Not since the election of Donald Trump have oddsmakers been poised to take such a shellacking as at this weekend’s showdown between tomato cans Floyd Mayweather Jr. and boxing 
debutante Conor McGregor. Despite Mayweather’s proven track record, sports books have him a +500 underdog to win the fight, down from +1100 but still bad news. BetOnline.ag counts 89% of all the action as being placed on McGregor to win, while MGM Race & Sports Book President Jay Rood went so far as to say, “This could be the worst loss in the history of MGM Resorts.” His colleague Zach Jornlin added, “I’ve never seen anything like this. I can’t believe it’s this lopsided … A lot of people hate Mayweather and … want to see him get knocked out and make some money.* This would be a really, really bad loss for us.”
* — Count us in.
For now, the books are hoping for a last-minute infusion of Mayweather bets from ‘sharps,’ thereby rebalancing the scales. A few have surfaced, starting with the Maloof Brothers, who plunked down $880,000 on Mayweather. Said Gavin Maloof, “The price kept coming down, and then it was just too good to pass up,” adding that the potential winnings would be donated to charity. Opined Jornlin, “we’re going to see more from Mayweather this week, and it should help even it out a little bit more, but we may keep seeing more for McGregor, too.”
Sentiments outside MGM were similar. “I never dreamed in a million years that it would create this kind of frenzy,” said William Hill executive Nick Bogdanovich, while the dean of sports book directors, Wynn Resorts‘ John Avello told ESPN, “I’m taking bets on this fight from guys that I’ve never seen before,” which could partly explain the pro-McGregor skew. Agreed the South Point‘s Jimmy Vaccaro, “Most of the people just ask to bet McGregor. They don’t even care what the price is.”
At the Westgate Las Vegas, Mayweather dove from a -2500 favorite to a -475 one. All this lopsided action has left sports book directors wondering how to cover their assets. Avello explains the difficulty: “It’s like posting a point spread for the best college football team against the worst NFL team. It’s just so difficult to compare and then also to gauge the bettors’ reaction.”
Vaccaro concludes, As we know, anything can happen. But truthfully, this thing should be 50-1. To me, it’s absurd.”
* Elsewhere on the Strip, Las Vegas Sands is plunging $15 million into a re-do of Palazzo’s casino floor. This includes a new bar, an expansion of The Corner Bar, new carpeting, new lighting, a fresh coat of paint, rearrangement of all the slot machines and something called “fabric-wrapped wall panels.” Maybe with all that good chi being infused into the property, maybe Sands can finally find a tenant for the long-empty Restaurant Charlie void.
* As reported earlier, Caesars Entertainment has gone all-in for WeChat e-wallets (except on the gaming floor). Said Director of International Marketing Claire Yang, “This is the trend. I firmly believe that American customers will adopt digital payments in the future. It’s the way to go. Credit cards will become obsolete.” That’s not good news for those of us who watch Bitcoin‘s volatile value shifts and get leery of the trend. However, there’s no question that alternative payment methods are catching on. MGM Resorts International had adopted a whole raft of them … save at half-forgotten Circus Circus, always the red-headed stepchild of the MGM family.
* No matter how you slice it, Golden Nugget is the market leader for Internet gambling in New Jersey. While Golden Nugget partner Betfair is a hit with players (the third-most popular brand in the Garden State), much-hyped PokerStars is an absolute fiasco, bringing up the rear among 14 brands and far, far from cracking the $1 million revenue mark.
* Although the upstate New York market is pretty much tapped out, that’s not stopping Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) from threatening the Seneca Nation with a Niagara Falls private-sector casino unless the aboriginals resume revenue-sharing payments with the Empire State. This is a serious threat, as the 
Senecas have a casino near the site Cuomo is proposing for his new casino permit. While the Seneca have been obligated, under a 2002 compact, to pay $110 million a year to New York, the tribe found a lacuna in the compact which appears to exempt them from payments in the pact’s 14th year and afterwards.
For the moment, Cuomo and the tribe aren’t talking. “Given the publicly reported and verified criminal investigation in the Seneca Nation that commenced approximately a year ago, it would be inappropriate for the governor to meet with the Seneca Nation until the matter is resolved by the Erie County District Attorney,” said Cuomo consigliere Alphonso David, alluding to the discovery that an office the New York State Gaming Commission leased from the Seneca Gaming Authority was bugged. “We believe if they don’t pay, the compact is null and void,” added a Cuomo official, to which the tribe responds that the agreement runs through 2023. If the matter goes to arbitration, the city of Niagara Falls — which gets 15% of the casino’s revenues — could suffer years of tax shortfalls.
In the end, Cuomo’s threat may be an empty one: The Niagara Falls market is in decline and to put a private-sector casino in there would require a constitutional amendment. From where we sit, the governor is playing a losing hand.
