Bookies will lose millions if McGregor beats Floyd

LAS VEGAS» Conor McGregor is making a lot of wise guys nervous in this gambling city.

Should he somehow manage to knock out Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the early rounds Saturday night, the city’s bookmakers would lose millions of dollars in the biggest single event loss in the history of sports betting.

McGregor fans have flooded sports books with $100 bills backing the mixed martial arts fighter, and even a late surge of money on Mayweather may not be enough to balance the books.

“I’m OK now,” said William Hill oddsmaker Nick Bogdanovich. “But you might want to have a heart monitor on me when the bell rings and Conor starts throwing wild lefts.”

Bogdanovich said his chain of sports books will suffer multimillion-dollar losses — their worst ever — should McGregor win the fight in any fashion. If he wins early as he has promised, the losses would be even worse.

A fight that began with Mayweather an 11-1 favorite is now 5-1 or even less in some sports books.

MGM Resorts oddsmaker Jay Rood, though, said his books have taken 6,700 bets on McGregor and only 300 on Mayweather. The average bet on McGregor is $125, while the average for Mayweather is $4,000.

If McGregor wins, Rood said MGM will be a big loser and the state will suffer its biggest single event loss ever.