Topic: Does MMA Have A Gambling Problem? (Read 263 times)

Rigging matches is something that will always happen, what it needs to be done is to have very strong punishments for those that do it so there is a strong disincentive to do it, and if someone is found doing something like this they are applied those rules regardless of who they are, and while this is not the best possible outcome as I think all of us would like the world of sports to not have any kind of manipulation, it is the best solution we can come up with.

wherever there is money and the possibility of stealing it will create the possibility of having a scam or someone will try to steal it. it's the nature of the humans.
especially on minor matches it is very probable that there will be rigged match attempts. i
n the end we have seen these happenings in any sport and more or less at any level.
I don't think MMA is excluded from this kind of issues

Dana White is on top of what's happening in the UFC and he will not let game-fixing happen in the sports where he manages but we don't know about the other MMA promotional, UFC is enjoying great popularity because the fans are seeing fighters giving all their best, every fighter in the UFC wants to become champion and win every fight, there could be some fixing but I doubt it's on main events and if there are, the fans and the organizers can easily spot it, and that's the end careers of those involved.

Not only the MMA, most of the sports game involved in the gambling now. But it was not reflected and find because only boxing made the individual make the game win or loss. But in cricket the person who had involved in gambling will not decide the full game. He can play their game favour to gambling. The remaining will make their changes on the game and gambling will not works out in such game. This phenomenon was same to the multi player matches like hockey, basketball and volleyball. MMA should concentrate on the people who had involved in the gambling and eliminate them from sports.

MMA implement the rule, if the rule is followed, I do not think that MMA will have a gambling problem, unless their officials, fighters and referees are involved in illegal activities.  But as far as I can see, several MMA matches look like a match-fixing bout.  There are also videon on youtube that shows unreasonable knockdown when a fighter got knockdown without even getting hit hard or getting hit.  If this kind of things doesn't stop then it is likely possible that MMA will have a gambling problem.


At least the player is not recorded betting, I agree the rule about MMA and its family isn't allowed to bet is full of holes and the one you stated is a good reason.  But of course the MMA, if this kind of thing is noticed, will have their investigation team to look deeper on the situation and players involved might get sanctioned.  Just like in this articles[1][2][3], this show that MMA is keen to implement their rule so no matter how hard to trace fighters that bet on the UFC fights, they will have it investigated once they got some information.


Not only in boxing but all other sports.  There are lots of cases like this where players bet and do match-fixing.[4]

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[1] https://www.bjpenn.com/mma-news/tae-hyun-bang/ufc-fighter-charged-fight-fixing-match/
[2] https://www.si.com/mma/2022/11/07/ufc-fight-under-investigation-suspicious-betting-patterns
[3] https://www.espn.ph/mma/story/_/id/35019216/ufc-confidential-precarious-state-betting-mma-fighters-coaches
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_match-fixing_incidents

Exactly my thoughts. No one can ever know if a fight is about to get rigged specially on higher tier matches. They can just spread their bets on multiple bookies and let the fighter do their thing inside the ring. No one will ever know, and they can't just assume that fighter A intentionally lost the fight because someone on one bookie bet big on him to win. It could be anyone else for all they know.


They are guaranteed to get hurt pretty badly every time they step on the ring, so why not get something from getting hurt more than the paycheck the fighting organization give you anyway? 

this is an unsolvable problem, in online casinos one can bet without having to do KYC or even one could use someone to bet for him, it's a business where people with a lot of money can get much richer, just that they agree with the fighter for him to lose on purpose and they bet on the opponent and at the end of the fight they will have high profits, even if a fighter has a lot of determination and is very honest if he does not have a lot of money then he can give in to the pressure and enter this type scam, there's nothing you can do to stop that kind of thing


It's hard to completely eliminate fraud when fighters keep complaining about money, a fighter can negotiate with mafia guys so he loses on purpose and the mafia guys bet on the opponent and both the fighter and the mafia guys win a lot of money, and the fighter can even make an effort in the first rounds so that it is not discovered that he is pretending and then he can start to make an effort to win the fight, with this scheme he would earn much more money, because at the end of the day many fighters are fighting for the money, that reminds me that a few days ago I saw an interview with an American boxer who was going to fight a Japanese guy, (I don't remember the name of that fighter) but that American fighter said many things but I remember one of them, when he said: " who is this guy? how much money does he have? i have a lot of money... " even in the presentations the fighters show money... most fight for the money

The commentator is right in saying that MMA is a very young sport only more than 30 years and it needs to protect itself from rigging for it to become fully adopted and become as popular as boxing, let's admit it many MMA fighters are not satisfied on the pay and they might resort to rigging but since there is now government interference like the Nevada Athletic Commission its unlikely that we will have rigging that is obvious as the government and the fans are watching.
 The MMA community does not want rigging and deception and all the MMA organizers will see to it that it will not happen.

