Weekend Review: Bookies in clover after most heavily-bet boxing match in UK history
Mayweather’s victory over McGregor saved operators up to £250m in potential pay-outs
Bookmakers landed a knockout blow to punters in the early hours of Sunday morning as Floyd Mayweather outclassed Conor McGregor despite around 80% of punters backing the Irishman to pull off the upset.
Kindred Group‘s Ali Gill said the fight entered the firm’s top 10 highest ever events in terms of turnover.
He said: “Mayweather McGregor absolutely dominated this weekend as expected, becoming our all time highest winning event after punters piled into McGregor, despite the fact he had never boxed before.
“With some truly incredible liabilities on a McGregor win, the fight could really have gone either way for us, so all at Kindred were relieved that Mayweather did the business.”
BetVictor hailed a great result after unprecedented demand on the fight including its 100/1 new customer offer for McGregor to defy the odds.
Spokesperson Charlie McCann said: “The fight broke all bet numbers from the Joshua v Klitschko fight earlier in the year by a country mile and that does not include our 100/1 acquisition offer.
“The fight also highlighted the increasing importance of the bet request market – we took nearly 1,000 bets on one of our #PriceItUp markets for the referee to be floored during the contest!
“All-in-all it was a great result for the layers from a fight that captured the imagination like few sporting events have done so in the past.”
William Hill also said the fight could not have gone much better, although they did have to pay out nearly £200,000 to one US bettor who put £933k on Mayweather at 1/5.
“We are thrilled to pay it as we needed the same result,” said Nick Bogdanovich, director of trading for William Hill US.
Betway’s Alan Alger said: “We couldn’t have picked a better outcome for the Mayweather v McGregor fight.
“We did have some dicey liabilities on the early rounds for McGregor but after those rounds passed, we were in line for decent profit so Mayweather in 10 was ideal.
Betfred’s Matt Crosby said the firm dodged a bullet with Floyd Mayweather winning in Vegas, with the vast majority of Irish and MMA fans backing Conor McGregor for an upset.
The late round stoppage was the perfect outcome for the operator with most punters backing an early knockout for either fighter or a Mayweather victory on points.
In the Premier League, Burnley’s last minute equaliser against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley on Sunday afternoon is also thought to have saved operators from multi-million pound pay-outs, with Celtic and Real Madrid also failing to win as well-backed favourites.
Betfred’s Crosby added: “Burnley’s equaliser at Tottenham, through new signing Chris Wood from Leeds saved us a fortune, and ruined a lot of expectant accumulators.”