Boxing Betting Strategies

It’s not hard to bet on boxing. Boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world due to its simplicity, and it has only undergone small changes over the centuries. Whereas other sports are constantly tinkering with their rules, or making wholescale changes, boxing is extremely easy to grasp. Two fighters enter a ring and only one fighter can have their hand raised as the winner.

How to Bet on Boxing

There aren’t as many ways to bet on boxing as you will find with other sports. Due to its nature, you won’t find futures or a lot of props available. Instead, you are simply betting on the outcome of the fight.
The most prevalent way to bet on boxing is by wagering on the winner of the match. This is as easy as it sounds, as you are simply betting on which fighter will win the fight. If you want to add another factor, you can typically wager on whether a boxer will win by decision or knockout for major title fights.
It’s also possible to bet on how long a fight will last. There is an over/under for how many rounds each fight will take to determine a winner, and you will see it lower among knockout specialists or with presumably one-sided bouts.
Some sportsbooks will offer a combination of these two wagers for major fights. For example, you might be able to wager on Canelo Alvarez to beat his opponent by knockout in the fifth round. Calling your shot in that way will pay off much more than simply betting Canelo to win.

Betting Boxing Strategies

While it is easy to bet on boxing, it’s not like the sweet science is easy to beat in terms of betting. There is typically higher juice in boxing than you will find in the Big Four North American sports. You will only see one or two cards a week too, limiting the opportunities for boxing betting.
One of the most common ways to wager on boxing is to include big favorites in parlays, especially during football season. A lot of bettors that don’t know heads or tails about the sport will throw a well-known fighter into a parlay in order to get a little extra back on all of their winners.
It’s great when these favorites win as you make a little extra money on each wager. There are times where you can tell that the favorite is extremely undervalued too. The biggest example of that in recent memory was when Floyd Mayweather Jr. came out of retirement to take on UFC standout Conor McGregor in 2017.
Oddsmakers initially listed Mayweather north of -1000 in the fight, but MMA fans flocked to the chance to bet on McGregor as a substantial underdog. That led to the odds on Mayweather dropping substantially in the lead-up to the event, giving boxing fans the betting opportunity of a lifetime. Many boxing fans threw caution to the wind and backed Mayweather for a substantial amount.
Mayweather was around -400 by the time the opening bell rung, and it was clear from the outset that he was a much better boxer than McGregor. Although Mayweather was 40 years old, he completely controlled the action and made everyone who bet on McGregor look foolish with his dominance. Over $1 billion was wagered on the event, and some boxing fans were able to really clean up.
There are times when bettors think its wise to take an underdog though. We have seen some pretty sizable underdogs in boxing over the years, and some massive upsets have paid off in a big way.
The biggest upset in modern boxing history came in 1990 when Buster Douglas stunned Mike Tyson in Tokyo as a 42-1 underdog. Tyson was seen as an unbeatable heavyweight as the undisputed champion in the weight class, but he was stopped in the 10th round to lose the title.
We saw another improbable champion emerge on June 1, 2019 when undisputed heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua was knocked out in the seventh round by unheralded challenger Andy Ruiz Jr. Ruiz was a 25-1 underdog the day of the fight, and his victory set off wild celebrations in California and Mexico.