Mixed martial arts provides one of the most exciting and high-energy sports experiences in the world. While there is a multitude of different fighting organizations across the globe, nothing compares to the prestige of The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The UFC is the premier organization in all of mixed martial arts. It's the pinnacle and the big stage where any and every aspiring fighter hopes to find themselves one day.
They've become one of the most popular sportsbooks in the industry, and offer an assortment of MMA betting options. By using the promo code SB1000 you can redeem a 50% Up To $1,000 Welcome. Bellator 254 Expert Analysis – MMA Betting Thursday nights are becoming big for fight fans, as the last few Bellator events have all taken place on that day of the week. It's more of the same this week, with Bellator 254 set for Thursday night at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville. Betting on MMA; How to Bet on UFC Fights. Unsure how to bet on UFC fights online? Let's get you started! The most popular way to bet on the UFC is by just choosing who you think will win the fight (this is also known as betting on the money line or outright betting). MMA betting isn't complicated nor any hassle when placing your wager. The simple method of selection, stake and odds are all you need to know. Odds & Selection – Find value in a fighter you believe.
Betting Site | Bonus | Bet Now | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | up to €30 Free Bet | Go to Site | |
2 | 22Bet | 100% up to €122 | Go to Site |
3 | 100% up to €200 | Go to Site | |
4 | 10Bet | 100% up to €50 | Go to Site |
5 | 100% up to €50 | Go to Site |
A moneyline for MMA fighting is simple: bet on who you think will win. A moneyline bet is an option you will see at every sportsbook. For example, Conor McGregor was favored at -325 to beat Donald Cerrone, who comes in a +250 underdog. In this UFC online betting scenario for McGregor, you would win $30.77 on a $100 bet if he wins.
Whether you're an adrenaline junkie looking for more action on the fights or you're a sports bettor looking for a competitive edge, you've come to the right place.
Below you'll find a collection of expert picks, strategy guides, and anything else important that you need to crush the books and start making money betting on the UFC.
Our Expert Picks
It's no secret that there are UFC experts. We're not talking about your buddies that scream their 'expert' knowledge at the TV during every UFC event at Hooters and say how every fighter is an idiot. We're talking about ACTUAL experts who utilize their knowledge to win money betting on the UFC. It's easy to have an opinion as a couch commander, but it's much more challenging to put your money behind that decision and come out financially on top.
Normally this information is not available to the general public. These experts rarely share their secrets to making picks and certainly do not share their actual picks. Things are different here at The Sports Geek, though. We pull back the wool and give you unparalleled access to our team of experts. They'll share how they make their picks, why they made those picks, and most importantly, who they are picking for upcoming fights.
How much? Free. Not to sound overly dramatic, but this information should cost thousands of dollars, and we are giving it to you for free. Not a free trial…not just the leftover bets…the actual bets our experts are going to make in real time, completely free. If you're ready to see what our experts have to say, click on the link below and you'll be entering the ring with some of the best bettors in the MMA industry for free.
Best UFC Betting Sites
Knowing which fighters to bet on or what bets to make is only half the battle. The other important thing to know is where the best place to place your bets is. In years past, your only option was to go to the closest sportsbook or casino which can sometimes be hundreds of miles away.
Even if you have a sportsbook close by, you're stuck with the betting lines that they provide and the options of bets they choose to offer. This means no line shopping unless you are ready to test the durability of your car and its gas tank and sometimes the inability to leverage all of your knowledge.
Thanks to Al Gore (or whoever really created the internet) this has all changed. Online sportsbooks are prevalent and give you incredible access to more bet types, more perks, no lines, insane comfort and convenience, and most importantly the ability to shop betting lines to get the most bang for your buck.
Here you'll find the list of the best online sportsbooks offering action on the UFC. What makes these sites the best? They offer the most bet types, the fastest payouts, and the easiest to use interfaces. Most importantly, though, these are sites you can trust. What's the point of betting if you can't be sure that you're going to get paid when you win? The answer is there is no point which is why we made sure to vet these sites as extensively as humanly possible to ensure your safety.
It's also important to point out that we DO NOT allow sites to pay for 'better reviews' or 'to be recommended'. The only way that any sportsbook makes it onto our recommended list is by offering the best and most trustworthy action out there.
