[COLOR=#676767][FONT=&quot]“Our estimate, based on a sample of books, puts it in excess of $60 million,” Michael Lawton, senior research analyst for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, told Covers on Wednesday morning.

That figure would put it beyond the $55 million-plus estimated handle for the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight in May 2015, at the time a record handle for boxing.

The Gaming Control Board doesn’t track specific numbers for boxing, placing in it a pool of “other wagers” – sports other than football, basketball and baseball. However, the final handle can be reasonably extrapolated from the full monthly gaming numbers, which is how the Mayweather-Pacquiao handle was estimated.

Lawton set his early estimate on Mayweather-McGregor based on sampling from “the large majority of books.” He expects that estimate to be supported by the official August gaming numbers, which the Gaming Control Board will release at the end of September.

“If they’re saying Pacquiao-Mayweather was the biggest – and again, we don’t track that – but yeah, it sounds like it could be bigger,” Lawton said. “Everyone’s very pleased, very happy. That’s the impression I got.”

Jeff Stoneback, director of trading for MGM Resorts sportsbooks, had the $60 million number just about pegged Saturday afternoon, a few hours before the main event down the street from his home base at The Mirage.

“I’ve seen projections of $70 million,” Stoneback said. “I think that may be a little bit high. I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if we did hit $60 million. (But) I wouldn’t be surprised if we do hit 70.”

Anywhere in that range still puts Mayweather-McGregor in heady company. As a single, one-day event, Stoneback said the handle – largely bolstered by all the proposition betting – would rank only behind the behemoth Super Bowl. New England’s comeback victory over Atlanta drew a record $138.5 million, and Nevada sportsbooks were big winners on the day, as well.

Saturday’s result was equally great for the bookmakers.

“What we won on Mayweather-McGregor would’ve been good Super Bowl money for us, even though we wrote more on the Super Bowl,” Stoneback said. “If we win the same amount of money on any Super Bowl in the future, we’ll be very happy.”

To further contextualize the comparison: pointspread betting accounts for approximately 60 percent of Super Bowl handle, which in the case of Patriots-Falcons would be in the $80 million range. Mayweather-McGregor total handle won’t be too far behind that.

Neither last January’s college football championship game between Alabama and Clemson nor college basketball’s Final Four/championship game will come close to Mayweather-McGregor handle.

“It’ll blow those away,” Stoneback said. “Overall, you’d have the Super Bowl and then March Madness tournament as a whole, and then this would probably be No. 3 right here.”

Johnny Avello, executive director of race and sports at Wynn Las Vegas, told Covers his shop’s handle was larger than the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, previously Wynn’s largest boxing handle ever.

“So I’m gonna tell you for the whole state, I’ll take a guess that the handle was probably somewhere between 60 and 70 (million dollars). I thought it would be a little bit higher, but some of the bigger bets (on Mayweather) slowed down the second half of Saturday evening,” Avello said. “We were still getting a lot of money, but most of it was on McGregor. And (there were) none of those half-a-million-dollar bets. They stopped coming in.”

Again, a more accurate final tally will come in late September, when the Gaming Control Board releases its August gaming numbers. Whatever that handle ends up being, it won’t shock Lawton.

“I’m not really surprised. I figured we’d get a buy-in from the public,” said Lawton, who himself purchased the pay-per-view. “I bought the fight and said I wouldn’t. But I did. It was a good fight, it was entertaining. It was a good event for Las Vegas, that’s for sure.”<
These numbers are reflective of the betting handle within Nevada's borders, where sports betting is legal and regulated. The total money wagered on Mayweather-McGregor globally is a little tougher to lock down, with illegal bookies and online sportsbooks - both overseas and offshore - drawing massive action on this fight.