Guide to the Top MMA and UFC Betting Sites

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) grips the combat sports world like no other promotion on earth. This MMA competition is also extremely popular among bettors. If you have any interest in betting on the UFC then you’re in the right place. Not only do we showcase the best UFC betting sites, but we also talk you through everything you need to know about online UFC betting.

From pulsating finishes to technical masterclasses, the UFC showcases the crème de la crème of the world’s striking and grappling superstars.

These modern-day gladiatorial battles – fought under the bright lights of the world’s most impressive stadia – have helped make MMA one of the most exciting sports in the world to bet on.

Headquartered in the world’s favorite gambling city, Las Vegas, the connection between betting and the UFC is a firmly established one. Fight fans and UFC betting enthusiasts wager millions on any of the hundreds of bouts every year.

For a myriad of reasons, betting on fights in MMA’s premier promotion offers a level of excitement and profitability unseen in any other sport in modern times.

To make the most of the real money betting opportunities this sport presents, though, it’s vital that you use the right sportsbooks and bookmakers. That’s why we’ve put together our list of the best UFC betting sites. These are unquestionably the sites you should be joining to bet on the UFC online.

It is absolutely crucial to ensure that you choose the best UFC betting sites when wagering on the fights.

Here at Gamblingsites.com, we understand just how important it is to provide our readers with the right information. If you want to wager on UFC fights for real money, you need to make sure that you use a safe and secure site with all the ideal features for MMA betting.

Here are the key areas we look at when ranking the best UFC betting sites online.

Naturally, we only recommend a UFC betting site if it has a wide variety of UFC betting options.

There are lots of average UFC sportsbooks that allow you to wager solely on the moneyline, meaning you can only bet on the winner of a fight. However, the best UFC betting sites enable you to wager on a host of different markets and lines.

Let’s take a look at some of the top betting options on our recommended sites.

• Method of Victory – You bet on how a fighter wins. For example, by KO/TKO or submission.
• Round Betting – You back a fighter to seal victory in a specific round.
• Props and Specials – Keep an eye out for props, such as “first fighter to be taken down.”

Ultimately, there are lots of different ways to bet on UFC. If you’re serious about making a profit while doing so, we recommend exploring the vast range of betting options on our favored sites.

Just like a referee will remind both fighters to keep themselves protected at all times, anyone placing real money bets online should put safety first.

Getting caught cold by a UFC betting site that is neither safe nor secure can put the lights out on your fun faster than a head kick you never saw coming.

Better still, the top UFC sportsbooks use SSL encryption software to safeguard your transactions and protect your personal information. What more could you ask for!?

When it comes to wagering on UFC fights, it pays to have a variety of banking methods to choose from. Lucky for you, our recommended MMA sportsbooks boast tons of secure options.

Whether you like using debit and credit cards, or you prefer using e-wallets and cryptocurrency, the best UFC betting sites have got you covered. They also process transactions quickly, which is especially useful for those who enjoy live UFC betting.

Let us set the scene.

You’re just about to place an in-play bet on a UFC fight. You’ve prepared your wager and entered your stake. Then, suddenly, an error occurs.

At the end of the day, excellent customer support is only going to enhance your UFC betting experience and increase your chances of winning money on the fights.

For more information on how we rank gambling sites, feel free to follow the link below.

If you are new to betting on the UFC and do not have a background in watching MMA bouts, you might be a little confused as to the difference between the UFC and MMA.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is a promotion in the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA).

The UFC is the company that promotes fights under its own banner, with fighters that they sign to compete under the promotion.

Those fighters are known as mixed martial artists, as they compete in a sport where the rules allow for the use of various strikes, takedowns, holds, and submissions that would have historically derived from sports like boxing, Muay Thai, wrestling, and BJJ.

Of course, the UFC is not alone in the world of mixed martial arts and certainly not the only promotion for MMA betting.

While the company controls the largest and best-known MMA organization on the planet, they do compete with other promotions in the United States and across the globe.