UFC Betting Strategy
Understanding how the UFC operates and who the different fighters are is certainly important to be a successful sports bettor. However, it's only a small piece of the strategic pie. Your baseline knowledge might help you enjoy the fights more, but it's going to take some additional strategy considerations to start booking winning bets and padding your wallet.
Our experts have put together a comprehensive collection of UFC betting strategy tips to get you started on the road to making money. These betting tips will help to change the way you look at fights. The goal is to get you to look at fights less as a fan and more as an intelligent and sharp sports bettor who cares about making money off the fights.
Being a successful UFC sports bettor is much less about what you want to happen and sometimes not even about what you think is going to happen. It's about finding value and making the bets with the highest expected value. Click below to see exactly what we're talking about and elevate your UFC betting abilities to the next level.
The Most Popular UFC Bet Types
How To Bet On Ufc Fights Online
To fully understand UFC betting, you need to understand the different types of bets that are available to you. Surprising to some, you can bet on a lot more than whom the winners of the fights will be. Why is this important? Betting flexibility affords you the ability to leverage more specific predictions about how the fight will go which will earn you more money.
Picking the winner is great, but what if you can pick how the winner will win? If you know a fighter is going to submit the other fighter, shouldn't you be able to cash in on this and get paid? This is the reason these other bet types are important to understand.
One key thing to remember before we get started is that just because these other bet types exist does not mean that you have to utilize them. There are plenty of successful professional UFC sports bettors that only bet on fight winners. We just want you to be aware that these options exist in case you find situations that you feel you can leverage a more specific prediction to make additional money. The more specific the pick is, usually the better the payout odds will be.
Money Line/Match Bets
While we did lead off telling you about how there are so many different bet types out there besides picking the fight winner, this does not mean that we can forget the most basic UFC bet available. The Moneyline or Match Bet is the bet where you pick the winner of a fight. This is the most popular bet type, and also the simplest to figure out and understand.
If fighter A is fighting fighter B and you bet that fighter A will win, all fighter A has to do is defeat fighter B and you win your bet! It does not matter how they win, what round they win in, or anything else. The only thing that matters is the fighter you bet on walks away with the victory.
Now, while the bet itself is simple to understand, there are a few things that may be a bit more confusing that you need to understand. Not all bets are paid out the same. Imagine if there was a fight between Anderson Silva and a 10-year-old boy that you could bet. The sportsbook also says that they are paying out even money (the same amount) for each fighter. What would happen if a sportsbook allowed this?
We'll tell you. Everyone would bet on Anderson Silva, and when he destroyed the 10-year-old, the sportsbook would be out of money and no longer be in business. Obviously, they won't allow this to happen. What they do is adjust the payouts to try and get the right amount of money bet on each fighter so that regardless of who wins the sportsbook pays out the same total amount.
How do they do this? They use what are called Money Lines. A money line is a number that dictates to you the sports bettor how much you will be paid out for a correct pick. This number will also show you whether or not the fighter is favored (based on bets) or is an underdog. Moneylines can be represented as American Odds, Fractional Odds, or Decimal Odds.
This will change depending on where you are in the world. These all mean the same thing, but for the sake of this discussion, we are going to use the American Odds. If you're betting online at one of the sites we've recommended, you will be able to change the betting odds to whichever format you are most comfortable with.
How To Mma Fight
Sportsbooks will continually alter these odds to 'sweeten the pot' on the side of the bet that they need more bets on. For example, in our above example at even money, everyone would be betting on Anderson Silva. In order to try and get some bets on the 10-year-old (yes we know this is an insanely exaggerated example), they will shift the money line to pay out less for a bet on Anderson Silva and more for a bet on the 10-year-old. This should deter bets on Silva and encourage bets on the kid.
This means for you the bettor that you can't just bet on who you think is going to win the fight. You need to make sure that the risk and reward are something you feel brings you value. For example, let's say that Conor McGregor has a fight coming up and he is -380. You feel he is most likely going to win. Should you bet this?
Well, you have to realize that -380 means that Conor is the favorite and tells you that a $100 bet will only get you about $26 in profit if you are correct. Now you have to take a step back and look at how certain you are that Conor will win. If you think that payout is worth the risk, make the bet! If that doesn't sound great to you, wait to see if the line moves and offers you a better price and a bigger payout.
