How To Bet On Boxing

Yes, you can bet on boxing. Online sportsbooks allow gamblers to wager on baseball, football, soccer, horse racing, cricket, snooker and esports, and you can be sure those books are happy to take your wagering money on combat sports.

You can even bet on some of the least significant undercard fights on the smallest of fight cards. Just because Canelo Alvarez, Terence Crawford, Tyson Fury or anybody else on boxing’s pound-for-pound list isn’t in action that weekend, that doesn’t matter. About every week, plenty of bets can be made in boxing.

But remember that unless a meaningful boxer participates, the sportsbooks will wait until the last minute to post odds. Boxing events on Saturday sometimes don’t show up on the betting boards until the Monday before, and occasionally, you still can’t get odds until a day or two before the first-round bell rings.

Even for some of the biggest fights, you can only wager on the moneylines until the week of the fight, when more prop bets emerge. The books are also inconsistent with which fights feature prop bets and how many options are presented. Sometimes, you can only bet the moneylines. That’s just how boxing betting works.

Betting the moneyline is the simplest way to bet on boxing.

Sportsbooks assign a number to both fighters for a bout. One is the favorite, and that fighter has a minus sign in front of their number. The underdog has a plus sign in front of theirs. The minus sign represents the amount of money you’d have to bet to win $100 on the result, and the plus sign means the amount you’d win if you bet $100 on the fight.

All you need to do to win this bet is to pick the correct winner. The moneyline determines how much money you win for getting it right.

For instance, if Muhammad Ali is a -500 favorite against Tyson Fury (aka a 5/1 favorite), you would have to wager $500 to make a $100 profit if Ali won the fight. If Fury was a +300 underdog to Ali (aka 3/1 underdog), you would earn $300 on a $100 bet if Fury pulled off the upset.

For a pick’em fight that tells the gambling world it’s 50-50 on who will win, the sportsbooks might make both moneylines -105. That way, the book would make money, no matter who is victorious. Unlike other sports, it’s uncommon to see a true pick’em moneyline. Even a fight generally considered to be competitive might feature moneylines of -300 and +225.

The moneylines (and the prop bets we talk about below) aren’t static, though. If more people believe Ali will win and are willing to take that -500 wager, books could make their odds even wider to compel people to turn their money toward Fury. They could raise that line to -550 (meaning you’d now have to wager $550 to win $100).

Conversely, if bettors think Fury at +300 is a good deal and more money comes in on that line, managers could make his odds shorter, so they have less value. They could lower the line to +250 (meaning you’d now only win $250 on that $100 bet).

If you bet on Fury to win at +300 and then the book moved it to +250, that wouldn’t affect how much you’d win. You’d still collect a $300 profit on a Fury upset, no matter where his moneyline was when the fight began.

Sportsbooks often offer prop bets for more significant fights to encourage people to risk even more cash. Prop bets pay off more than the straight-up moneylines because there’s less chance they’ll occur. Here are some examples of boxing props.

Fight Outcome

When a boxing match commences, there are basically five ways for it to end in a result. Fighter A can win by stoppage (either by knockout, technical knockout or disqualification). Fighter B can win by stoppage. Fighter A can win by decision (either unanimous, split or technical decision). Fighter B can win by decision. Or it can end in a draw.

You can wager on all five outcomes.

For instance, Ali might be +150 to beat Fury by knockout and +125 to beat him by decision, while Fury would be +1000 to win by stoppage and +800 to win by decision. A draw might be +2000. This way, if you wagered on the prop bet of Fury knocking out Ali, you’d win $1,000 on a $100 wager.

Round Betting

Another way to get even more money out of a correct pick is to pick the round or group of rounds where a boxer will score a stoppage.

In our above example, you could wager on Ali to stop Fury in rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12, and you could bet the same on Fury. You might get +1400 odds on Ali to win by KO in the fifth, or you could take Fury to win by KO in the second at +5000. These, of course, are longshot bets, but if you score, you will win significant money.