MMA is a highly volatile sport. Even with a fight perfectly handicapped, enormous upsets do tend to happen, and for this reason, no system will help you predict the correct outcome 100% of the time.

But by paying attention to the most critical factors and learning which factors to ignore, you may significantly improve your odds when betting on this hugely profitable sport.

For most MMA organizations, the weigh-ins for the fight take place the day before the bout. The promotion you will likely be betting on the most is the Ultimate Fighting Championships, or UFC, which currently weighs its competitors on the morning of the day before the event.

This is not enough time for fighters with too large a weight cut to properly rehydrate, and so watching the weigh-ins gives us great insight into how an athlete will perform the next night.

Weight cutting is common in MMA, as well as in amateur wrestling and boxing, although boxers utilize the practice less extreme than those in the other two sports. Essentially, athletes will use hot baths, dry saunas, and other means to excessively sweat out their body weight. This leaves the competitor extremely dehydrated in order to weigh in at their agreed-upon weight.

Post-weigh-in, the fighter does all they can to replenish their fluids, giving them a size and strength advantage on the night of the fight. However, the use of IVs to rehydrate has recently been banned, making the task of regaining ideal hydration levels more difficult. Furthermore, extreme dehydration lessens the cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, causing the brain to bounce around the skull more and making a fighter more susceptible to a knock-out.

You will typically hear about a fighter’s weight cut going poorly before the weigh-ins. The MMA news media will begin mentioning last-minute efforts to lose the last few pounds before they hit the official scale. But nothing will tell you the story as much as when they walk onto the weigh-in stage.

It is immediately evident if a fighter struggled through a problematic cut when you see their face. It will look entirely drawn out, sometimes with dark rings under the athlete’s eyes. Sometimes they even require help walking the stairs onto the stage. If you see a fighter moving sluggishly, needing assistance to stand up, and with a distant, blank look in their eye, you can bet they struggled to cut the weight.

Occasionally the fighter will even miss weight but will knock off the necessary pounds during the allotted extra time. These are great fighters to identify and bet against. Not only does the missed weight tell you that they weren’t adequately prepared, but they also now have less time to rehydrate.

Additionally, there is the psychological impact of already failing at one aspect of the competition.

Competitors that are forced to spend more of their time getting in shape and cutting last-minute pounds have less time to prepare tactically for their opponents. For that reason, fighters that tend to keep their weight consistent with their fighting weight between bouts typically experience better performances and longer careers.

Remember, a dehydrated fighter is more likely to gas early and is more prone to being knocked out. So make sure to focus on how well each opponent looks when they weigh in, and also keep aware of how their dieting and conditioning are going in camp. These can be immense identifiers of both performances and how the “over/under number of rounds” bets will play out.

These days, most of the premier mixed martial arts promotions use a cage of some kind, although that’s not always the case. For example, Rizin in Japan still uses the ring, as do many of the amateur and more regional-level events.

It’s important to know which environment a match will be taking place in because they each benefit from different fighting styles and have a significant influence on the outcome.

A ring has four 90-degree angle corners, while an octagon has eight 135-degree corners, and some of the rounded cages have none. Another difference when fighting in a ring is the ropes that are present, rather than a chain-linked fence wall.

Due to the two reasons above, rings tend to benefit stand-up or striking-based fighters more. It is much easier to walk an opponent down, trapping them in the corner when said corner is 90 degrees, which gives the stand-up competitor the opportunity to trap their opponent in front of them and press their advantage on the feet.

The lack of a wall makes the striker more challenging to take down by removing the ability to string together multiple takedown attempts while pressing the stand-up fighter against the wall. The cage environment tends to benefit the wrestlers and submission grappling fighters more. Not only are the corners wider, allowing the grappler to prevent being cornered, but the walls hugely assist with takedowns.

