To bet a UFC fight, pick a market (the winner, how it ends, or how long it lasts) and turn its price into a chance before you bet: -185 means 64.9%, +160 means 38.5%. The next card is UFC Fight Night: Rosas Jr. vs. Barcelos on Saturday, September 26, at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas, with the main card at 8 p.m. ET.
How a UFC fight is scored and settled
A regular UFC bout is three five-minute rounds, and a main event or title fight is five. Saturday’s main event, Raul Rosas Jr. (12-1) against Raoni Barcelos (22-5) at bantamweight, is scheduled for five rounds, and the prelims start at 5 p.m. ET.
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A fight ends by knockout or technical knockout, by submission, by a judges’ decision (unanimous, split or majority), by disqualification, or as a draw. Every market below is settled on one of those outcomes. Read your sportsbook’s rule for a draw before you bet the moneyline, because a draw is the one result a two-way price does not cover.
The UFC bets you will see on every card
ESPN lists 11 bouts for Saturday, seven on the prelims and four on the main card. These are the markets you will usually find on each one.
- Moneyline: who wins. The favorite carries a minus sign (-150) and the underdog a plus sign (+130).
- Total rounds: over or under a line such as 1.5 or 2.5 rounds. At most books, over 2.5 in a three-round fight needs the fight to pass 2:30 of round three, so check where yours puts the mark.
- Method of victory: the winner and how, such as Fighter A by KO/TKO, by submission or by decision. The payout is higher because you need two things to be right.
- Round betting: the winner and the round the fight ends in. It pays the most and misses the most.
- Goes the distance: yes or no on the fight reaching the judges.
- Live betting: prices that move between rounds. A knockdown or a lopsided first round moves the moneyline before the second round starts.
Reading UFC odds and finding value
American odds are built around $100. At -185 you stake $185 to win $100; at +160 a $100 stake wins $160. For a favorite, the implied chance is the price divided by the price plus 100, so -185 is 185 / 285, or 64.9%. For an underdog it is 100 divided by the price plus 100, so +160 is 100 / 260, or 38.5%.
Those two numbers add up to 103.4%. The extra 3.4 points is the sportsbook’s margin. If you rate the +160 underdog at 45%, the price says 38.5%, and that gap is the only reason to bet it. A bet you cannot put a number on is a guess.
Shopping between books matters more in a two-way market than it looks. The same fighter at +130 implies 43.5%, and at +150 implies 40.0%. Over a season of small bets that 3.5-point gap is the difference between two very different results.
What to check before you bet a fight
Styles decide more fights than records do. A striker who has never been taken down has not been tested by a wrestler, so look at who a fighter beat, not only how many. Ten wins over fighters with losing records say less than five over ranked ones.
Watch the weigh-ins the day before. A fighter who misses weight has usually had a hard cut. Five rounds change the handicap too: a fighter who fades after ten minutes is a different bet in a main event than on the prelims. Check whether a fighter is coming off a long layoff or a short-notice booking, since both show up in the first round.
Keep a record of every bet, with the price you took and the reason. After 50 bets the record tells you which markets you read well, and a bet that lost at a good price was still the right bet.
The UFC cards coming up
| Date (ET) | Event |
|---|---|
| Sat., Sept. 26 | UFC Fight Night: Rosas Jr. vs. Barcelos, Meta APEX, Las Vegas |
| Sat., Oct. 3 | UFC 332: Silva vs. Wang |
| Sat., Oct. 10 | UFC Fight Night: Allen vs. Duncan |
| Sat., Oct. 17 | UFC Fight Night: Buckley vs. Malott |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | UFC 333: Volkanovski vs. Evloev |
This list is read from the UFC schedule on ESPN and is updated as cards are added or changed. Our UFC Fight Night odds and predictions carry the breakdown for each card, and UFC fight results has how the last ones ended.
If you would rather follow a handicapper, check the record first, on the handicapper leaderboard and in our handicapper site reviews. Paid UFC picks are on Buy Picks. The membership comes with a free trial.