Last weekend’s historic UFC card from Las Vegas smashed betting records with the UFC’s official partner Parimatch.

The event and specifically the main event between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Conor McGregor gripped the attention of fight fans from all over the world, with punters eager to place bets on the lightweight title fight.

The international online betting group revealed that amongst their customers, this weekend’s tussle was the most popular fight in the sport’s history, detailing that more than 120,000 customers placed bets on the highly anticipated contest, with over £1m ($1.5m in value of bets taken. Furthermore, it was a good night for punters with 60% of bets being placed on the defending champion Khabib.

The fight was also significantly more popular than recent high-profile boxing bouts. More than twice as many bets were placed compared to McGregor’s boxing match against Floyd Mayweather and three times as many bets as Antony Joshua’s WBA boxing heavyweight title defeat of Wladimir Klitschko in 2017.

Sergey Portnov, CEO of Parimatch commented: “The popularity of mixed martial arts, and the UFC, continues to thrive and expand across the world. The Parimatch betting platform and partnership only helped add to the excitement of ‘UFC 229’ for its global fanbase.”

Parimatch signed a new international collaboration with the UFC in September, becoming the UFC’s first-ever major marketing partner from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region.

Signing the deal, UFC Vice President, International Marketing Partnerships Rene Valencia stated: “We are thrilled to be in business with Parimatch, a global brand that has grown from a small firm to one of the world’s largest international gaming networks in just a few short decades. We look forward to working with Parimatch as we continue to grow our brand and the sport of MMA around the world.”

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