How to win money betting on Boxing

Boxing may be about two guys standing in the ring, but there’s a lot of different things to take into account if you would like to win 37, if it comes to betting on a fight. Jack Houghton explains…

Formats and Tournaments
With the virtual disappearance of top-flight competitions from terrestrial tv in the mid-1990s, boxing turned into a market betting sport, with most British bookmakers simply pricing up a restricted number of markets on high-profile events between the likes of Naseem Hamed, Joe Calzaghe and Lennox Lewis.

Nonetheless, in the past few years, with the continuing success of British boxers like Ricky Hatton, Amir Khan, David Haye, Carl Froch and Ricky Hatton; the wide availability of the best global pay-per-view bouts; and the success of championship formats like the Super Six and the Betfair Prizefighter series; boxing betting volumes have soared, and the would-be boxing punter has never had much opportunity and choice.

With that opportunity, however, comes risk. With so much on offer, it’s easy to bet on bouts where your knowledge and insight is lacking, which is why, more than ever, the well-informed, disciplined and informed boxing punter will enjoy a significant advantage in markets which are still frequently dominated by hype and hyperbole over a rational evaluation of boxing chance.

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Most Popular Markets
Match Odds
Round Betting
Method of Victory
Go the Distance?
Tournament Win Markets

Golden Rules
Search for the worth, not the winner
Much like long-term boxing profitability can frequently mean eschewing short-term gains. Backing fighters in 1.12 will probably indicate that you win a good deal of bets, but over a period of months, even if those 1.12-shots should have no more prices, you’ll discover you’ve lost money. It’s best to ignore the chances till you have decided on your head what those chances should be to avoid this scenario. The very best approach to do this is to think about proportions: what chance does each potential outcome have of occurring?

For example, when Amir Khan fought Carlos Molina in Los Angeles in an attempt to re-establish his floundering career, it might have been fair to state Khan should had an 80 percent chance of winning that struggle: he had a new coach that had expressly worked on his defensive abilities and consistency, had fought better competitions, was established at the weight class, and Molina, though unbeaten, had not shown himself particularly adept at stopping his rivals. Molina, in contrast, possibly had a probability of winning, although the draw had a 5 percent likelihood.

Converting these percentages is simple. Dividing one by 0.80 (80%) gives you odds on Khan winning of 1.25, dividing one by 0.15 gives you chances on Molina winning of 6.70, and dividing one by 0.05 gives you odds on the attraction of 20.0. Armed with the odds you feel the various outcomes ought to be, it is now time to look at the markets. In this scenario, Khan was a much shorter price – about 1.10 – that meant that the value-savvy punter could have put khan, backed Molinaleft or abandoned the industry alone. As it happened, Khan won the struggle with a disciplined performance, but choosing this strategy is far more likely to bring gains than simply financing the fighter you think will win in the possibilities available.

Do not overestimate form that is recent
Humans tend to overplay the significance of occasions. To borrow the example of economist Ha-Joon Chang, ask a lot people which invention is more important, the washing machine or the world wide web, and most will plump for the latter (Betfair punters particularly, no doubt), even though there’s a strong argument to say that the availability of inexpensive household appliances in Western societies meant that girls had the time to find paid job: that has had a far more significant impact on society than our ability to place bets on our smart-phones.