MMA & UFC Betting at Bally Bet Sportsbook

In the not-too-distant past, the only real combat sport that you could watch on TV and wager on was boxing. It was king, with roots going back to ancient Egypt and Greece and the highbrow nickname 'The Sweet Science'.

It turned out that the world of hand-to-hand (and feet) fighting had room for another popular sport, and so Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) was born. All in all, MMA is a more complete measure of a fighter, as the discipline combines elements of boxing with wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, and good old-fashioned toughness.

MMA has become one of the most popular sports to wager on over the decades, in no small part due to the inception of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993. The UFC turned its fighters into stars, the stars became draws, and the sport blew up worldwide.

Nowadays, popular figures like Anderson Silva, Jon Jones, and Randy Couture are commonplace. They might not compare to the legendary status of boxing stars like Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, and Floyd Mayweather just yet, but as the sport continues to grow, so do their reputations.

As always, we're on the money, and we offer an extensive range of UFC and MMA betting markets right here at Bally Bet. Read on for our breakdown of the main UFC & MMA bet types and our top tips for betting on the sport.

Popular Types of MMA & UFC Bets

Because of the nature of MMA, there's a more diverse range of bet types available than there are for other combat sports. Here are some of the most popular bet types on offer:

Moneyline for Outright Winner

This is a simple bet on which fighter wins, and it's paid out on moneyline odds. Most sportsbooks offer this as a two-way wager, meaning that if there's a tie in the fight, the bet is a push and all bets are refunded. Otherwise, you get paid based on whether you bet on the favorite in the fight or the underdog.

The favorite has a minus sign (-) attached, and it returns winnings that are less than the original bet. The underdog, on the other hand, has a plus sign (+) attached, and this pays out more in winnings than the original bet.

For example, when Brock Lesnar fought Mark Hunt, he was priced at +135 and Hunt priced at -145. Ultimately, this would have meant that a $100 bet on Lesnar would have paid out roughly $135. If you wanted to win $100 on a Hunt victory, you would have needed to bet $145. A $100 bet on Hunt paid out $68.97 in profits. Naturally, all winning bets would have returned the original stake.

Round Betting

This is a bet on which round will be the final round of the bout. It doesn't matter how the fight ends, be it through knockout, decision, submission etc. It also doesn't matter which fighter eventually wins the bout. The only thing that matters is your call on which round will see the fight end. It's worth noting that this type of bet also pays out on a moneyline.

Over/Under Rounds

This is similar to round betting, but instead of picking the exact round in which the fight ends, this is an over/under bet on the total number of rounds in the fight. For example, if the line for the number of rounds fought is 2.5, and you bet the over, you'll win if the fight ends in the third round, fourth round, or fifth round, and so on.

Championship and main event fights are five rounds each, while a standard UFC fight has three rounds. This distinction is massively important because you don't want to mistakenly hedge your bet with the wrong number of rounds in mind.

Method of Victory

One of the more interesting bets available for MMA and the UFC is a method of victory wager, which is unique to this specific sport.

There are five ways that a fight can end: knockout, technical knockout, submission, decision, and disqualification. A knockout is pretty self-explanatory. The fighter is knocked unconscious. A technical knockout is similar in that the fighter is almost unconscious, and the referee steps in to stop the fight. Submission means that the bout ends because one fighter taps out, and a decision means that the fighter was awarded the win by the three judges sitting ringside.

When betting on a victory by decision, you can also wager on whether the decision will be unanimous or split (meaning that only two of three judges award the fighter the victory). A disqualification is done at the discretion of the referee if they determine that the fighter's various rule violations warrant an automatic loss.

Another thing to keep in mind: When placing wagers on knockouts and technical knockouts, sometimes they're combined into a single bet.

Point Spreads

One of the lesser-known MMA and UFC betting types is a point spread bet. This bet requires the bout to end on a decision and is based on the allocation of points as decided by the judges. With three judges and up to five rounds, a fighter can receive as many as 150 points. A point spread is set based on the quality of the fighters involved, just like with other sports.

So, let's say in a middleweight fight Robert Whittaker is a 3.5-point favorite over Chris Curtis. If you wager on Whittaker and he wins 146-142, you win your bet since he's taken the W by four points. If the score was instead 145-143 in favor of Whittaker, your bet would lose because although he won the fight, he didn't cover the score by more than 3.5 points.

In that case, a wager on Curtis would be the winning bet.

Parlays

Parlays are a series of single bets combined into one larger bet. These can include parlays on an individual, such as picking a fighter to win, which round they will win in, and by what method of victory.

As an example, let's say you bet on Raquel Pennington to beat Holly Holm in the third round by submission. You've combined three bets into one, and if they all win, you'll receive a bigger payout.

The risk is that if one of the three bets doesn't win (so she wins in the third round, but by knockout), the entire parlay is a loser. Because each UFC event comes with several fights on the card, combining multiple fights into a parlay bet is also a popular option.

Prop Bets

Some of the above bets, like round bets and methods of victory, could be considered prop bets. But even beyond those, there are others available when betting on MMA and the UFC.

You can wager on the total number of combined rounds for all of the fights on the card. At the end of the fight card, the UFC rewards fighters for the Fight of the Night, Knockout of the Night, and Submission of the Night. You can wager on each of these awards and which fighters will walk away with bonuses.

If round bets aren't specific enough for you, you can also bet on time props, which break down the end of the fight minute by minute. In addition, you can make simple prop bets on the fight going the distance or, conversely, the fight finishing inside the distance.

MMA & UFC Betting Tips

Fightin' and stylin'

Some fighters are grapplers. Others are strikers. Plenty are wrestlers. And then there's the best of all worlds: the well-rounded fighter. Be sure to study the style of each fighter in a bout, and look back at past fights to see which styles give a certain fighter the most problems.

The style of a fighter can change everything about a fight including the pacing, the likelihood of a fight ending in a particular round, and the method of victory.

All of these pointers matter, so it's a good idea to have a quick skim before placing your UFC and MMA wagers.

Stats aren't everything

Stats are important. You should know takedown numbers, knockout numbers, average rounds fought, and a fighter's recent form. But stats can only take you so far. Some of those numbers might be inflated because of fights against lesser talent. Or perhaps they reflect fights where brawlers were pitted against entirely different styles from what they're set to face in the upcoming bout.

Learn the stats, but don't be a robot when betting. Some figures are more relevant than others, and there are often personal vendettas, rivalries, rematches, and other things at play that don't show up anywhere in the numbers.

Just as the well-rounded fighter is best, so is the well-rounded MMA bettor.

Youth over experience

Each fight deserves individual analysis, but there are certain trends that you can use to break the tie when everything else is equal. One of the big ones is the age of the fighters.

Experience sounds great. The longer someone has been in the fight game, the better they are, right? Sometimes. Sometimes not, and especially when the age gap is significant. When the age difference is at least five years, the win percentage swings significantly toward the younger fighter, and the winning percentage grows as the age gap grows.