"Manipulated" or 'Fixed-fighting' huh? It is not evident to most of the sports? As long as money is involved, everything is possible. There were matches wherein the results were proven to be manipulated or the outcome is planned between the two players. There's also this idea of 'mafia intervention' right? I doubt. That's just how powerful money. If 'huge' people will be interested and will be that thrilled to win, they could really pay the players to 'move'.

OP's post is a bit confusing. Is it the existence of gambling in MMA, you are trying to ask or mma players to gamble? if it is the first one, then that existed for decades already in different forms. While for the second instance, players would be able to gamble if they'd make it right. They may use people to bet for them as easy as that. Maybe not in pro boxing given that their profession is already compensating, but with small tournaments, such thing is really happening.

I don't think that will be a problem, also in these kinds of sports, in my opinion, gambling is only normal for people who have a lot of money and like to gamble in these kinds of matches.

Apart from that, as far as I know, not all fighters are involved in gambling while they are fighting their opponent. Sometimes maybe theirs is just a fight and they want to win, now with other gamblers who are betting on who will win, I think these fighters are out.

This is what I see in other movies, which I think also happens in real life.

I do not really like to bet on MMA fights, because there are too many things that can be rigged. A fighter might throw the match to boost the chances for a re-match or the referee might make dodgy "technical" calls.... or the fight can go to points, when there are not a knockout ...so that can also be rigged.  

https://mmafitnessclub.weebly.com/blog/9-ways-fights-are-fixed-in-professional-mma

Also, one lucky punch or kick might change the direction that a fight might take.... so a fighter with less skills might just get that lucky punch or kick and win the fight.

...but that is just me.  

This is not just on MMA, live boxing on PPV does have some betting advertising and promotion of betting odds sponsored. This is not new anymore in sports even soccer matches have these ads. It does encourage viewers to gamble but this is why there are regulations.

MMA however is just new but the sport has already gotten the attention of different audiences and despite that UFC is established while there is already governing organization for combat sports, there are still bad actors manipulating fights.

The fact is that the regulations are correct. You're not going to openly allow them to bet against themselves and lose, making a lot of money for it. But when there is a law, there are always ways to get around it and whoever has no moral scruples and cares more about money can always do what you say. Most sportsmen will be honest and will not do that for money but whoever wants to can cheat by means of front men.

This is not easy to stop. MMA may put players under contract to not bet on any sports bookie but they could just ask someone else to bet for them on the losing side, all the player has to do is act like he will lose the fight.
Let's face it, this happened in boxing a long time ago, with the exception of the Mafia, even fighters do it. Either they are bought to lose the game and make more money or they put a big bet for their opponent winning.
But there's a risk factor here. In MMA, they could get hurt pretty badly or worse, die.

Of course, when just one entity is in control of a sports, most likely there will be favoritism and perhaps rigged when families betting on their fighter and win big. But we wouldn't know it unless someone spill the beans.

And as you have said, Dana favors some fighters over other and that's why we have seen fighters moving out and then Dana accepting some and then giving them a chance to fight for the belt. Perhaps he think that it will be good for his business in the long run that's why favoritism in UFC is predominant under Dana's leadership.

this code of conduct is just on papers. the above example by @Hydrogen about Holm's family winning 6 figures was on the news. Dana wouldn't know and even the bookies.

its why i do think there are rigged fights. Dana favors some rising stars he plans to develop. there are few examples matches in the video and indeed its suspicious when a huge amount is bet on 1st RD KO.

Fighters, teams, and their families are not allowed to bet on UFC bouts. But how would the UFC know? What if I'm the father of a UFC fighter and want to bet against my son because I know he will lose, so I made a crypto sports betting account and actually bet on his opponent. Will Dana White know about it? I don't think so. So this is probably just an agreement, but not something they can really implement. And I think this is just a condition in the UFC. Is this also implemented in M-1 or MFC?

The fight night broadcast is always loaded with ads from bookies and the commentators mentioning the betting odds is very luring to the audience and might just be enticing when nongamblers start asking what the odds mean. You could be contributing to thier interest if you explain the line movements and prop ads to them.

