Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC. Pictured: Dustin Poirier, Dana White, Conor McGregor
Conor McGregor is the biggest show in town when he lands in Las Vegas, and bettors are taking his side in his trilogy fight against Dustin Poirier at UFC 264 on Saturday.
According to betting data released by BetMGM and PointsBet, McGregor is the more popular bet of the two, with a Round 3 win for “Notorious” being the specific hope for most.
At PointsBet, 69% of bets and 64% of dollars are on McGregor, while those numbers are more than 72% at BetMGM.
The majority of dollars are on the fight going over 2.5 rounds, which has dropped the price from +135 to +115.
The first fight between the two was a first-round TKO win for McGregor, although it’s hard to say how much of that matters since it took place in 2014. More recently, Poirier finished McGregor in the second round back in January at UFC 257.
Most of the action will be on picking a winner straight-up, but other prop markets exist for betting on more specific outcomes.
When it comes to betting on which round the fight will end, McGregor winning in Round 3 is the most popular play in terms of dollars at BetMGM. A McGregor win in Round 1 has taken the most bets. Poirier’s most popular round prop is a Round 3 win.
In a five-way market, which accounts for either fighter winning by finish, decision or a draw, McGregor has most of the bets on winning by finish but the bigger bets are on Poirier in a finish.
A 7-way market breaks out submission from a knockout, so a bettor must be more specific than just winning by a finish. In that market, more bets and dollars are on Poirier by KO and Poirier by submission than there are for McGregor by either method.
Elsewhere on the card, Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson is getting 62% of bets for the co-main event, but his betting line continues to drop as money comes in on the challenger Gilbert Burns. Burns opened at +155 but is down to +128.
Two other instances of money outweighing the bets on the main card. Yana Kunitskaya has taken 58% of bets, but the majority of money (65%) is on Irene Aldana.
Finally, the bets are close to 50-50 between Greg Hardy and Tai Tuivasa, but the handle favors Tuivasa big time, with 79% of dollars on the experienced UFC fighter against the former NFL player. Hardy is 4-3-1 in his eight career UFC fights and is coming off a TKO loss to Marcin Tybura.