Pacquiao fight: Filipinos put their money where their mouth is

Chris Schnabel

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Pacquiao fight: Filipinos put their money where their mouth is
The flood of loyalty bets on Pacquiao has skewed the odds in local casinos ahead of the megafight with Mayweather

MANILA, Philippines – The country’s love for Manny Pacquiao has sportsbook operators in the Philippines facing tough odds.

“We have the most difficult task of any sportsbook in the world because we’re here in the Philippines. There’s no place that is more difficult than here for the Pacquiao-Mayweather mega fight,” said Esteban Robles, vice-president of SoftecDigital.

The firm runs the sportsbook, or sports betting, for Solaire Resort and Casino. It’s one of only two Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor)-certified operators of integrated resort sportbooks in the country.

The culture here, like any other Asian country, is a gambling culture but it’s very limited to primarily basketball, cockfighting, lottery and illegal avenues like “jueteng,” he shared in an exclusive interview.

SoftecDigital services allows bettors to place legal bets across a wide range of sports around the world, from picking the winners in the NBA playoffs, to baseball, to European football.

It’s the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight that has everybody excited however.

Unprecedented interest

“We opened the odds as soon as the fight was announced and since Day One we’ve been getting bets, we’ve never seen anything like this before,“ Robles said.

The unprecedented demand has forced the sportsbook to immediately lower its odds as bets flooded in from the start.

“It’s rare that a casino player bets a huge sum of money a few months before the event – usually they bet big on the day but for this fight we’ve seen people bet astronomical amounts right from the start,” he expounded.

He added that for a single event, the volume of bets for this fight is already bigger than the world cup final, not only in the Philippines but across world, and is on track to set the record.

STILL ENJOYING. Despite the risk, Esteban Robles, who hails from Costa Rica, is enjoying watching the record betting action unfold. Photo by Chris Schnabel / Rappler

Betting with the heart

“The Philippines is the Pacquiao heartland and that makes it incredibly difficult for us, as bettors here are flooding the book with ‘emotional bets’ because they want to see their hero win,” Robles said.

It’s unique to the Philippines. “As most bettors make calculated bets using statistics, you would expect at least some to go for a fighter with a 45-0 record as opposed to one who has already been defeated,” he said.

He added that around 92% of the bets that came in were for Pacquiao, with the farthest most locals seeming to go for is a draw which represents about 5% of the volume.

Robles said that elsewhere in the world, and especially in the west, the bets are about 65% for Mayweather.

Balancing the bets

This creates a tricky situation for the sportsbook as they would be left badly exposed should Pacquiao triumph.

“We really have to manage the risk for this fight because it’s not like any other event where bets are generally balanced between two sides and we make the percentage from the difference we pay and charge for the bets – the juice as we call it,” Robles said.

It’s a situation where the book is basically betting against the players.

One way of trying to address the imbalance is tweaking the odds, which has produced higher than normal odds for Mayweather and lower for Pacquiao compared to most of the world.

Mayweather is the odds-on favorite so increasing his odds makes it more attractive for Filipinos to bet on him, while shortening the odds for Pacquiao means that a bettor will win less should he win.

To illustrate this, consider what a P100 ($2.23) bet, Solaire’s minimum, wins for either fighter winning outright at Solaire and two popular online sport books, Ladbrokes and Skybet based on odds available on May 1, Philippine time.

General fight odds from Solaire's sportsbook as of May 1, Philippine time.         To calculate: ([Stake /denominator]) x numerator ) + stake.  Screenshot from SoftecDigital website.

 

Mayweather win

  • Ladbroks (8 /15) – P 153.3 ($3.42)
  • Skybet (1/2 ) – P 150 ($3.35)
  • Solaire – P 156 ($3.48)

Pacquiao win

  • Ladbroks (7/4 ) –  P 275 ($6.15)
  • Skybet  (15/8) – P 287.5 ($6.43) 
  • Solaire – P 245 ($5.48)

The tweaks are very slight so as to guard against foreigners, with no special affinity for Pacquiao, taking advantage of the favorable Mayweather odds, Robles said.

The bet on the draw is the most dramatic difference, with Solaire offering 10 to 1, while the other two sportsbooks, and most of the world, offer 16 to 1 odds.

“For draws, the volume of bets is about 5% but the pay-out amount, or risk, is about the same as the pay-out of Pacquiao winning,” Robles said. 

It would likely be higher if they gave the same odds, he added.

Another way SoftecDigital will minimize risk is by combining the proceeds from its operations elsewhere in the world where the betting is unlikely to be so lopsided.

The sportsbook also offers special bets, such as either fighter winning in specific rounds that offer a much higher pay-out.

The most popular bets so far have Pacquiao winning in the 6th or 7th round.

“So basically if Pacquiao knocks him out in on one of those rounds, we’re dead!” Robles said.

Getting the word out

Despite the huge risk of this fight, Robles confirmed that simply not giving out odds was never an option.

“It helps our market as a once-in-a-lifetime fight like this really helps get the message across that there is now legal sports betting in the country,” he said.

Betting on sports has been popular in the country but bettors used to have to through illegal bookies who could disappear when facing a loss.

“People will be aware that Solaire offers this service, the ripple effect of that is, we can tell them, ‘Hey you bet on other games.’ It’s like educating the market because this is a very fertile market on the legal side,” Robles added.

“It’s also fun to see. This fight really shows the patriotism of Filipinos. People here are willing to die for Pacquiao,” he said. – Rappler.com

$1 = P44.71

Odds are current as of May 1,  updated odds can be found on Softec’s website

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