Boxing Odds

Perhaps no other sport on the planet can raise your adrenaline the way boxing can. While there's no way we mere mortals will ever be able to feel the thrill of being in the ring, boxing can still be pretty fun outside as well.

In this primer about boxing odds, we'll tell you how you can place bets on boxing bouts.

Understanding Boxing Odds

Betting odds generally come in three formats and that holds true for boxing as well. All three formats are directly related, so the good news is that you can pick the one you're most comfortable with and stick to that one in the long term.

Every sportsbook will allow you to change the format from within its home page. So, there will be no need to jump around from one platform to another if you feel the need to go through complex steps to convert the odds into the format that you've chosen to use.

Nevertheless, it helps to understand the workings of each one of them. 

American odds

Also known as moneyline odds, these will be the default format if you're betting from the United States. This format is the most beginner-friendly format for interpreting the odds. American odds are presented in the form of negative or positive whole numbers. You might have seen -110, +150, and so on, and provide some easy information on how much you would win based on the wager amount you've put down.

They also give you a good indication of, among other things, the public sentiment on the boxers taking on each other and which is fancied over the other.

The boxer with the smaller number associated with him is the favorite, and the one with the bigger number is the underdog. Let's say Oleksandr Usyk is given odds of -150 to win in a fight against Andy Ruiz Jr, who is given odds of +175 to win. The immediate bit of information you can absorb from this matchup is that Usyk is the favorite since he has shorter odds of winning than Ruiz Jr, whose +175 is a bigger number than Usyk's. 

This logic is clear when you place your bet. Let's say you put $100 on Ruiz Jr to win. If he does, your reward will be $175, based on the odds. On the flip side, if you want to win $100 on Usyk, you'd have to place a wager of $150 since Usyk is the favorite and a lower risk option than the underdog in this example. Essentially, you get a lot of information from just looking at the boxing odds, primarily how much you would make on placing $100 on the underdog and how much you would need to bet to win $100 on the favorite.  

Decimal boxing odds

Decimal odds offer the most straightforward solution if you want to calculate how much your payout would be if you go on to win a bet. Let's take the same example as earlier: Usyk taking on Ruiz Jr. Their respective boxing odds of -150 and +175 would be presented as 1.67 and 2.75 in the decimal odds format

Unlike the American odds format, you do not need to calculate your payout based on how short or long the odds are. All you have to do in this format is multiply your staked amount by the odds.

So, while you would gauge that you'd have to bet $150 to win $100 on Usyk in the American format, here, you can do a straight pick of the amount you will wager and multiply it with the odds. If you placed $100 on Usyk, your payout would be $100 x 1.67 = $167 if he went on to win. That makes for a total profit of $67. Similarly, a successful $100 bet on Ruiz Jr would pay out $100 x 2.75 = $275, or a total profit of $175, which matches what the American odds were saying.

Decimal odds are never below 1.00; the lower they are, the lower your payout. 

Fractional odds

These are possibly the most widely used ones historically but involve a learning curve and some level of mathematics to be fully useful to you. As the name suggests, these odds are presented as fractions. The thumb rule to follow when using fractional odds is that the numerator represents the profit, and the denominator represents the staked amount. 

Usyk's boxing odds in our example would be presented as 0.67/1, and Ruiz Jr's odds would be 1.75/1. Based on the thumb rule, you can gather that you would win $0.67 on every dollar you bet successfully on Usyk and $1.75 on every dollar you bet on Ruiz Jr. Multiply both the numerator and the denominator by your stake amount, and you'll arrive at the final figures of your payout. 

Types of Bets in Boxing

 It might take a bit of learning to really get deep into betting on boxing, but with an understanding of the odds formats and this primer on the types of bets you can place, you'll be on your way soon enough.

To win bets or moneyline

We did mention that betting on boxing is unlike most other sports, but the moneyline bet or a to-win bet is a constant across the board. You can gather from the name that this bet is placed on whom you think will win a bout, but we must mention that there is a draw option as well, which usually has the longest odds. This makes the market similar to the three-way moneyline bets that you might see in hockey or soccer. In every other regard, they're the same.

Let's say Tyson Fury is given -300 odds of beating Luis Ortiz, who is given +400 odds of causing an upset. If you bet $100 on Luis Ortiz and he ends up beating Fury, you will win a reward of $400 and a total payout of $500, including your stake. If you place $300 on Fury and he goes on to win, you get $100 plus your stake back - a lower reward because you bet on the heavy favorite. 

Round betting

The round betting market is where you pick the round in which your preferred boxer will win. From the example above, you can see that the payout on Tyson Fury is low because he is the obvious choice according to the sportsbooks. If you were to add an element of risk to the choice of picking Fury as the winner, you could go to the round betting market to put money on the exact round of the bout in which you think he'd win.

Given how difficult it is to predict the exact round someone might win in, the odds are naturally longer than the to-win bets and offer higher rewards.

Over/under round betting

This is an extension of the round betting market and a safer variation of it in some regard. Here, the sportsbook will offer you the chance to bet on whether a bout will go on beyond a certain predetermined number of rounds or not.

You might see a line like over/under 6.5 rounds. In this case, your job will be to bet on whether a bout will finish before (under 6.5) or after (over 6.5) the sixth round.

Group round betting

In this market, you'll be betting on a range of numbers representing the rounds of a bout in which you think a contest will end. Think Tyson Fury will have the bout wrapped up by the third round? Then you can bet on the 1-4 group for this occurrence

Be warned, though, that this market can get tricky because of how simple it seems to pick a range; boxing matches rarely play out the way you expect when picking the rounds in which they end.

Method of victory

This market is where boxing odds can really get exciting. While the mainstream depiction of boxing has played to our intuitions and shown us that a boxing match ends when one fighter knocks the other one out, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of professional boxing.

There are several methods by which a boxer can win. A knockout is one of them, but not the only. Familiarize yourself with the various ways a boxer can win, such as a technical knockout (TKO), a technical decision or unanimous decision (UD), a split decision, a points decision, and a disqualification (DQ) are all different methods of winning a bout. 

If you're well-versed with the technical aspects of boxing and have a fair idea about the strengths of one boxer and the weakness of another, this market could greatly work in your favor. Here's how the boxing odds would typically appear:

Method of victory

Odds

Oleksandr Usyk by KO, TKO 

+100

Oleksandr Usyk by decision or technical decision

+400

Andy Ruiz Jr by KO, TKO 

+450

Andy Ruiz Jr by decision or technical decision

+900

Draw or technical draw

+2500

You can pick the method of victory and place a wager accordingly, and your bet only wins if that specific method of victory was chosen.

If you placed a $100 wager above on Usyk winning by KO/TKO, and he ended up winning via technical decision, you would lose your stake. You'd walk away with $400 profit if it were the other way round and you had placed $100 on Usyk winning by decision or technical decision. There is a much more distilled version of this market as well, known simply as the Knock Down Bet, where you only bet on whether someone will win the match by knocking down their opponent.

Go the distance bet

Fights are timed, in principle, by the number of scheduled rounds that are determined beforehand. With a go the distance bet, you'll be betting on whether the fight will make it to the end of all scheduled rounds without there being a result one way or the other

A fight that goes the distance is sent to the judges' scorecard, so another lens with which you can view this market is whether or not the fight ends by any method that doesn't come down to points. 

This bet can come in handy if you know your fighters. A fight between two quick movers who have solid defensive skills is more likely to go the distance than a fight involving one or two heavy-hitters. So, give this type of bet some thought and do your research before placing your wager.