A Rory McIlroy Masters win would be a nightmare for sportsbooks: Its the Rory Show

There is one sight that bookmakers don’t want to see Sunday evening at Augusta National: Rory McIlroy donning the green jacket. “It’s the Rory show,” Tristan Davis, a senior trader for BetMGM sportsbook, said of the betting action ahead of the 2025 Masters.“He’s the main attraction right now, so we’ll be rooting against him.”Always popular with the punters, McIlroy is even more trendy thanks to a scorching start to the 2025 season.McIlroy has two wins – most recently at The Players – and three top-five finishes in six starts this year. The Masters is the only major championship that McIlroy hasn’t won, and there are a lot of bettors who want to make sure they cash in if the Northern Irishman completes the career grand slam this weekend.McIlroy’s best showing at Augusta came in 2022 when he finished T2, but he’s also had a couple of nightmare performances recently.He’s missed the cut in two of his past three trips down Magnolia Lane, and he fell out of contention with a 77 in the second round last year before finishing T22.The helter-skelter performances aren’t deterring the public, though.“There’s nothing we can do about it,” Davis said. McIlroy is the second-favorite to win the Masters behind defending champion Scottie Scheffler (+450). Surprisingly, Scheffler isn’t garnering his usual robust support.“Not so much for Scheffler this year,” Davis noted.

“Punters are very reactive, and he’s not off to this best start, so there isn’t as much action on Scheffler this year.” Scheffler isn’t the only recent champion falling through the cracks.Jon Rahm, who donned the green jacket in 2023 in between Scheffler’s two wins, isn’t seeing the type of action you’d expect from a player with his pedigree. “It’s very minimal on Rahm,” Davis said.“The LIV guys, outside of a couple of exceptions, aren’t getting much, if any, attention.”The defectors who are getting backed behind the window shouldn’t surpr...