Remember, on the other side of the coin the fighter who is an underdog will offer a much sweeter payday if you bet on them and they win. In that same fight against Conor, his opponent might be +340. This means that if you bet $100, you will win $340 in profit for a correct prediction! It's important to realize this is done because the fighter is not expected to win.
Money Line bets are not just about picking the winner. It's about picking a winner that is offering you a payout that you think is better than it should be. This is called finding value in your bets. In the above example, if you would be happy only getting $20 for a Conor win on a $100 bet, then this bet is a great value. If you think it's only worth it to bet if you get $30 or more for a Conor win, then the bet does not have value and should be avoided.
Value is a whole other can of worms we get into in the strategy section above, but for now, that should be enough for you to start to begin to understand Money Line bets. If you skipped the strategy section and this concept confuses you, or you want to learn more, we recommend going back and reading that section.
Place a bet on a fighter, and if they win, you win your bet. It's that simple. The only part where it gets complicated is on exactly how much you will be paid for that correct prediction. You will always be paid something though with a correct pick.
Over Under Round Bets
A popular UFC bet you can make is the Over Under Round Bet. This bet allows you to wager when you think the fight will finish. For example, in a three-round non-title fight, you may be able to bet whether or not the fight will finish before or after 2.5 rounds. If you bet that the fight will finish under 2.5 rounds, you need the fight to finish before the 2 minute and 30-second mark of the third round.
It does not matter if it's by submission or KO or TKO; as long as the fight finishes before that mark, you win your bet. If you bet the over on 2.5 rounds, you need the fight to last at least one second past the 2 minutes and 30-second mark of the third round.
What happens if you think the fight is going to go the full three rounds and go to the judges? You bet the over. Remember, all it says is that the fight has to last AT LEAST 2.5 rounds. Basically, the reason this is set at the 2.5 mark frequently and not at the 1.5 (halfway) point is it's essentially a bet whether or not the fight is going to go the distance or not. You still do win if the fight ends in the last 2 minutes and 30 seconds as well, though.
These bets are great to make if you have a good idea of how you think the fight is going to go. Let's say you think that two fighters don't have the power or skills to stop each other and it's going to be a big snooze fest. You might now have a prediction on who you think is going to win, but you can now bet that the fight will go the distance and make money on the boredom of the rest of us.
Bet On Mma Fights
Prop and Victory Bets
Prop bets (proposition bets) are the collection of random bets that don't fall into the above categories. Victory bets are a type of prop bet. Before we get into victory bets, let's talk a little more about prop bets.
How To Bet On Ufc Fights Online
To fully understand UFC betting, you need to understand the different types of bets that are available to you. Surprising to some, you can bet on a lot more than whom the winners of the fights will be. Why is this important? Betting flexibility affords you the ability to leverage more specific predictions about how the fight will go which will earn you more money.
Picking the winner is great, but what if you can pick how the winner will win? If you know a fighter is going to submit the other fighter, shouldn't you be able to cash in on this and get paid? This is the reason these other bet types are important to understand.
One key thing to remember before we get started is that just because these other bet types exist does not mean that you have to utilize them. There are plenty of successful professional UFC sports bettors that only bet on fight winners. We just want you to be aware that these options exist in case you find situations that you feel you can leverage a more specific prediction to make additional money. The more specific the pick is, usually the better the payout odds will be.
Money Line/Match Bets
While we did lead off telling you about how there are so many different bet types out there besides picking the fight winner, this does not mean that we can forget the most basic UFC bet available. The Moneyline or Match Bet is the bet where you pick the winner of a fight. This is the most popular bet type, and also the simplest to figure out and understand.
If fighter A is fighting fighter B and you bet that fighter A will win, all fighter A has to do is defeat fighter B and you win your bet! It does not matter how they win, what round they win in, or anything else. The only thing that matters is the fighter you bet on walks away with the victory.
Now, while the bet itself is simple to understand, there are a few things that may be a bit more confusing that you need to understand. Not all bets are paid out the same. Imagine if there was a fight between Anderson Silva and a 10-year-old boy that you could bet. The sportsbook also says that they are paying out even money (the same amount) for each fighter. What would happen if a sportsbook allowed this?
We'll tell you. Everyone would bet on Anderson Silva, and when he destroyed the 10-year-old, the sportsbook would be out of money and no longer be in business. Obviously, they won't allow this to happen. What they do is adjust the payouts to try and get the right amount of money bet on each fighter so that regardless of who wins the sportsbook pays out the same total amount.
