Tyson vs. Paul Is A Sanctioned Sporting Event — But That Doesn’t Mean States Should Sanction Betting On It

I’ve been covering the sport of boxing professionally for 27 years, and, as crazy as it is to type these words, Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson is, in some regards, the biggest boxing match of that entire span.

The viewing audience for Friday night’s fight from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will be enormous — not nearly on par with a Super Bowl, but quite possibly equal to the next-biggest sporting event on the list.

And so, in turn, the betting interest is humongous. Even people who’ve never watched Jake Paul box in any of his 11 professional bouts, or who weren’t alive the last time Tyson held a major heavyweight title, seem to have strong conviction as to whether the 27-year-old neophyte is going to get the better of the 58-year-old living legend, or the former “Baddest Man on the Planet” is going to butcher the former Disney Channel star.

There are three states, however, that regulate sports betting but will not permit wagering on this particular contest. Regulators in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Vermont have all given Paul vs. Tyson consideration and decided that licensed sportsbooks in their states cannot take bets on it, owing to concerns about the integrity of the contest. Regulators in Pennsylvania and Vermont in particular have flagged the 31-year age difference as a concern.

They’re in the minority — thirty-some-odd states are allowing customers to legally stake money on the fight. In this case, though, I feel that minority viewpoint is correct. We just don’t know enough about the “integrity” — to use every sports league’s favorite word — of the competition in Paul-Tyson, and the risk of valid complaints from customers afterward outweighs the upside of permitting bets.

Bigger than Mayweather-Pacquiao?

Doubling back to the enormity of the event — I am certain Paul vs. Tyson will be watched live by more people than any boxing match since at least the ‘70s or ‘80s, the last time major heavyweight title fights could still occasionally make their way to free network television. Is it truly “bigger” than Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao in 2015, or even Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor in 2017? Or, for that matter, Evander Holyfield’s rematch with Tyson in ’97, or Tyson vs. Michael Spinks in ’88, or Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Marvelous Marvin Hagler in ’87?

No, not really. But those fights were all on pay-per-view or closed-circuit. Mayweather-Pacquiao holds the record for any pay-per-view event in boxing, MMA, wrestling, entertainment, etc., at 4.6 million purchases.

Paul vs. Tyson will stream live on Netflix. Not “Netflix Pay-Per-View” or some such money-grabbing extension. Netflix. The streamer that’s synonymous with streaming.

At last count in the third quarter of this year, Netflix had 84.8 million paid subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. I’d set the line at about 20 million TV/devices in the U.S. and Canada tuned in live on Friday. The average NBC Sunday Night Football audience last season was 21.4 million viewers. That’s the range we’ll be in here, I believe. On par with just about anything that isn’t the Super Bowl.

None of this is terribly relevant to the wagering aspect, except the more people are watching a sporting event, the more people are betting on that sporting event — and vice-versa, the more people are betting on a sporting event, the more people are watching it. Bettors of all stripes — professional, casual, sharp on boxing, square on boxing — will have interest in putting money on Paul vs. Tyson.

And in most states, they can. Just using one sportsbook as an example, at FanDuel, the price as of publication was -210 for Paul to win (down from as high as -300) and +172 on Tyson, with a draw at +1100. The over/under on rounds is 5.5.

People who want to bet on this fight should feel free. They just need to understand what they’re getting themselves into.

Not an exhibition, but …

I’ve read several websites this week refer to Paul vs. Tyson as an “exhibition.” It is not. It is a sanctioned fight that will count on both men’s official boxing records. Surely, there are some state athletic commissions that wouldn’t have sanctioned it. It’s no accident that it landed in Texas and not Nevada, California, New Jersey, New York, or some other state with a stricter commission.

But it’s in Texas. And it’s an official fight.

Two of the rules, however, are unusual.

Sanctioned fights between male boxers always feature three-minute rounds. In Paul vs. Tyson, the rounds will be two minutes long.

And in sanctioned heavyweight fights, the boxers always wear 10-ounce gloves. Paul and Tyson will wear 14-ounce gloves — similar to what they wear in sparring, more padded gloves that are slightly harder to hurt an opponent with.

It’s not these rule tweaks that concern me; if the fighters both agreed to these terms, I have no problem with it. Tyson is nearly 60 years old and hasn’t had a real fight since 2005. If he can’t develop the stamina for three-minute rounds, then shorter rounds are fine. And if the various parties would like to diminish the chance of a quick knockout that pops the balloon of all the prefight hype in the first minute or two, then heavier gloves are reasonable.

My concern is that, more than any other sanctioned, non-exhibition fight I can remember, the public has no idea how hard either man will be trying to win.

Tyson and Paul have said all the right things, of course. They’re both claiming to be looking to knock the other guy out.

But, this isn’t like the outstanding co-featured fight on the card, the rematch between elite female boxers Amanda Serrano (+100 at DraftKings Sportsbook) and Katie Taylor (-120), where winning is everything to them and the fight is potentially legacy-defining. Tyson isn’t fighting to advance his career. He’s fighting for the paycheck, and possibly for personal pride. Paul is fighting to advance his career, but he can accomplish that as much with the publicity of the affair as with an asterisk-laden win over a 58-year-old.

I’m not saying these two men won’t be going all out on Friday night. I’m just saying that I can’t be sure of it. If ever there was a sanctioned fight where they could be coming in with a gentlemen’s agreement to try not to seriously hurt each other, this is it.

And even without such an agreement, if Paul is doing well and finding that his punches are hurting the old man, and Tyson is getting winded and it’s turning into something truly sad, Paul could easily make the mid-fight decision to carry him. He could stop going for the KO, and instead get up on his toes, move around, flick out jabs, let Tyson clinch to kill the clock, and so forth.

Bad beat refund!

If this turns out to be a fight in which the combatants appear not to be giving their all, I would hate to be a sportsbook dealing with complaints afterward. If people bet Paul by KO and he’s on his way to an early knockout but then stops punching hard, those people are going to cry loudly for refunds. (We’ve seen it on social media in far less refund-worthy situations than that.)

That’s why I think the three state regulatory bodies that have declined to allow legal betting on this fight are doing the right thing. The cliché “better safe than sorry” applies. Just like barring player prop unders on minor NBA players, when there’s more than just an extremely remote chance of abuse and manipulation, it’s better for regulators to be conservative.

I am well aware, of course, that any state blocking regulated wagering on Tyson vs. Paul will be sending some of those customers to offshore sportsbooks instead. And that’s not ideal. But there are some customers you can’t protect. Sometimes, all you can do is protect the operators within your state and the bettors who only want to wager with legal books.

Is Jake Paul starting to look like great value, as the public money comes in on Tyson and pushes the active fighter half his age down to around -200? Absolutely. It’s a tempting wager to make.

But I give credit, in this one instance, to the states that aren’t making it easy for their citizens to be tempted.

I’ve watched thousands of boxing matches over the last 27 years. The idea of a “fixed fight” is mostly a myth — these are exceptional athletes who are risking their health in pursuit of riches and greatness, and I usually feel 100% confident they’re coming in trying to win.

I am not 100% confident Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson will be a real fight. Don’t get me wrong — I’m as intrigued by it as anyone. But part of that intrigue comes from having no idea if the two men in the ring are waging a war or staging a show.