Tonight, 27-year-old Jake Paul is going head-to-head with 58-year-old Mike Tyson in one of the most unusual bouts in boxing history. No one knows how the fight is going to go, but one thing for sure is that there’s an enormous amount of money being made from it. And in a pre-fight conference, Paul seemingly indicated he was putting up his entire $40 million purse in a wager with co-main-eventer Katie Taylor.
The card’s fighters shared the stage and were asked to predict the outcome of the Paul/Tyson fight. Taylor and everyone else on stage without the last name “Paul” chose Tyson as the favorite. And when Taylor made her pick, Paul responded with a challenge, asking “How much do you want to bet?” Taylor’s response: “Do you want to bet your purse?” Shaking on it, Paul replied, with reportedly no hesitation, “Yeah, let’s bet the purse.”
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Paul had previously alluded to his $40 million paycheck for the fight, while Taylor is slated to earn about $6.1 million in her own bout, according to an Irish Mirror report, so those are pretty good odds for her if Tyson does pull off a victory despite his age. Tyson himself is reportedly slated to make $20 million off his return to the ring after 19 years of retirement from boxing.
The Post article is skeptical that Paul’s bet can be taken literally, but he was seen in front of myriad cameras agreeing to it via handshake, so there will be some pressure for him to pay up if he loses.
In any event, Paul is far from the only person with money on the fight. Ben Fawkes, a writer who covers sports betting, quoted a professional oddsmaker on the dynamic and volume of the fight’s bets:
“We have more written on it than any NFL game currently on the board. We’ve taken a few bigger bets on Paul but the vast majority of the tickets are on Tyson. The respected money is on Paul, for sure.”
That would seem to indicate that the serious money is tilted toward Paul, while Tyson is a sentimental favorite with way more fans rooting for him to win and hoping to make a little money at the same time.
The fight goes down tonight, Friday, November 15th, at 8 PM ET/5 PM PST.