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Biggest bets for GGG-Canelo fight

Canelo Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin square off on Saturday night in Las Vegas. Tom Hogan/Hogan Photos/Golden Boy Promotions

Unified middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin faces Canelo Alvarez on Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

As we did for the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight, ESPN Chalk will keep you updated on the biggest bets throughout Vegas sportsbooks and the current odds leading up the fight.


Current odds

Gennady Golovkin -140
Canelo Alvarez +120


Biggest GGG bets

• CG Technology on Saturday took a $20,000 bet Golovkin to win knockout at +120 odds.

•CG Technology on Thursday took an $80,000 bet on Golovkin at -160. The bet would net $50,000.

• CG Technology on Wednesday took a $77,500 bet on Golovkin that would net $50,000, per vice president of risk Jason Simbal.

• MGM vice president of race and sports Jay Rood expects the largest bets on the fight to be in the $200,000-$500,000 range. As of Sunday, MGM had already take "a couple low six-figure bets" on Golovkin, Rood said.

• Las Vegas sportsbook operator CG Technology took a $50,000 bet on Golovkin at -135 on Aug. 27, the day after the Mayweather-McGregor fight.


Biggest Canelo Alvarez bets

• The Westgate took a $10,000 bet on Alvarez at +130 last week.

• A $32,300 bet on Alvarez at +130 was placed on Aug. 28 at a William Hill sportsbook in Nevada.


Notes on handle

• As the fight approached, the betting action was extremely balanced. At 8 p.m. PT, 69 percent of the bets and 54 percent of the money wagered at William Hill's Nevada sportsbooks was on Alvarez.

• At 1:00 p.m. PT, 60 percent of the bets and 59 percent of the money was on Alvarez at the Westgate SuperBook. "Some low five-figure wagers have been placed on both sides," Westgate assistant manager Jeff Sherman said Saturday afternoon.

• As of 9:00 a.m. PT, 70 percent of the bets and 61 percent of the money wagered at William Hill's Nevada sportsbooks is on Alvarez.

• At 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, Caesars Palace sportsbooks had taken twice as many bets on Alvarez as they had taken Golovkin. "We will likely be big GGG fans tonight," a Caesars sportsbook manager wrote in an email to ESPN.

• The early betting on the fight was very even at most sportsbooks. With the handle already well into the six figures at MGM, only $3,100 more money had been bet on the favored Golovkin than on Alvarez.

• Rood expects to handle multimillion dollars on the Golovkin-Alvarez fight. "It'll be about a third of Mayweather-McGregor," he said.

• "They always say that, as a bookmaker, you just want good, solid, two-way action and just let the juice take care of itself," Ed Salmons, assistant manager of Westgate SuperBook, told ESPN. "That's what this fight is, just absolutely tremendous two-way action."