite and Yes was +400; now it’s No at -1069 and Yes at +568.
However, a similar prop at William Hill US – Will Mayweather win by disqualification? – is going the other direction.
“We’ve got liability with that because of the Yes,” Bogdanovich said, noting No opened -800 and Yes +550, and the prices are now at -700/+500 respectively. “People think McGregor is gonna kick him in the head or something. You just never know, when you get tired or frustrated, what you might do instinctively. They’re betting the Yes, and that one will get more and more steam as we get closer to the fight.”
Patrick Everson is a Las Vegas-based senior writer for Covers. Follow him on Twitter: @Covers_Vegas.