How do they do this? They use what are called Money Lines. A money line is a number that dictates to you the sports bettor how much you will be paid out for a correct pick. This number will also show you whether or not the fighter is favored (based on bets) or is an underdog. Moneylines can be represented as American Odds, Fractional Odds, or Decimal Odds.
This will change depending on where you are in the world. These all mean the same thing, but for the sake of this discussion, we are going to use the American Odds. If you're betting online at one of the sites we've recommended, you will be able to change the betting odds to whichever format you are most comfortable with.
How To Mma Fight
Sportsbooks will continually alter these odds to 'sweeten the pot' on the side of the bet that they need more bets on. For example, in our above example at even money, everyone would be betting on Anderson Silva. In order to try and get some bets on the 10-year-old (yes we know this is an insanely exaggerated example), they will shift the money line to pay out less for a bet on Anderson Silva and more for a bet on the 10-year-old. This should deter bets on Silva and encourage bets on the kid.
This means for you the bettor that you can't just bet on who you think is going to win the fight. You need to make sure that the risk and reward are something you feel brings you value. For example, let's say that Conor McGregor has a fight coming up and he is -380. You feel he is most likely going to win. Should you bet this?
Well, you have to realize that -380 means that Conor is the favorite and tells you that a $100 bet will only get you about $26 in profit if you are correct. Now you have to take a step back and look at how certain you are that Conor will win. If you think that payout is worth the risk, make the bet! If that doesn't sound great to you, wait to see if the line moves and offers you a better price and a bigger payout.
Remember, on the other side of the coin the fighter who is an underdog will offer a much sweeter payday if you bet on them and they win. In that same fight against Conor, his opponent might be +340. This means that if you bet $100, you will win $340 in profit for a correct prediction! It's important to realize this is done because the fighter is not expected to win.
Money Line bets are not just about picking the winner. It's about picking a winner that is offering you a payout that you think is better than it should be. This is called finding value in your bets. In the above example, if you would be happy only getting $20 for a Conor win on a $100 bet, then this bet is a great value. If you think it's only worth it to bet if you get $30 or more for a Conor win, then the bet does not have value and should be avoided.
Value is a whole other can of worms we get into in the strategy section above, but for now, that should be enough for you to start to begin to understand Money Line bets. If you skipped the strategy section and this concept confuses you, or you want to learn more, we recommend going back and reading that section.
Place a bet on a fighter, and if they win, you win your bet. It's that simple. The only part where it gets complicated is on exactly how much you will be paid for that correct prediction. You will always be paid something though with a correct pick.
Over Under Round Bets
A popular UFC bet you can make is the Over Under Round Bet. This bet allows you to wager when you think the fight will finish. For example, in a three-round non-title fight, you may be able to bet whether or not the fight will finish before or after 2.5 rounds. If you bet that the fight will finish under 2.5 rounds, you need the fight to finish before the 2 minute and 30-second mark of the third round.
It does not matter if it's by submission or KO or TKO; as long as the fight finishes before that mark, you win your bet. If you bet the over on 2.5 rounds, you need the fight to last at least one second past the 2 minutes and 30-second mark of the third round.
What happens if you think the fight is going to go the full three rounds and go to the judges? You bet the over. Remember, all it says is that the fight has to last AT LEAST 2.5 rounds. Basically, the reason this is set at the 2.5 mark frequently and not at the 1.5 (halfway) point is it's essentially a bet whether or not the fight is going to go the distance or not. You still do win if the fight ends in the last 2 minutes and 30 seconds as well, though.
These bets are great to make if you have a good idea of how you think the fight is going to go. Let's say you think that two fighters don't have the power or skills to stop each other and it's going to be a big snooze fest. You might now have a prediction on who you think is going to win, but you can now bet that the fight will go the distance and make money on the boredom of the rest of us.
Bet On Mma Fights
Prop and Victory Bets
Prop bets (proposition bets) are the collection of random bets that don't fall into the above categories. Victory bets are a type of prop bet. Before we get into victory bets, let's talk a little more about prop bets.
Prop bets are bets where something is proposed, and you bet on whether or not it is going to happen. For example, you might bet on which fighter will throw more jabs. This bet does not have a direct effect on the outcome of the fight (though it helps) and is independent of who the fight winner is. If you bet that fighter A will throw more jabs, and they throw 100 more than fighter B, but fighter B knocks fighter A out with one stiff right, you still win your bet.
