It is no great secret that Conor McGregor has been a popular choice for gamblers placing wagers on his UFC bouts over the past few years
According to Jay Rood, MGM’s Vice President of Race and Sports, the number of punters currently backing McGregor is far beyond what executives had initially expected:
MMAFighting reports that, as of Thursday morning, “Rood said there were 6,700 tickets written for McGregor at the MGM sports book. There were only 330 for Mayweather. At the time, McGregor was a +350 underdog, while Mayweather was a -550 favorite.”
“When we book McGregor in MMA, he’s usually the favorite and he gets a good amount of support,” Rood said. “When he fought [Nate] Diaz in the rematch, that drew pretty good, equal action on both sides. But generally, if McGregor is fighting somebody he draws pretty good action. But in this particular matchup, the number of tickets written to him is a ridiculous amount.”
“We sort of missed the mark on understanding what his popularity was going to be in this, when you couple it with the fact that you’re getting a really great price on a premier athlete, who is a proven champion in his own right,” Rood said. “Like we said, it’s under the boxing rules, so the bookies and everyone has taken a pretty strong position that he’s going to be at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to that.”
