The Big Lead

So Many People Are Throwing Away Money Betting on Conor McGregor

By Stephen Douglas

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Conor McGregor is going to become rich beyond his wildest dreams this weekend when he takes on Floyd Mayweather in a boxing match. For Floyd it will be just another nine-figure payday. For the hundreds of thousands of people betting on McGregor to beat Mayweather, it will not be a payday. Las Vegas hasn’t seen cash donations like this since UNLV was good at basketball.

So many people are throwing their money away on Conor McGregor and I’m not even talking about the poor idiots (myself included) who are buying the pay-per-view. There has been an insane amount of mad money bet on Conor McGregor leading up to this fight. Via ESPN:

"For each bet on Mayweather at the Westgate SuperBook, there were 12 on McGregor. But 76 percent of the money was on Mayweather. The average size of a bet on McGregor at the Westgate was $212. The average size of a bet on Mayweather was $8,036."

According to SportsCenter, 92% of the bets have been placed on McGregor. Talk about a complete disregard for your own money. An incredible mixed martial artist, McGregor is nothing more than boxing’s version of a losing Powerball ticket to every square that has flown into Las Vegas in the last month. Meanwhile, Mayweather is just a safe investment for people with the means to buy in. Like the Maloofs and the mystery bettors who have put down $1 million or more on Mayweather in the last few hours. Anyone hoping to get rich off this fight who isn’t already rich is a sucker, but that’s what Vegas was built on.

Mayweather fighting McGregor is like Nick Saban scheduling a team that just added a football program. Except in this case Saban and Alabama would get a quarter of a billion dollars after the final whistle blows to end the 77-3 win. And the other school gets enough money to build a state-of-the-art stadium, but they’ll never use it because they just needed this one ridiculous payday from somehow talking itself into a game against Alabama.

Good for the new football school. Good for Alabama. Good for the boosters. Bad for everyone else, but they don’t have anyone to blame but themselves.