Sportsbooks will offer groups of rounds on which you can wager if you want a better chance of scoring for slightly less money. You could, for example, bet on Fighter A to win by KO in rounds 1-4, 5-8 or 9-12. Or you could wager on him winning by stoppage in rounds 1-3, 4-6, 7-9 or 10-12. Or occasionally, books will offer rounds 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 and 11-12.

Naturally, it’s slightly easier to hit a round group when more rounds are involved. So, if you wagered on a stoppage in rounds 1-6, that would pay off less than it would if you wagered on a KO in rounds 1-3.

As usual, the odds’ variety depends on the fight’s significance. Most mid-level or low-level fights aren’t this granular with their prop bets.

Over/Under

You can bet the Over/Under in boxing, like football or basketball. In this case, the Over/Under refers to how many rounds the fight would last.

In our Ali vs. Fury example, the Over/Under could be 9.5 rounds. If somebody wins by KO/TKO or disqualification or the fight’s stopped for any reason before the 1:30 mark of the 10th round, “under” bettors would win. But if, for instance, Ali knocks out Fury with 75 seconds left in the 10th round or if the fight goes the distance, the “over” would prevail.

Similarly, you can also bet on whether the fight will or will not go the distance—in other words, will both fighters be standing on their feet at the end of the battle, where either a decision victory or a draw would be announced.

Yes, winning money is possible even if you don’t consider yourself a sharp bettor. But it’s never going to be easy, and the odds are stacked against you (literally!). There’s a reason Las Vegas can afford to build massive casinos and why online sportsbooks have invaded your TV broadcasts and your favorite podcasts with expensive ad buys.

You Have to Pay Attention

Fight fans who parachute in to wager on only the most significant events miss plenty of other opportunities to win. Are you paying attention only when Mike Tyson is facing Roy Jones Jr.? If so, it will be difficult to have a good sense of the boxing landscape.

Bettors should try to only bet on sports they know. If you want to bet on boxing, you need to keep up with it.

What is a Parlay in Boxing?

Like other sports betting types, you can put together a group of bets and place them in one super-sized wager called a parlay. Though winning parlays is challenging, the payout will always be more significant.

Here’s an excellent example of how you could have successfully parlayed a big weekend of boxing in October 2022.

• Devin Haney defended his undisputed lightweight championship against George Kambosos. Haney was a -1000 favorite, but if you took him to win by decision, that was a -200 wager.
• Deontay Wilder faced Robert Helenius in Wilder’s first appearance since back-to-back losses against Tyson Fury. Wilder was an -800 favorite, but that dropped to -138 if you picked him to win by KO in rounds 1-6.
• Claressa Shields was a slight -120 favorite against Savannah Marshall, but if you wagered on her to win by decision, those odds went to plus-money at +120.

If you grouped all those bets into a three-leg parlay, it paid off at about +300 because all three betting results came true.

Be aware: Parlays are challenging to win, which is why they can be so profitable.

Shop Around for Best Prices

Not every online sportsbook makes the same determination for their odds. One book might have Fury as a +300 underdog against Ali, one might have him at +325, and one might have him at +290. If you think Fury would beat Ali, you’d take him at +325 because you’d win more money than at the other two books.

Spending 10 extra minutes exploring several online sportsbooks could pay off to find the best value for your wager.

One of the biggest celebrity boxing events ever was Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva on Oct. 29, 2022, and the sportsbooks rushed to put out as many prop bets as they could.

Though Jake Paul has become more legitimate in the eyes of many boxing observers in the past year or two, celebrity boxing is mostly a circus. If you’re searching out fights involving YouTubers, retired NFL players, or once-great MMA fighters trying to make a payday in the boxing ring, you might as well wager on it.

But since most of these competitors are boxing neophytes, it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going to happen once, say, former NFL running backs Le’Veon Bell and Adrian Peterson strap on boxing gloves and go to battle inside a ring.

Betting on boxing is hard enough. Betting on celebrity boxing is a challenging way to make money.