The most popular prop bet in the UFC is the victory bet. Victory bets are bets on how the fight will end. For example, if you think the fight is going to end by submission, you could wager on that. Typically, the victory bets are attached to a fighter so you'd actually be betting that a particular fighter would be winning by submission.
There are times that you will see victory method bets available and not attached to a fighter. In this case, you are just hoping that the fight ends in the method you selected. These are rare, though.
As predicting the exact way a fight will end is much more challenging, the associated payouts will reward you handsomely. Expect to get paid well if you hit one of these victory bets especially if it's tied to a particular fighter.
Pairing Complementary Bets
We briefly touched on this with the victory bets above, but we wanted to expand on the concept. You are not limited to only making one type of a bet on a fight. You're free to make several different bet types if you have a strong prediction of how the fight is going to go.
For example, let's say that in an upcoming fight you think that Michael Bisping is going to knock someone out clean early in the fight. Why just bet Bisping to win? You can place a bet on him to win, and you can place a bet on him to win by knockout, and you can place a bet for him to win under 2.5 rounds. That way, if you are correct, you'll collect a huge payday.
If you happen to be mostly correct about a prediction, you're still going to make money. Let's say in the above example fight Bisping wins in the first round but does it by submission. You're going to lose your victory bet, but you're going to win your moneyline bet, and your under 2.5 rounds bet.
The Big Picture – UFC Betting
Betting on the UFC can be both fun and lucrative as long as you know what you're doing. Sports betting does not have to be gambling but can be a way to make some serious cash by leveraging your knowledge base (or the knowledge base of our experts here :) ). Gambling is betting on a game of chance while sports betting can be a profitable long-term endeavor.
Take this information and combine it with your own knowledge and research and hopefully, you'll have a long and successful UFC sports betting career.
We also hope you check back often to see what our experts are picking and how that lines up with your thoughts and predictions. Whether you use our picks or not, it never hurts to see a different angle of how someone educated in the sport is looking at a fight. It may help you to get more confident in your pick or may save you from making a big mistake in case you missed something.
Good luck friends!
Legal UFC betting on mixed martial arts fights has a growing audience. The Ultimate Fighting Championship is a rapidly growing company showcasing high-level mixed martial arts talent from a variety of backgrounds all over the world. The UFC has been around since 1993, and after years of putting on spectacular fights, it has now made it into the mainstream culture on ESPN. The sport had humble beginnings with its first fights featuring 'no rules' style matches. Wrestling specialists fighting jujitsu specialists in a cage with no mouthpieces or a structured rule set. With jujitsu practitioners largely taking the wins in most of those matchups along with fast strikers like Vitor 'The Phenom' Belfort. The sport was seen as barbaric to some but over time the sport of MMA evolved and so did the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
In today's day-and-age the UFC showcases some of the most well-rounded and skillful fighters on the planet. While there are still other fight promotions with exceptional fighters, the UFC still has its own stars. The company now has a structure rule set which can slightly change depending on which commission oversees the fight. (Some commissions allow knees to the face while the opponent is upright with only one hand on the ground and another may prohibit this.) Overall the sport has grown tremendously. There's a new '10 point' scoring system in effect, fighters mostly have well-rounded skill-sets instead of only one, and USADA (The United States Anti-doping Agency) drug tests fighters on the UFC rosters to help ensure a clean and fair sport for all competing. The UFC features one of the most exciting sports in the world, and you can bet on it. We'll show you how to bet on a sport that could go 25 minutes of war, to one that could last 13 seconds. We'll cover different types of wagers and other legal betting options as well, so you'll be ready when the first triangle choke or jumping side kick to the liver takes place.
Is It Legal To Bet On UFC Fights In All 50 States?
Can You Bet On Ufc Fights Online
It is legal to bet on the UFC in all 50 states. Nearly two dozen states have launched their own regulated sports betting markets, and the remaining states have access to online sportsbooks that host UFC odds. Regardless of where you are in the USA, there are betting lines available for players to get in on the action. Every UFC fight, fighter props, and major events will have betting lines posted online. Sports betting fans will be able to play to win anytime a major matchup takes place. Both retail sportsbooks and online and mobile betting apps host odds and UFC betting fans can cash in big on these betting odds.