Sportsbooks Come Out on Top With Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight

It was billed as the “Fight of the Century” and certainly lived up to all the hype, at least where the gambling world is concerned.

When all is said and done and calculations complete, some $60 million to $80 million will have been made at sportsbooks taking bets on the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, and that’s just in the state of Nevada.

Helped along by the Kentucky Derby and NBA Playoffs, Vegas saw record numbers for this time of year.

“The handle for us was definitely Super Bowl type of numbers,” Golden Nugget sportsbook director Tony Miller told Covers.com Sunday morning. “The Derby was great, the fight handle was great. We lost a couple games in between, but overall, it was a pretty good day.”

The Kentucky Derby helped spur additional action on the fight.

“It was uneventful, because it panned out how a lot of people thought it would,” Jay Kornegay, executive vice president of race and sports for the Westgate’s Superbook, told Covers. “I’d say it was an average Kentucky Derby. But with the favorite coming in, we had more winners than not. The good thing was a lot of people won and just kept on playing.”

Online the fight had already shattered previous boxing match betting records by early Saturday afternoon.

“We expect to double volume by fight time, and this is excluding all the additional props and Live Betting we will be offering," James told Gambling911.com at that time.

We await the final numbers from the Nevada casinos.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com