Confessions of a Degenerate Gambler
I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only person on this site who has laid a bet or two in their lifetimes, whether it be at a card table or slot machine in Vegas or Atlantic City, NCAA bracket pools, fantasy leagues, Super Bowl boxes, buying lottery tickets, or my personal favorite, the sports book. I love the rush you get when a game is covered with a late field goal, or a buzzer-beating three, or a walk-off home run. I eat it up. I can't help myself. Well, since the explosion of MMA over the past few years, I have found a new outlet for my (ahem) recreational enjoyment. Betting MMA is just as addictive as any of the other major sports, with one notable exception...MMA is truly the sport where "anything can happen".
The proof is in the pudding. When you think you know something about this crazy sport, it does a 180 and spins your head around. Think about the Georges St. Pierre - Matt Serra fight. I mean, St Pierre was -1000! That means, in order for you to win $100, you had to risk $1000. And if you bet $100 on Serra to win, it paid off $700. Crazy odds. And we all know what happened. St Pierre got caught, Serra took full advantage, and pounded Georges out. Easy money for...well, I'd be willing to bet Serra's closest friends stayed away with those odds. But he pulled off a great upset, and I'm sure bookmakers around the country rejoiced.
I've got a few thoughts when it comes to betting MMA, but as we all know, none of these is fool-proof. But this is what I look for when looking over the lines...
1) I check out the so-called "experts" on all of the sites. I like to see what the talking heads are saying. If all the big-wigs seem to be leaning in one direction on a fight that I just don't see, I write that down. I'm a big fan, but I miss things in the weeks leading up to fights that these guys get paid to see - injuries, poor training camps, outside distractions, contract disputes, etc. -, and it helps to know which way they are leaning.
2) I go to forums like FightTicker.com, Sherdog.com, and cbssportsline.com (before the purge), to see what real fight fans are thinking on the fights. I met guys like ajmarti, Netterbog, King Lev and Iamphoenix over there. They know their stuff inside and out. And when I saw that these guys ran a challenge on that other site, well, that was all I needed. I had a perfect gauge on what the MMA community thought about the fights right in front of me.
I didn't always go with the consensus, but at least I had something to look at, coming from the real fan.
3)I check the odds at as many sites as I possibly can. I like to see if any of them are giving better odds on fights than I get from my guy. Since MMA is in it's infancy in the gambling world, sometimes you can find odds that almost don't make sense. That's a good time to jump on a fight.
4) I avoid huge favorites like the plague. If I'm going to have to lay more than $300-$400 to make $100, it seems to me that it isn't worth it, especially in our sport. I'd much rather spread that $300 around on a few "live" underdogs (guys who have a real chance to beat the favorite). Even though the chances of a win are reduced by betting underdogs, the payouts are so much better. Any gambler worth his salt knows you don't make money betting favorites. It's all about the long-shot underdog. I bet small favorites if I love them, but as in the St Pierre- Serra case (where I, like everyone else, loved St Pierre), I stay away from the huge favorites, because one punch, or one kick, or one cut, can come back to haunt you.
5) My last,and most steadfast rule of betting MMA, is don't bet every fight on a card. You need to sit down and look at the fights, before even looking up the odds. Pick the fights that you are most confident in, and write them down. Then, check your odds. If any of them fall in line with your picks, hop on. If they don't, let them go. There will always be another PPV, and another opportunity to make (or lose) some quick cash, next month.
- TheBudCan's blog
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Comments
Very cool. So did you pick
Very cool. So did you pick Serra last year?
No, man. I loved St Pierre,
No, man. I loved St Pierre, but because the odds were so great, I stayed away from the whole thing. I did have $200 on Koscheck at +250 against Diego Sanchez that night, so I hit for just over $500 on that. Everyone said how boring that fight was...not to me, my friend. Not to me.
when a bet is involved, no
when a bet is involved, no event/competition is boring! i know first hand. all the men in my family - brother, dad, uncles, cousins, etc can't wait until football season starts (both nfl & ncaa). i would watch and cheer for a team for no reason except that they had $ riding on it. your logic is good - don't bet on huge favorites. not worth the odds b/c u gotta lay out a heavy load to win and if you lose, you lose big. can you parlay MMA bets? and can you bet on rounds, win by tko vs submission, etc? i'm guessing it might be like betting on boxing?
