The betting handle at Las Vegas sports books is a barometer of a sport’s health. Bet shops are abuzz when the Super Bowl and March Madness are happening, for example, and generally there’s a direct relationship between an event’s TV ratings and how much money is bet on it.
So plenty can be gleaned from the betting industry about the state of the fight game, and there’s no town more central to the sports of boxing and mixed martial arts than Las Vegas.
While mega-fights still move the needle for boxing, the problem is there aren’t many of those left. Boxing’s post-Mayweather-Pacquiao world doesn’t inspire much optimism around Vegas.
“I’d like to see boxing get a real, real big match to jump-start it,” said Nick Bogdanovich, director of trading at
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An estimated $50 million to $80 million was wagered on Mayweather vs. Pacquiao across the state of Nevada.
Photo by: Getty Images |
William Hill U.S. “But what’s the biggest they have to offer this year? Is it Khan-Canelo [Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Amir Khan, scheduled for May 7]? Is that really a ‘I can’t wait to watch this fight?’ I don’t think so.”
John Avello, vice president of race and sports at The Wynn, went so far as to call the future of boxing “scary.”
The 35-year Vegas bookmaking veteran has experienced boxing in its heyday and said, “We’ve lost that. … Where are [the next big fights] going to come from? Who’s going to do it for us? I just don’t see anything on the horizon. Things will change and the game may get back to a certain status, but not in the foreseeable future.”
Even Manny Pacquiao, long one of boxing’s biggest draws, didn’t make much of an impact at the sports books in his April 9 bout against Timothy Bradley at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
“We should have done much better handle on it, but it proves [bettors are] not as in tune with boxing as they used to be,” said Jay Rood, vice president of race and sports at MGM Resorts.
Betting handle on Pacquiao fights, Bogdanovich added, “used to be huge, just monsters, and this last one was so-so, decent at best. … And that was one of the marquee fights of the year, whereas the UFC keeps rolling ’em through.”
While MMA seems to be overtaking boxing as the nation’s premier fighting sport, the biggest boxing matches still outdraw the top UFC fights at the sports books. The March 5 Conor McGregor vs. Nate Diaz bout, one of the most wagered-upon events in UFC history, did “maybe 20 percent of what we did for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight,” said Rood, whose property hosted both events.
An estimated $50 million to $80 million was wagered on Mayweather vs. Pacquiao across the state of Nevada, about half of which was booked at MGM’s chain of books. Specific handle on boxing and MMA bouts is difficult to glean because of how records are compiled and reported by the governing commissions.
Even next month’s Alvarez vs. Khan bout, the featured event of the first boxing card at MGM’s new T-Mobile Arena, will do “twice the business of the best UFC fight we have this year,” Rood estimated. UFC 200 is slated for July 9 at the same arena.
Bogdanovich, however, said his bookmaking operation, which includes more than 100 locations in addition to a healthy mobile business, writes more action on UFC than on boxing in totality, simply because of the volume of events.
Avello, though, is concerned about the dilution of the UFC product.
“It’s getting too watered down, there’s too much of it,” he said. “Every week there are 12 fights. [Such volume] doesn’t make the viewer yearn for it [and say], ‘I can’t wait for the next UFC fight.’”
Avello thinks UFC may have plateaued.
“I think it’s as big as it’s going to get,” he said. “I think it’s reached its pinnacle. … I don’t know how it gets much bigger than it is.”
Marcus DiNitto, a writer in Charlotte, is former managing editor at SportsBusiness Daily and The Linemakers on Sporting News.
