Close<\/a> Joined ESPN in 2014
\n Journalist covering gambling industry since 2008<\/p>\nIn one corner, there’s Anthony Joshua, a 6-foot-6, 243-pound, two-time heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medalist, who owns one of the hardest punches in boxing. In the other corner stands Jake Paul, a 6-1, 216-pound YouTube influencer, whose only heavyweight fight came against a 58-year-old.<\/p>\n
Guess who the betting public is backing?<\/p>\n
Paul, a 7-1 underdog, had attracted 82% of the bets and 90% of the money that had been wagered at DraftKings on the winner of Friday’s sanctioned fight in Miami, Florida. DraftKings said, as of Thursday night, a Paul upset would result in nearly a $100 million loss for the sportsbook.<\/p>\n
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Joshua entered Friday as a -1200 favorite, meaning bettors would need to risk $1,200 for a chance at winning a net $100. Few bettors had been willing to lay that big of a price, but even so, the fight was trending toward being one of the most heavily bet boxing matches of the year at sportsbooks.<\/p>\n
Brandon Yaeger, who oversees combat sports for Caesars Sportsbook, said, because of hefty price, he expects the overall amount wagered on the Paul-Joshua fight to be lower than how much was bet when Paul fought 58-year-old Mike Tyson in November 2024.<\/p>\n
“Betting interest is definitely high,” Yaeger told ESPN. “The handle has already passed the last fight between Paul and [Julio Cesar] Chavez Jr. So far, the largest bet has been $90,000 to win $10,000 on Joshua.”<\/p>\n
At the Hard Rock Bet sportsbook in Florida, the action was also lopsided on the underdog.<\/p>\n
“Florida loves Jake Paul, it’s really as simple as that,” Neil Walsh, senior vice president of Hard Rock Bet sportsbook, told ESPN. “We are seeing one-way action here, not unexpectedly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David PurdumDec 19, 2025, 10:53 AM ET Close Joined ESPN in 2014 Journalist covering gambling industry since 2008…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-356033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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