MMA odds Explained

We see the numbers next to UFC fighter's names. -150 favorite, pick-em, what do these all mean?

Odds

Let's look at an example fight.

Kamaru Usman (-500) vs Conor McGregor (+450)

-500 means that if you bet 500 bucks on the fighter and they win, you get your money back plus an extra 100. So to get a $100 profit, you need to gamble $500. The number after the - is how much you need to bet to net $100 profit.

+450 means that if you bet $100 bucks on the fighter and they win, you get your money back plus an extra 450. So to get a $450 profit, you need to gamble $100. The number after the + is how much you get in profit if you bet $100.

The fighter with the - next to their name is the favorite. The bigger the number is, the more of a favorite they are. In this example, Kamaru Usman is the favorite.

The numbers don't add up to 0, because the betting companies need to make a profit over many fights.

Sometimes, two fighters might both be -110. To get $100 profit, you need to gamble $110 on the fighter who ends up winning. In this case they are both equally likely to win. This is called a pick 'em.

The Betting Line

This is the term for the numbers (+ and -) assigned to the fighters, as explained above. The betting line can change over time. When a fight is announced or highly speculated, betting companies will announce what the betting line is. If too many people start betting on one side of the betting line, the line will shift to reflect that. If a lot of people start betting on McGregor to win, the line will shift so it might become something like -350, +300. Effectively McGregor has become less of an underdog than he was before. Sometimes betting companies will purposefully make the betting line more attractive by giving good odds on an outcome to encourage betting.

Parlay & Other Complex Bets

Your bets don't have to be 1 fight bets. You can chain bets together where you only win money if all of your bets are correct. You win nothing if even one of your bets are wrong. This is called a parlay. While clearly you're much less likely to win, if you do win you can profit much more money.

You can also bet on specifc outcomes. For example, instead of betting on McGregor winning at all, you can bet on McGregor winning by submission. Because it's much less likely to happen, you will get more money if it does occur.