Rarely does one see a clean double-leg takedown in the middle of the cage these days. Instead, fighters shoot for the double, but when the opponent sprawls, the wrestler continues pushing until the opponent’s back is against the fence. Then the ground specialist can press them against the surface while landing short punches, or regroup for another takedown now that the opponent doesn’t have the space to adequately sprawl and stuff the takedown.

Again, if you are betting UFC, the fights will always take place in the Octagon, but even then there is still research to be done.

One factor that few mixed martial arts handicappers consider is the size of the cage or ring that the fight will be taking place in.

The larger and more commonly used cage has 746 square feet of fighting surface, while the other is only 518 square feet.

The smaller cage provides less space for movement-based fighters and historically leads to more finishes. Once you determine which environment the fighters will be facing off in, there are a few likelihoods you can deduce about how things will play out.

First, there are going to be more exchanges between combatants. More exchanges mean a higher probability that the fight will end early, so this is helpful information when betting on the number of rounds or whether a match will end in a decision.

Next, it also increases the possibility of upsets for certain types of fighters.

The more massive cage is the domain of choice for the rangy, movement-based cardio machines that like staying in motion and waiting for the perfect opportunity for the ideal attack. Fighters like Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, Lyoto Machida, or Alistair Overeem thrive in this space. The bigger the fighting surface, the more likely fights end in a decision as well.

There’s a betting strategy in college football where bettors will look for 20-30 point favorites and bet thousands of dollars on the moneyline for those teams to win straight up. The individual payouts are abysmal, but the teams win over 97% of the time, so over the course of a season, someone with a large bankroll can make a 12.5% profit, which is competitive with an investment account.

This will entirely not work in the world of mixed martial arts. With every limb in play and an unlimited amount of techniques and possibilities throughout multiple facets of fighting, upsets occur regularly.

You are much better off long-term betting sensible underdogs in the +250 – 500 range, which win commonly enough to collect some decent profits. If you insist on betting heavy favorites, you are best off pairing them into parlay bets.

Age is one of the most important factors to consider when attempting to predict a contest’s outcome. The pay in MMA pales in comparison to the paychecks athletes receive at the highest level of other sports, and for this reason, many athletes continue taking fights well past their prime.

While this is an unfortunate situation for the participants, it does provide more value for bettors to seek out.

The damage fighters sustain during their career accumulates, and chins that were once unbreakable become the most prominent liability just a few years later. Look at Chuck Liddell—for years, he was able to march forward, sustaining damage in order to deal on his own. It worked remarkably well for years, until it didn’t, at which point he began to rack up knock-out losses.

But this information isn’t only valuable when an older fighter is facing someone younger. Many times, aging fighters will be paired with opponents at a similar stage in their careers. In such a case, age may not help a gambler choose a winner, but it may certainly help them bet the under for the number of rounds, or bet against a decision happening.

Once you’ve researched all of the details regarding what kind of environment the fight will be in, how the weight cutting went, and the size of the fighting surface, it’s time to look at each competitor’s approach to fighting.

Three of the most vital aspects of fighting to consider are the pace that each athlete likes to fight at, the reach that they are working with, and their stance.

First, look at each fighter’s stance.

(In combat sports, “south-paw” means left-handed.) South-paw combatants tend to have an advantage when competing against right-handed, or orthodox, fighters.

This is due to familiarity; as athletes develop their skills early on, most of the sparring and training they do will be against other orthodox fighters. Left-handed opponents present different angles and tendencies, and while lefties come up facing plenty of right-handed competition, the reverse is rarely true.

Pace is another important metric, and something you will want to pair in consideration with the cage size. A higher-paced competitor will look to utilize their cardiovascular advantage by pressuring their opponent into numerous exchanges in an effort to tire them out and wear them down.

They will look to accumulate damage on their adversary over time, finishing them late in the fight or capturing a decision.

These competitors wait for the opponent to come to them, creating an opening during their attack for the counter-puncher to capitalize on. Things like altitude, cage size, and age will factor into which fighter will be able to fight at their pace.

