Las Vegas sportsbooks could lose $48 million if Conor McGregor upsets Floyd Mayweather

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August 23, 2017 3:29 PM

With tons of small bets and longer odds on McGregor, Las Vegas bookmakers will be pulling hard for Floyd Mayweather to make it to 50-0

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Floyd Mayweather is no stranger to getting booed.

During the four-day promotional tour he and Conor McGregor took part in to build hype for their upcoming bout, Mayweather was booed relentlessly in Los Angeles, Toronto, Brooklyn, and London, while crowds cheered an emboldened McGregor as he prepared for his first professional boxing match.

It will likely be more of the same with the crowd in Las Vegas on Saturday, but Mayweather can rest assured knowing that there will be at least one group pulling for him to get the win: Las Vegas bookmakers.

Currently, Mayweather is a -550 favorite to beat McGregor at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook, and most everyone in the fighting world agrees that he's a safe bet to win the fight. Unfortunately, that also means that bettors have to put down $550 just to win $100 if Mayweather's hand is raised at the end of the night.

For boxing and gambling experts, these are still great odds — during a recent appearance on Cousin Sal's "Against All Odds" podcast, ESPN boxing analyst Max Kellerman said "Mayweather would literally be a tremendous value at 50-to-1."

But for casual gamblers, those odds are a big ask, and right now, they can't get enough money on Mayweather.

Imagine you're in Vegas for the fight weekend and you know you want to bet something on the fight — just to get a bit of action in on the event that everyone in town will be talking about. You go to the betting window and ask to put $100 on Mayweather, only to find that you'd only win $18 for your bet. So instead you put your money on McGregor, who at +400 odds, can win you $400 for your initial investment.

This scenario is happening over and over in Las Vegas, to a point that sportsbooks have had to keep Mayweather's odds ludicrously low in order to attract more money in order to cover the onslaught of McGregor action from casual bettors.

According to Jay Kornegay, VP of Race and Sports Operations at the

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