Is Favourite Betting On The UFC Profitable?

CAGED WARRIORS

The first part of the analysis sees us look at the 5,928 fights that have been included in our sample from 2010 to 2024 and apply a £1 betting stake across each of the fights. This means an outlay of £5,928 in total when betting on each of the favourites in each of the fights.

Therefore the equation is quite simple here and to make this a profitable venture then we need to return more than £5,928 from all the UFC bets. However, we have only managed to return £5,739.24 - a shortfall of £188.76 and a negative ROI of 3.18% 

Of those 5,928 fights in the sample, 3,914 saw the favourite come out on top - a strike rate of 66% in terms of matching the pre-fight odds with the post-fight outcome but unfortunately, that percentage was not quite high enough to turn it into profitability.

However, we can dig a little deeper in our hunt to turn UFC betting in a long-term venture in terms of profitability and next we are going to see what happens when a title fight is wagered on. 

THE TITLE FIGHTS

Although the stakes will be higher when a title is up for grabs, we are still going to apply flat £1 stakes for our next variance and now we are going to see if there is any profitability on backing the favourite in titile fights only:

Even when the stakes are higher, it makes no difference to the picture that was painted previously. Of the 5,928 fights in the sample, 279 were for a title belt.

An outlay of £279 for title fights would see just £259.70 returned and this is an overall loss of £19.30. That loss of £19.30 also means a negative ROI of 6.92% 

Even if we ignored the title fights and simply decided that we are going to back non-title fights, the overall outlay of £5,649 from 5,649 fights would return £5,479.54 and a deficit of £169,46 which in turn equates to -3% ROI.

No luck or profit when it comes to backing title matches in particular but what about when we look at weight classes in particular

MAKING THE WEIGHT

With 13 different weight class across both male and female fighters, this is where things start to become far more varied than before:

Here we can see our first sets of profits have been found and three of the 13 weight divisions across male of female fighters would have made some money following the £1 flat stakes.

At the top of profit list is the Women's Featherweight Fights. 27 in total and a return of £27.53 - 53p profit and a 1.96% ROI.

Then it is the turn of the Men's Heavyweights to chip in with their own profitability. 456 fights in total and a return of £461.40 - £5.40 profit and 1.18% ROI.

While the third class to profitable was the Men's Lightweight division. 989 fights in total and £995.26 returned from the £1 bets. A profit of £6.26 and a ROI of 0.63%.

If they are the profitable classses to bet on, Men's Featherweight betting is the one to avoid. 685 fights in total, just £624.64 returned. This equates to a loss of £60.36 and a negative ROI of 8.81%. 

Which means if we know what weight classes are profitable, what about whether it is better to focus on solely male or female fights?

BATTLE OF THE SEXES

If we were to split out the bets between male and female fights, the results would be as follows: 

Unfortunately, there is no profitable angle to be found by picking just male or female fights.

By only betting on male fights, it would mean an outlay of £5,240 and £5,084.39 being returned. A loss of £155.61 and a negative ROI of -2.97%. 

While if there were only bets placed on female fights, it would mean an outlay of £688 and £654.85. A loss of £33.15 and a negative ROI of -4.82%.

No joy when it comes to gender, but what about if were slightly more selective with our bets?

FINDING THE VALUE

Instead of placing a £1 bet on every fight, what would happen if we applied some pre-fight criteria instead:

If we consider that there is value in backing every favourite that is priced at 1.60 odds or above - we can consider this a value bet. If the favourite odds are below 1.50, we will consider this as having no value.

If we bet on just the fights that offered value, the 1,584 fights that match this criteria would return £1,492.73, a loss of £91.27 and a negative ROI of -5.76%

If we bet on just the fights that offered no value, the 4,344 fights that match this criteria would return £4,246.51, a loss of £97.49 and a negative ROI of -2.24%

Nothing doing there, but what about the fights that almost resemble the toss of a coin in terms of picking a winner? 

In this instance, we are going to bet on fights where the favourite is priced at 1.80 or higher and class them as a winner that could go either way. 

Here we can see that 597 fights met the criteria of the favourite being priced at 1.80 or above and even with there nearly being a 50/50 in terms of winning probability, it was not enough to generate profit. 

An outlay of £597, returning £557.92 and a loss of £39.08 - a negative return of 6.55%.

Therefore, betting blindly on the favourite within the world of the UFC seems to not be a path to profitability. 

Considering 66% of the sample saw the favourite come out on top and flat stakes still did not manage to generate a profit at that strike rate. It suggests, that the odds are substantial enough or that the strike rate would need to be even higher.

However, with it being a simple a or b in terms of a winner, even getting a 66% hit rate is far from easy. 

We do know that certain weighht classes can offer profitibility but it does seem to be quite a grind to make a few pounds along the way.

Therefore, to answer the initial question, always betting on the UFC favourite is not profitable but there are ways that you can find a slight edge over the bookmakers.