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Unless you’ve been under a rock, you likely heard or saw Jake Paul “fight” Mike Tyson at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas. We put fight in quotation marks because the fight was a glorified exhibition match, but that’s beside the point.
The point of this article is to show how massive of a betting event it was — one of the biggest of all time if sportsbooks are to be believed. But here’s the thing because of the betting situation in Texas, the state wasn’t even able to capitalize off that success. Keep reading and we’ll explain the full story.
Paul-Tyson Shatter Records At Sportsbooks
Tyson is one of the biggest box-office stars in fighting history. So when he returned for his first professional fight in 20 years, of course there was going to be interest. Throw in the fact his opponent was a social-media star in his own right, Paul, and the bout was on Netflix instead of pay-per-view, well, you have all the makings of a monster fight. But we doubt sportsbooks expected it to be this big of a deal.
Take BetMGM, for example. They are either the third or fourth biggest operator in most legal sports betting markets. Since they’ve been around in mobile form, which is seven years now, this bout was its most bet fight — boxing or MMA. By most, we’re talking about both bets placed and money wagered. They didn’t get specific on those numbers though besides saying it was four times more than the previous record. Four times!
The same thing happened at ESPN Bet. They too said this matchup received four times as many bets as the next biggest boxing event — and twice as many as its biggest MMA fight. ESPN Bet is only tracking since November 2023, but it’s still startling.
This sentiment was shared by other bookmakers, even the ones operating in physical locations. “It was unbelievable for business,” said John Murray, who is executive director of the Westgate SuperBook in Las Vegas. “Casino was packed. Bets flying in all day. I was stunned.”
The last quote we’ll share comes from Craig Mucklow, the vice president of trading for Caesars Sportsbook. He compared the betting interest of this fight to a marquee Monday Night Football matchup before going on to say:
“We knew there would be tremendous interest in the fight, as the betting suggested it was a generational matchup in customer demographics. Those old enough to remember a prime Mike Tyson got to live the nostalgia one last time, while those young enough not to know who Iron Mike was were firmly on the Jake Paul side of the counter.”
Paul’s Win Was Good For Sportsbooks Too
Paul “won” the fight by unanimous decision. It probably could’ve been a knockout but Paul decided to take it easy on the almost 60-year-old Tyson — double of Paul’s age. The bigger winners though were the sportsbooks themselves.
The majority of money bet on the but was on Tyson, as you’d expect with a fan favorite like Iron Mike. Most books reported that Tyson to win by KO (+250) was the most made bet, followed by Tyson by decision (+1100) and Tyson KO in the first round (+14000). Obviously, none of those hit, which created a large windfall for the bookies.
One sportsbook said that Paul netted 16 percent of the betting tickets, but 41 percent of the money handle. Those bettors came up profitable, but not without some controversy. Many bettors and fans alike cried the fight was “staged.”
This led Paul to respond via a statement through his MVP promotion. The gist of the statement? Rigging is illegal, especially cause of the betting liability. If you’re reading this and really think a 27-year-old couldn’t beat a 58-year-old, you need to get a grip. Iron Mike is not who he was 30 years ago, and that’s that.
Texas Misses Out On Betting Windfall
As mentioned, the fight was in the home of the Dallas Cowboys — “Jerry World” as it’s affectionately called due to Jerry Jones, owner of the team and stadium. No doubt, the state and Jerry benefitted big time from the event in the form of notoriety and ticket sales. However, it left a lot of money on the table by not offering legal betting.
There are now only 11 states in the United States without a legal betting market. Texas is one of them. And with the way things are trending right now, it appears that’s staying the case. The state’s mostly Republican government has long resisted legalization with no bigger opponent than lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who is arguably the second-most powerhouse man in state offices.
What’s ironic in all of this is it’s not like local Texans aren’t betting. They are, and most likely via offshore betting sites. But since that’s not regulated, all the money flowing never comes back to the state in the form of taxes. None of it, even though we’re positive that billions are being bet offshore among Texans. Welp, you can’t win them all I guess…
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