Reach will also play an essential role in most fights, although this depends on how capable each individual is at utilizing it.

Jon Jones built a Hall of Fame (if not for the out-of-the-ring issues) career on expertly using his length and range to make himself nearly impossible to hit, while always being able to touch his opponents. Stefan Struve, on the other hand, has struggled to keep fighters at a distance, despite being seven feet tall.

When a fighter is adept at using their reach, it can become an incredible advantage. The ability to hit without being hit is a core tenant of winning any fight, after all.

In MMA, we see those few special fighters on the rise, showing promise early in their careers. We see them reach the tops of their divisions and watch them expertly clean out divisions. They look unbeatable, and dominate in their prime.

We’re talking about the Jose Aldos, the Anderson Silvas, and the Georges St-Pierres of the world.

It can be challenging to know when a legendary fighter no longer has that “it” factor that carried them for so many years. Memories of past triumphs and remarkable performances stay in a fan’s mind and can make a bout tough to handicap without bias.

The same can be true when betting on one’s favorite fighters. It is important to remember not to bet on what you want to happen; you should bet on the most probable outcome being offered at the most valuable odds.

When judging whether a legendary combatant still has it, there are a few metrics worth researching.

As we have pointed out, accumulated damage plays a huge role in this sport.

Once the chin has been broken, the vast majority of fighters do not get it back. They are always more susceptible to flash knock-outs.

Also, look at their most recent three or four fights.

If you look at the tail end of GSP’s prime, you’ll notice that half of the damage he received in his entire career happened in the last handful of fights.

Once this begins occurring, you must start looking into impending upsets, because they are coming soon. Don’t let their highlights taint your vision.

Mixed martial artists have unique tendencies and approaches to their fights, even beyond just pace, reach, and dominant hand. There are competitors like T.J. Dillashaw and Dominick Cruz that enjoy bouncing in and out of range and setting up attacks from strange angles while staying elusive on defense.

Meanwhile, the Diaz brothers will walk their opponents down, utilizing a boxing stance and throwing a high volume of punches without much attention to blocking leg kicks or throwing their own.

Others still will fight out of a karate stance, throwing probing sidekicks and dangerous roundhouses while leaping in and out of range. It’s not enough to know whether a fighter is a “ground guy” or “striker” anymore.

There are habits within those descriptions that are important. Let’s look at a recent title fight for an example.

Demian Maia is the best jiu-jitsu practitioner fighting in the UFC. He is a decorated black belt, and when a fight enters his domain, he is nearly impossible to beat. If he is able to take an opponent’s back, the battle is all but over.

However, his skill set requires the match getting to the ground to be successful. He has worked on his boxing over the years, and while he has improved tremendously, it will never be as potent a weapon as his grappling.

Tyron Woodley is the current Welterweight champion. He is a powerful wrestler that also possesses knockout power in his hands. Few fighters possess his one-punch knockout power, and his wrestling base affords him the ability to dictate where most fights will take place. This came into play against Maia.

Wrestlers are more often than not superior to jiu-jitsu practitioners when it comes to takedowns and takedown defense. When training jiu-jitsu, more emphasis is placed on securing submission holds and progressing positions while on the ground, but wrestlers get more experience shooting for takedowns and sprawling to stop them.

Woodley, possessing the better boxing of the two fighters, was able to keep their championship bout standing, robbing Maia of the opportunity to apply his craft. Instead, it became a boxing match, which Woodley soundly won.

The following mixed martial arts promotions are currently in operation around the world. While only Bellator MMA competes with the Ultimate Fighting Championship domestically and directly, each of these organizations plays an essential role in the overall landscape.

Domestically, there have been only two organizations with the talent and stability to challenge the UFC, and they both have one thing in common—Scott Coker.

Coker founded Strikeforce in 1985, initially to present kickboxing matches, but in 2006, the organization began promoting mixed martial arts as well. Between 2006 and 2011, the taekwondo black belt amassed a significantly talented roster, many of whom went on to successful championship runs in the UFC.

