LAS VEGAS -- Early Friday morning, MGM Resorts VP of race and sports Jay Rood held court before several reporters at the MGM Grand media center to field questions about the betting action on Saturday night's Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight. He then had a date with ESPN, the BBC and a few other news stations that all have convened in the desert for the Fight of the Century.
"I have never seen so much media in Las Vegas for any event," Rood said in a phone conversation with The Linemakers on Sporting News at 7:15 a.m. PT. "They are everywhere here, and from so many different countries. It's packed."
This was the second straight day Rood had an early-morning appointment at the MGM with the media, and today's work day will be even longer because there will be thousands of guests arriving in the city, loaded with cash and ready to wager. He'll be managing the action from his Mirage office and expects one side to be more heavily bet than the other for Saturday night's bout.
"It'll definitely be a Pacquiao crowd we'll see over the next two nights," said Rood.
However, over the past week, public sentiment has been divided, after an early flurry of Pacquiao action that included a wager of nearly a half-million dollars.
"We're still at (Mayweather)-200/ (Pacquiao) +170 with action basically spilt over the last week, but we're still at about 3-to-1 in ticket counts on Pacquiao," said Rood. "Our risk on him isn't nearly as pronounced as it once was."
Rood has taken a few low six-figure bets on both fighters over the past week, and the wagers have largely balanced each other out. That means his overall risk on the fight is far from what might be expected for the chain of books that is expected to write over $30 million on the fight. He estimates statewide handle on the event to be over $60 million.
The majority of Las Vegas sports books have a much larger ticket-count disparity in favor of Pacquiao than the MGM books do, which explains why everyone else has a lower price on Mayweather. On Thursday, several books moved to -180 or -185. This morning the Westgate SuperBook dropped from -210/+180 to -190/+170.
While wise guys will shop for the best Mayweather price, most of the visitors will take whatever odds are on the board at the hotel they're staying at. MGM Resorts has over 40,000 rooms on the Strip.
We'll continued to update the betting action and odds movement on the fight, including when Rood takes his first $1 million wager. He may take a few by Saturday night with the whales arriving, and while he doesn't have a big decision now and doesn't need to move the price anytime soon, that type of wager certainly makes it easier to move one way or another.
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