Boxing still beats MMA for bookies

Boxing gets more big-action bets than Mixed Martial Arts events.

Bookies: Boxing still the champion of combat sports

Mixed Martial Arts was a mere twinkle in the sporting public’s eye. It was November 12, 1993 and UFC rolled out its first event (UFC 1: The Beginning), an eight-man round-robin event, that invaded McNichols Sports Arena in Denver. Two thousand and eight hundred patrons showed up, while the event notched 86,000 pay-per-views buys.

In the humble beginnings of an emerging conglomerate, boxing/MMA oddsmaker Joey Oddessa held court at an upstate New York strip club, making odds off the cuff and taking bets. Ken Shamrock, one of MMA’s early superstars, was going off at 3-to-1. The eventual winner, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Royce Gracie, paid off at 10-to-1.

Even in its nascent stages, Oddessa saw MMA’s crossover appeal. The scantily clad women gyrating on poles were afterthoughts.

There was nobody watching the dancers, Oddessa recalls.

Since The Beginning, MMA has graduated from strip club bookmaking. The UFC, run by Zuffa, LLC and Dana White, has been at the forefront of the MMA explosion. Its Ultimate Fighter reality television program, which debuted in 2005, has introduced future MMA stars to the masses while becoming a feeder system for their pay-per-view cards.

Headliners like Brock Lesnar, Chuck Liddell and Quinton Rampage Jackson became known personalities with drawing power at the box office and sportsbooks.

This past Saturday’s UFC 116, headlined by the Lesnar-Shane Carwin heavyweight title match, sold out the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and grabbed more than one million North American pay-per-view buys. Some experts proclaimed it was the most anticipated bout in MMA history.

The sport’s growing popularity, especially among the younger male demographic, has made it a more accepted betting entity. However, in the combat sports realm, boxing remains the golden goose.

It will take some years for the actual betting of the UFC/MMA to eclipse boxing, although more individual wagers come in on the UFC, Oddessa said. There are a lot more smaller, less lucrative bets on the UFC.

Those smaller wagers drive MMA betting. Once the persona non grata in the Vegas gaming community, the interest in the sport has forced old-school casinos to take notice of the new kid in class.

According to Jeff Stoneback, Race and Sportsbook Manager at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, MMA’s appeal is its ability to capture an ever broadening demographic.

Boxing, on the big bouts, we’ll take some larger wagers, Stoneback said. On the UFC, we’ll write smaller tickets, but there will be a greater number of bettors.

Those bettors, mostly young men with less disposable income than high rollers, tend to risk smaller sums. Those $20 bets are pale in comparison to the thousands wagered by the big fish on a boxing mega-fight. Stoneback said a boxing superfight, like the May 1 clash between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Shane Mosley, will outdraw Lesnar-Carwin at the windows 10-to-1.

Much of that disparity boils down to the economics of the respective sports and its fans.

A boxing main event like Mayweather-Mosley will tend to have higher wager limits, which would increase the volume simply because you have one guy making $20 million, Oddessa said. In the UFC, a main event guy could make $1 million, making the books less comfortable to take higher wagers on the individual fighters.

Added Stoneback: At this point, being that {MMA fans} are younger, they are not fully versed on gambling as the older boxer fans. They are more into betting on the fight and picking the winner.

Economics aside, boxing is the more book-friendly sport. Twelve-round championship bouts create 24 round prop bets alone. Result props like decision, KO/disqualification, draw and over/under foster greater intrigue in betting circles. MMA props, which do include over/under among other props at the online books, have not exploded.

You tend to find smaller action on MMA because there are more ways to finish a fight than boxing, Oddessa said. In boxing, you get more steady two-way action, whereas the MMA props are not as profitable.

Stoneback said the Mirage did not offer props on the Lesnar-Carwin main event. The winner/loser wagers on that bout and several of its undercard contests spurred enough interest at the windows. That tells part of the story.

While online sportsbooks offer props for major MMA events (Sportsbetting.com, for instance, offered 24 possible outcomes), MMA props tend to be riskier plays for the books.

Case in point is Mirko Cro Cop, the striking specialist who won UFC 115’s Submission of the Night when he defeated Pat Barry with a third-round rear naked choke. Cro Cop only had three submissions in 36 professional contests heading into the Barry bout, thus the odds on Cro Cop to win that honor were astronomical leaving sportsbooks paying out big on submission prop.

Hiccups asides, MMA is becoming a more viable betting option. The sport does not have a star on the Mayweather or Manny Pacquiao level, but personalities like Lesnar and a devoted fan base have forced sportsbooks to embrace MMA.

MMA is the fastest growing spectator and wagering sport today, without a shadow of a doubt, Oddessa said.