In 2011, the giant media conglomerate Viacom purchased a controlling stake in Bellator, looking to fill the hole the UFC left in SpikeTV’s programming when it signed a TV deal with Fox. In 2014, the new owners decided to oust then-President Bjorn Rebney, handing the reins to the proven talents of Scott Coker.

Recently, Coker’s company has been signing meaningful talent away from the industry giant, appealing to fighters disgruntled by the UFC’s controlling nature and unpopular sponsorship deals.

In December 2014, the UFC announced a partnership deal with Reebok for $70 million over five years. This agreement eliminated a significant chunk of the fighters’ income by taking away their right to find sponsors for their fight kit, making them wear Reebok exclusively instead.

In return, they receive much lower sponsorship checks, all determined by seniority in the company.

Many fighters lost significant streams of revenue due to the changes. To make matters worse, competitors have often been punished for speaking out, either by being given unfavorable fights or by being disqualified from winning Performance of the Night bonuses.

This has created an opportunity for Bellator to steal away talent, and Coker has capitalized.

Thus far, the Viacom-backed promotion has lured Rory MacDonald, Gegard Mousasi, Benson Henderson, Rampage Jackson, and Roy Nelson away from the flagship organization. These are all either talented or famous fighters, which lends credibility to fight cards.

The promotion still has work to do if they are honestly going to compete with the UFC as equals, but the current climate and their deep pockets make them as credible a threat as ever.

ONE Championship is a Singapore-based mixed martial arts organization that was established in 2011. While awareness for the promotion in the United States is low, ONE is the largest MMA organization in Asia, with a broadcasting reach of over one billion homes across 128 countries.

The Asian powerhouse promotion signed the largest MMA television deal in the continent’s history when it penned a ten-year contract with ESPN Star Sports, which is now Fox Sports Asia. The deal will run through the year 2022.

Perhaps the most impressive contribution that ONE has brought to the world of MMA is its improved weigh-in procedures. Following the weight-cutting-related death of one of their prospects, the promotion wanted to ensure its competitors remain at a healthy level of hydration and compete near their walking-around-weight.

Between bouts, fighter weights are collected at random, with the results determining the combatant’s weight class. During fight week, the athletes’ weights are checked daily, along with their urine, to determine proper hydration levels.

While their standards have not been adopted by other promotions, they can be expected to once a significant enough tragedy forces their hand.

In 2012, ONE Championship made one of their most significant talent acquisitions to date, as it pertains to the United States, when US Olympic wrestler Ben Askren spurned the UFC and Dana White, choosing to sign with the Asian promotion instead.

Askren cited the poor pay and unfair negotiation tactics employed by White as reasons for his decision, making him one of the few top talents to go un-acquired by the stateside juggernaut. Furthermore, UFC legend Rich Franklin was brought on as the vice president, garnering more US-fan attention for ONE.

The six-year-old mixed martial arts promotion began  expansion into mainland China in 2014, scheduling ten events a year in the territory.

While the organization is focused on the incredibly lucrative Asian market, they do not present an immediate danger to the UFC’s market share, but they may offer considerable challenges in the future.

Their origin story traces back to Strikeforce, and their acquisition by the UFC.

Before Ronda Rousey, the Ultimate Fighting Championships did not have female competitors or women’s divisions.

Strikeforce, however, did have female competitors, including the likes of Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey, future stars of the UFC. When the acquisition was announced, many of the female combatants were anxious, believing Dana White’s public statement that the UFC would never promote women’s fights.

That’s where Shannon Knapp came in. Calls began pouring into the former IFL fighter liaison and UFC executive asking for representation and assistance in finding future fights.

Knapp, recognizing a vacuum in the marketplace began securing funding for a new MMA promotion and hired talented match-maker Janet Martin. Thus, Invicta was born, and female fighters had an organization with which to demonstrate their skills.