How'd you do last night
How'd you do last night TheBudCan?
"I met guys like ajmarti,
"I met guys like ajmarti, Netterbog, King Lev and Iamphoenix over there. They know their stuff inside and out."
that's right!!! i know my stuff inside and out!!!!!
thanks
Underboss MMAfia
Head of the West Coast Family
thanks for leaving me
thanks for leaving me off...asshole!
I guess we know where we
I guess we know where we stand Papa... =-p
can't forget guys
can't forget guys like:
hardyz
cincy55
tallyjets
eers_1_fan
wardog
PAPABALSAMO
cornbrd
wes
Underboss MMAfia
Head of the West Coast Family
Bah...
Bah...
sixtus... there's a ton
sixtus...
there's a ton more. but tbc got the important people
haha...
Underboss MMAfia
Head of the West Coast Family
Sorry about that Sixtus and
Sorry about that Sixtus and Papa. Those are the guys I first met on cbssportsline. Phoenix and King are the ones that convinced me to come over to FightTicker. It was not supposed to be a slight against anyone. I was just listing the first group I became friendly with over there. But you guys definately know your stuff, too. You have to, in order to keep up with this bunch.
great blog though TBC. i've
great blog though TBC. i've never bet on anything with money like that. that's great info for losers like papa and sixtus...jk...JK!!!
Underboss MMAfia
Head of the West Coast Family
Pramit - I hit the Anthony
Pramit - I hit the Anthony Johnson, Josh Neer and Thiago Alves fights (I jacked Alves up to $100), and missed the Tim Boetsch and Kurt Pellegrino fights. I raised my bet on Alves because one of my buddies that I watch every UFC card with swore up and down that Florian was going to beat Lauzon, and convinced me to bet him $20 instead of blowing $100 with the book. So technically, I lost $20 on that, too. I ended up winning a little bit. Can't complain. Boy, I thought Pellegrino was going to continue to roll Diaz. Great comeback. That was slightly depressing.
Sixtus
Sixtus <----- Loser indeed. There should be odds-makers for when I bet. The first (and only to date) UFC I saw live, I decided to place a couple bets in Las Vegas was UFC71 (Liddell/Jackson)... I bet on two fights, I went with favorites that I could cheer for. Chuck over Jackson and Jardine over Alexander. We all know how those both ended... Next time I was in Las Vegas happened the week before UFC 76 so I placed a couple bets. Again, I bet on favorites that I wanted to cheer for... Chuck over Jardine and also Rua over Griffen... well we all know how those two 'favorites' fared in that one.
I decided after that, there is no such thing as a true 'lock' and to not bother ACTUALLY betting on MMA.
0/4 on MMA.
+tons on NFL
Sixtus, my best effort was
Sixtus, my best effort was UFC 64. One of my buddies is a lawyer who has some Vegas comnnections, and we had six of us were out there for the weekend of the fights, staying at the Mandalay Bay. I knew the fights were that night, but thought I'd order them on PPV, as none of these older guys paid the UFC any attention. A couple of these guys are big-wigs, though, so they ended up getting sixth row seats for the fights that night. My buddies knew I followed the UFC pretty closely, so they asked me for my three locks of the night, regardless of odds. I said Clay Guida over Justin James (a complete crap shoot, as this was Guida's first fight in the UFC, I believe), Anderson Silva over Rich Franklin, and Sean Sherk over Kenny Florian. Guida went off at -260, and Sherk was -320. But Silva was a dog, at +160. We had to have all of our bets in before the first fight started, so we each put money on all three of those fights, plus a huge chunk on the biggest dog on the card...Carmello Marrero over Cheick Kongo, at +375. I remember the numbers like it was yesterday. We hit all four (some of us for bigger paydays than others), and the rest of the trip was in the bag at that point. An unforgettable time.
I bet on football and
I bet on football and baseball all the time. I am really big into parlays and teasers. I don't put alot of money down but I play my fair share. I started in elementary school playing the football tickets.
Godfather and all-around Mafia Aficionado
Co-Founder of The MMAFIA
Live Blogger for Fightticker.Com