MMA has seen incredible growth over the last 10 years. UFC, in particular, has taken off to become one of the world’s most viewed sports but alternate promotions such as Bellator, BKFC, ONE Championship are also growing at an incredible rate.
As a viewer, you can sit back and enjoy these slugfests but there’s an even better way to add that extra spark of excitement. Betting. Since there’s been fighting in this world, there’s been betting on those very fights; from the coliseum to the present date, we love to bet the house on a fighter.
But where?
Here’s a list of some top (and legal) betting sites for MMA in 2022.
Some are not available in Canada but most offer similar odds and options. Below are some of the wagers to look for when placing a bet.
Popular Wagers Placed at UFC Betting Sites
Moneyline
The most popular bet in all of MMA is the moneyline bet. In the simplest terms, this is a wager on who is going to win the fight. The more likely a fighter is to win, the less return you can expect on a win. Alternatively, the underdog will provide you with a big payout, and anything can happen in the fight game.
Over/Under
This is a bet on how long you think a particular fight is going to go. You pick whether you think the fight will last longer or shorter than that line and if you’re right, you win. There are times you will see a similar bet offered known as the “go the distance” bet, which means it lasts to the closing bell. It’s very similar to the over/under bet set at half a round before the end of the fight.
If the fight ends in the last half of the final round of a three-round fight, an over bet on 2 1/2 rounds will win, but a “go the distance” bet will lose.
These wagers are very similar but can sometimes pay different amounts based on how bets have come in. Use this to your advantage.
Method of Victory
The method of victory wager is a popular one at the best UFC betting sites. Pick whether you think the fight will end in a TKO/KO, submission, or go to decision. Odds vary based on how the bookkeepers think the fight will play out. Consider the weight class, fighter record, and opponent when placing this bet.
Prop Bets
These are wagers on whether something will or will not happen during a fight. Technically, the method of victory wagers fall into this category, but we felt they were big enough to warrant their own category. Popular examples of UFC prop bets include:
Will the fight go the distance?
What round will the fight end?
Will there be a draw?
Will there be a point deduction in the bout?
A True MMA Fantasy Experience
Betting against the oddsmakers can get tiresome and expensive. Before you know it that $100 you invested in betting this year is gone in the first month.
Personally, I prefer to play fantasy sports then place bets. Sure the payout won’t be as large, but I get the satisfaction of beating my friends and investing a smaller amount of money for a longer period of enjoyment.
However as hard as I looked I couldn’t find a true fantasy experience for MMA. Something similar to Yahoo’s fantasy football or hockey. It just wasn’t out there. This makes sense because MMA doesn’t have seasons, teams, or public contracts. But still, there must be a way to make this work….
Enter Fantasy Fighting League.
If you’re an average Joe like me and want to draft fighters, compete against your buds, spend as much as you’d like for the money pool, and still get that spark of excitement when watching fights. The FFL is for you.
Our goal is to provide an authentic fantasy experience to everyone. For FREE. Check out our league settings page where you can see how it works and download your own league template so you can get started.
We publish scorecards on our Fantasy Results page. These will get uploaded the day after a UFC fight night or UFC card and they will tally up each fighter’s fantasy points so all you have to do is allocate them to the designated fighter on your league template.
For now, we don’t have an App. We’re in the process of making one but as this is a free community-driven project it will take some time. We also are only focusing on UFC at the moment. We hope to someday open up the league to other promotions as well.
How to Support FFL
If you’d like to see this take-off and become an app, please follow our Instagram page and podcast page. On our Instagram, we share fantasy point highlights for fighters and share breaking news in the UFC. The podcast is where we make picks, talk draft & sleepers, and comment on the progress of our own league standings.
The bigger the following that we build the more motivated we will be to create an app for everyone!
For now, we hope you enjoy playing alongside us, and thank you for reading. Best of luck to your MMA bets and fantasy futures!
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