Soon after the Strikeforce purchase, Dana White changed his mind regarding women’s mixed martial arts. Ronda Rousey’s immense potential and star power was too much to ignore, and on her hype, the UFC women’s divisions were built.

Despite the newfound competition in the WMMA sector, Invicta continued to promote. In 2014, Knapp’s company reached an agreement with the UFC to air all Invicta events on UFC Fight Pass.

Currently, Invicta operates as a sort of feeder system for the women’s divisions in Dana’s promotion, with numerous big-name fighters starting there first, including Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino.

Jungle Fight was founded in 2003 by Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and famous MMA personality Wallid Ismail. The promotion hosts both mixed martial arts and kickboxing bouts.

While not a threat to the UFC’s popularity or market share in the United States, Jungle Fight is the most essential organization in South America, most notably in Brazil.

In fact, their inaugural event in 2003 saw Lyoto Machida, Gabriel Gonzaga, Fabricio Werdum, Stephan Bonnar, and Jacare Souza all competing on the card.

To this day, many Brazilian fighters spend their early years fighting for Jungle Fight, building up their experience and record before getting noticed and signed by the UFC.

Jungle Fight is available for viewing in the United States on ESPN 3 and ESPN Deportes. The South American promotion has previously worked in cooperation with the Japanese organization Rizin, providing some of their talents for Rizin’s New Year’s Eve show.

The Professional Fighters League was founded in 2012 and was previously named the World Series of Fighting. The organization is notable for its television broadcast deal with NBC Sports and the use of their ten-sided decagon cage.

The president of the PFL is Ray Sefo, a well-respected former kickboxer most known for his time in K-1.

Like Bellator, the Professional Fighters League has acquired some name talent by appealing to disgruntled UFC fighters. One of their more noteworthy signings was Jon Fitch, who is currently their Welterweight champion.

In 2017, the company was purchased by MMAX Investment Partners, which led to the rebranding of the promotion. The current plan is for the PFL to organize their events into “seasons,” culminating in an annual end-of-the-year tournament for the best fighters.

While the promotion currently acts as a proving ground for future UFC talent, it is yet to be seen if they may ever grow to become a direct competitor, or if they aspire to do so.

From the ashes of the now-defunct Pride FC rose Rizin Fighting Federation. In 2015, Rizin was founded by Nobuyuki Sakakibara, the former president of Pride. Like its predecessor, the promotion is based in Tokyo, Japan, and looks to cater to the Japanese audience.

Rizin has a long way to go if it is ever to impact the mixed martial arts landscape as significantly as Pride once did, but they certainly started with a bang.

They also signed a cooperative agreement with Bellator to share talent.

Unencumbered by the laws and regulations governing the sport in the United States, Rizin’s first event was the Rizin World Grand-Prix, an eight-man tournament with each entrant competing on day one, and the winners having to fight their second round match-up just two days later.

To make things more interesting, the two finalists competed for the Grand-Prix Championship mere hours after the semi-finals bout. The tournament was won by successful Bellator combatant Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal.

Recently, Rizin has attracted many former Pride FC stars to return to Japan. Wanderlei Silva, who spent the best years of his career in Pride as a dominant middleweight champion, returned in 2016, as did Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, a former top-three heavyweight and one of the most feared strikers in history.

It is yet to be seen if Rizin will ever grow to become what Pride FC once was. In order to do so, the organization will need to do more than sign familiar faces well past their prime.

They will need to find and develop new stars that can catch the attention of MMA fans all around the globe. Sakakibara appears to be trying, signing Kron Gracie, a jiu-jitsu prodigy with name recognition and super-star looks.

If they can continue to cultivate their roster with top talent, the more aggressive, rule-set, lenient PED policies and quirky match-ups are sure to attract many Pride fans back to Japanese mixed martial arts.

Our resident MMA experts provide previews of all major UFC events. They also offer lots of other information and advice. Below are some of the latest UFC and MMA posts they’ve written, or you can visit our blog to see more.