How Do Fight Odds Work
- Boxing odds are a cinch. Once you understand how the money line works, you'll be well on your way. Becoming good at boxing wagering, that's another issue. Simply understanding how the odds work, however, is something that comes pretty easy. The money line is simply a way to express odds.
- The line is simply the odds for that particular game, translated into whatever system is used. When a big Las Vegas casino issues the first line on a game, it is known as the 'opening line.' Offshore sports books often issue a line before Vegas does, but the Vegas line is usually considered the most trustworthy.
The odds are expressed on the money line, which is simply a way to express the odds. For those new to boxing betting, the problem with money lines is that we all grew up hearing odds expressed a different way-in fractional form.
by Matt Lo Cascio
The onset of legal gambling in Illinois and many other states has spurred MMA gambling to become very popular. The fights are already exciting, but when you have a vested interest in the outcome, your heart beats a little faster and you end up teetering on the edge of your seat. You might even yell at the TV.
But before you lay down some cash on a fight you have to know how MMA betting odds work.
MMA ODDS: THE BASICS
Let’s start with the basics of MMA Odds. The first thing to know is MMA odds in America will have a + or – sign in front of a number. Let’s use an imaginary MMA fight as an example. And since it’s merely an example, let’s get a little wacky with it. How about Brock Lesnar vs. Fedor Emelianenko? We’ll assume the favorite in this fight would be Fedor. That would make Brock Lesnar the underdog. Favorites always have a minus sign in front of a number, while the underdog will have a plus. In our imaginary fight, Fedor would be the favorite at -180, while Lesnar would be the underdog at +120.
For favorites, the number represents the amount you would need to bet in order to win $100. So if I bet $180 and Fedor wins, I would receive $100 in winnings as well as my $180 wager back.
For underdogs, the odds work a bit differently. The plus sign indicates the amount of money you would win per each $100 wagered. So if I put $100 down on Lesnar and he wins, I would receive $120 in winnings plus my initial $100 wager back.
PARLAYS, FRACTIONS, AND PROPS
Betting favorites or underdogs is just one way to wager on MMA. There are many other MMA betting options like parlays, fractional odds, and props. Parlays are more difficult to win because you must select at least two fighters and they both must win in order to cash on that wager. The good news is the odds always increase in parlays which make the payouts bigger.
Parlay odds are difficult to figure out. Every betting site will show you updated odds as you add fighters to your bet slip. But if you wanted to see what your parlay odds will be before visiting your preferred betting site, you can use a parlay calculator. For example, let’s say I picked a fighter that was +245 and parlayed that with a fighter who was +325. If you bet $100 on that parlay and won, you would win over $1400. You can even parlay six fighters. A mix of favorites and underdogs in a six-fighter parlay could be worth over $10,000 with just a $100 bet.
Fractional odds aren’t used much in MMA, but they are used when you want to place a bet on a team or player in a non-game situation. Let’s say you were a baseball fan and prior to opening day wanted to bet on the Chicago White Sox to win the World Series. You would see odds around 10/1. That means you would win $10 for every $1 you bet.
Props, aka prop bets or proposition bets, are bets that are placed on something happening during an event and not necessarily a final result. An example would be betting on how many takedowns Khabib Nurmagomedov might land in a fight. You would be offered an over or under on those takedowns. Khabib is the takedown king, so maybe the over/under number would be four takedowns. You could bet either side of that and it wouldn’t matter if Khabib won or lost the fight. Other popular MMA prop bets include picking the round the fight will end as well as the method of finish.
In the world of sports betting the first thing you will need to learn is to read and understand the odds. There are three traditional ways that online sports betting sites display odds. They include American, Decimal, and Fractional.
Regardless of how the odds are displayed, they’ll always mean the same thing. Watching the UFC, the odds format they talk is American Odds or Vegas Odds. Essentially what they are is the percentage of one outcome against another.
You can use our UFC Odds Calculator to work out percentages yourself.
We have a live odds tool on our site that you’ll notice on lots of our pages. We post live odds in American and Decimal format, but we don’t list live odds in the Fractional format.
The reason we don’t list live odds using Fractions on our site is that we don’t want to confuse bettors. Fraction odds are becoming more extinct every year, and many online sportsbooks have stopped posting odds using fractional odds entirely.
The betting odds are one of the most important factors in deciding on whether to bet on a game or not. If you study a UFC fight and determine that Jon Jones has a 60% chance of beating Mauricio Rua, then you’re going to need to find out if the odds are better than that.
Using our 60% example, we need to check to see if the odds are going to allow us to be profitable if Jones does win 60% of the time in this fight. You can use our betting calculator to check what the odds mean in percentage terms.
To break even betting on an outcome that is predicted to hit at a 60% rate you need to be getting odds of -150. If you’re getting better odds, i.e., -150 to a positive number (+100), then it’s a +EV bet to make, and you should place the bet.
We’re going to explain how to read the three different types of betting odds below, so make sure you check out both the American and Decimal formats if you don’t know how to read them yet.
American Betting Odds Explained
- Jon Jones -205 vs. Mauricio Rua +165
American odds are shown using whole numbers above 100, and they can have a positive or negative value. When the odds have a negative value, the odds will be presented with a (-) in front of the number whereas when the odds have a positive value they will have a (+) sign in front of the odds.
To understand how much you can make you need to remember one rule. When the odds are positive (+), the number reflects how much you’ll make on a $100 wager whereas if the odds are negative (-), the number reflects how much you need to bet to win $100 profit.
If you bet on Jones at -205 you need to risk $205 to win $100 profit and if you bet on Rua to win you’d win $165 profit for every $100 you bet.
The fighter with the negative value is ‘usually’ considered the favorite, and if both fighters have a negative value, then the fighter with the higher number is the favorite.
E.g:
- Fighter A: -105
- Fighter B: -109
Fighter B is considered the favorite in this matchup.
It’s rare for two fighters in MMA to both have negative value odds, but it does happen when two extremely evenly matched fighters fight against each other.
Decimal Betting Odds Explained
- Jon Jones 1.49 vs. Mauricio Rua 2.65
Decimal odds are used in most countries outside of North America, so we include decimal odds on our site for punters. Decimal odds are also known as European odds.
To understand decimal odds you always need to remember that your stake and profit are included in the odds. For instance, Jon Jones is favored to win the fight at 1.49 odds. If you bet $100 on Jones at 1.49, you’d win $149 back, which includes your stake and profits.
You’d win your $100 back plus make $49 profit.
If you bet on the underdog Rua in the fight for $100 at odds of 2.65 you’d win back $265, which includes your $100 stake plus $165 in profit.
How To Read Fight Odds
To find out how much you can win using decimal odds you multiply the odds by how much you want to bet.
Fractional Betting Odds Explained
- Jon Jones 49/100 vs. Mauricio Rua 33/20
We want to say that we believe fractional odds are going to become less used, and therefore we don’t recommend using them unless you’re betting on horses.
If you’re betting on MMA, you should use Decimal odds, as every bookie offers Decimal odds and they’re easy to use when trying to figure out your profit.
If you need to be able to read fraction odds, they’re simple. The 1st number in the fraction is how much you’re paid out based on the 2nd number, which is how much you need to stake.
How Do Boxing Odds Work
For instance, if you bet on Jones at 49/100 odds you need to calculate 49/100 x “Wager Amount” to come up with how much you’ll make. If you bet $100 (49/100 x $100 = $49) you’d make $49 plus receive your $100 stake back.