5 Great UFC 262 Betting Tips for Beginners
The MMA circuit is back in full swing as the UFC 262 event will feature many standout fights with the involvement of fan favorites like Tony Ferguson and Nate Diaz.
The event will take place on May 15, 2021, in Houston’s Toyota Center. The Lone Star State will be hosting the second UFC event to feature crowds again as pandemic restrictions have begun to ease across the United States. You can follow the broadcast on the usual pay-per-view platforms.
How do betting odds work in UFC?
Betting on a UFC event works just like it does in the case of any other sporting competition. Still, the American bookies’ way of formatting the bets might be a bit challenging to read for those more used to decimal or fractional odds. What the hell are those pluses and minuses about, eh? Here’s a quick example that should help you get to grips with how do you read MMA odds, courtesy of Safest Betting Sites:
Suppose we’re looking at a simple moneyline bet, better known as match-winner betting. At the time of writing, Nate Diaz is offered at +330 to win his welterweight bout against Leon Edwards (marked at -400 by the bookies in question).
The positive number means that betting $100 will net you this amount of money, or in this case, $430 including stake. This would be 4.3 in decimal odds. On the other hand, the negative number means how much you need to bet to win $100. Here, you’d have to wager 400 bucks to win 100, indicating a measly 1.25 in the other format.
5 Clever UFC Betting Tips
Explore prop bet markets to find large edges
Proposition bets go deeper than usual moneyline offerings and are often seen as the fun little casual punts to take alongside your serious wagers. Nothing could be further from the truth: a good understanding of prop bets in MMA can help you turn a large profit as many of them are directly related to how the fighters’ specific skillsets match up. You can game out the method of victory props and round betting options pretty effectively, and should you gain a good enough understanding of the contestants.
Know what the experts have to say
You may or may not ultimately agree with the approaches suggested by veteran bettors who do this stuff for a living, or even the pundits on the big screen and the other fighters in the MMA universe, but not even having an idea of their opinions of the upcoming fights is inexcusable for a savvy customer. These people live and breathe mixed martial arts and can rattle off an impressive amount of facts over any fighter. Keep an eye on their predictions as you look to formulate your own: who knows, they may offer some sort of unique insight that completely turns around your thinking for that big main card fight.
Keep an eye on underdogs
How often do underdogs win in UFC, you ask? The answer is “often enough to make it a bad idea to bet on the favorite blindly.” Line shopping comes into play here again: since inexperienced bettors will often look to bet on the favorite fighter, the odds will further shift away from the underdogs, enabling savvier customers to make some profitable bets on their opponents.
Explore the differences in fighting styles
The beauty of MMA is that (almost) anything goes, and expertise in one fighting style or a combination of two can take you a long way as long as you are skilled enough to execute it. Nevertheless, there are basic relationships and hierarchies between the various combat disciplines and knowing how they stack up against one another when evenly skilled individuals meet in the cage is crucial when trying to place profitable bets or looking for free UFC picks.
Wrestlers, for instance, may struggle against fighting styles that focus heavily on striking, while boxers’ skillsets can be inadequate when leg kicks come into play. There are similar ups and downsides to disciplines like judo or karate as well.
Line shopping makes the difference between amateur bettors and experienced ones
No doubt you have already seen how different bookies have different odds at all times. These edges can be analyzed and exploited. Sometimes the reason behind these contrasts is as simple as having a difference in opinion regarding the matchup. Occasionally, the analyst just got it wrong, which sharp bettors know as a “flawed line.” Finding these can make or break your profits in your betting account.
Over time, the odds can shift naturally as well as the bookmaker looks to hedge. Suppose they get an overwhelming amount of bets of Fighter A: they are then incentivized to offer better odds on Fighter B’s victory to even out the overall betting volume somewhat. This means you need to act fast and do your research early on diligently to exploit any flawed lines in time.
Favorite UFC 262 Predictions
No doubt it’s the fight between Nate Diaz and Leon Edwards that is the main event of the night, and it’s tough to overlook Edwards’ incredible record (unbeaten for over five years in the UFC!) even when going up against such a stalwart and old fan favorite as Diaz. With only three fights under his belt since 2019, not all of them looking great, Edwards still seems like a value pick against an essentially inactive fighter, even at -400.
The battle between Beneil Dariush and Tony Ferguson aims to settle the fate of the currently vacant lightweight title, with the former gunning for a seventh consecutive win against a fighter who’s been on a significant downward trajectory last year despite past heroics. Now in his mid-thirties, it might be the beginning of the end for him, despite all the best MMA tips suggesting otherwise. With that in mind, Dariush at -150 seems like a good pick.
Best Sites for UFC 262 Betting
The rapid growth of interest in mixed martial arts competitions means that you can pretty much bet on any of the major online bookmakers’ sites on UFC 262 and similar events. However, no two bookies are made equal, and the differences in their offerings mean some of them are leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the pack. Here are our suggestions for the best MMA betting sites:
BetNow
A combination of a strong track record, credit card options, and great MMA odds coupled with a generous deposit bonus and a solid live betting platform makes BetNow one of the best UFC betting sites on the market. Their limits are $5000 for sides and $500 for parlays.
Bovada
The fact that the folks at Bovada post their lines earlier and aren’t as sharp at setting them up as some other bookies make them an immediately attractive choice for savvy bettors. However, their generous deposit bonus with just a 5x rollover requirement coupled with excellent betting software and many promotions makes them an excellent choice for more casual customers.
MyBookie
It’s the massive prop bet market that makes MyBookie stand out from the rest of the crowd alongside their significant MMA wagering limits, offering many opportunities for enterprising bettors to find small edges for a UFC event. This, coupled with reasonably large betting limits, makes them another standout option for betting sites in this niche.
Final Thoughts
Now you should have a good idea of what to watch out for in UFC 262, the most important storylines alongside some great MMA betting tips. Betting on a fight makes it all the more exciting to follow it closely, and the smug satisfaction of a correctly placed bet can add to the experience. Weigh the ins and outs, do your research, and factor in the tips above – and who knows, you might make a decent chunk of change off of your MMA fighting predictions!
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