Somehow though I'm okay with Stake or Bitcoin sportsbetting platform flashing on UFC.

Even without this topic, I've known that there are always bad eggs in the system and people will always get a way to make extra profit regardless of the rules and most times, it is the lawmakers who are actually the lawbreakers.
Restricting players, team and even their families from gambling isn't enough for me because players who still want to gamble can still possibly do so through the back door, back door here I mean through their friends or even a total stranger, bet in their matches heavily and fight the match to their favour.

I'm not surprised because we've had similar cases of people manipulating the gambling sector even some casinos so same

I don't think they will have serious problems. There will be problems but probably not that serious that bettors would no longer consider risking their money on the sport. And if there are, they won't probably be about the sport itself. It could either be the organization or the fighter and his/her team themselves. If they want to bet on the opponent and intentionally give the fight, it would be their problem more than the sport's. The same goes if an MMA organization is fixing matches for the sake of bets. It would do them more harm.

I don't think that there is a perfect system in gambling, maybe there could be few fights that have been rigged but it is not being caught. And so I wouldn't completely say that MMA or UFC fights as 100% not part of the mafia. Perhaps the influence throughout the years are going down, nevertheless, who knows there could be fighters that can go and be influence and it's hard to judge or caught them base on the performance unless they admit it themselves. I guess the closest that we can get in fighters using performance enhancing drugs to have advantage to their opponents.

There were some fights that raises eyebrows in the past where you will really think it's fixed or the referee handled it like he'd put a bet on the fight.
One that I particularly think was Omalley vs Yan. And the fact that Dana holds the contract of these athletes makes him a mob king.

Regardless though, we bet because it's exciting to watch MMA fights.

Well as long as it's possible to get easy money out of it, people will do it. Ethics doesn't really matter to criminal underworld. However as they said in films, regulations have gone tighter and it's harder, while there are easier ways to make money for mobster wannabes then rigging matches, so i see this as a good path, because MOST people are against it, it's pretty easy to pass tougher regulations. Usually people complain about new rules. But then again those rules are protecting the gamblers and dignity of the whole sport.

If people want to see acting they will go to see well scripted professional wrestling.

That's how sports betting should be there should be no influence of any kind for the fighters to give their best and not allowing part of the team or relatives to bet is just right, the fans want to see all-out fights and they want to see fighters fighting to keep their records and status, I don't see why MMA will have a gambling problem, they are transparent if they see some rigging they will just take any fighters in vacation because this is one big promotion where they control everything.

It seems to me that MMA is far from exclusive in promoting gambling and it has infected almost every sport by this point. We see it all around the biggest football stadiums, so it doesn't feel right to define it purely as an MMA problem and at the end of the day it is likely contributing to the wages of the fighters. At least with MMA you tend to get an older audience, over 18's perhaps instead of football idols watched from the very earliest ages. It definitely ties in more fairly with the sport, but maybe the advertising is more garish and noticeable in this environment. Either way, it is only the regulators in certain countries who will be able to stamp this sort of thing out.

Wow, that's some real sh**t there, I believe they would say that's one of  the pecks or benefits of being a champion, but that's clearly a great way to rig matches, Sports is business for many, and any idea that would make them the money they want would easily get implemented, so i am absolutely not surprised.
By the way, allow me to use this medium to quickly congratulate you on making it to 5000 posts.

To be honest with you mate, I don't think we would ever around at a stage where rigged matches will be weeded out completely, like i said above, sports is business for most of this guys, and if rigging a match is how the money will be made, trust me, they will always find a way to do it no matter how regulators try to stop match rigging.
This is just my thought and opinion though.

Holly Holm's MMA team won 6 figures when Holly Holm defeated Ronda Rousey in 2015.


There are also many UFC fighters on social media who post bets.

I think the catch is UFC fighters must bet on themselves winning, they can't bet on their opponents and throw fights.

There was a criminal case many years ago where korean UFC fighter Tae Hyun Bang was involved in a fight fixing case where he was supposed to throw a fight versus Leo Kuntz.


Bookmakers and authorities can sometimes identify fixed fights through an unusually large amount of money being bet. Which was what happened in the Tae Hyun Bang vs Leo Kuntz fight fixing case.

Pride MMA promotion in japan was known for having ties to the yakuza. They introduced non obvious methods to rig fights. Such as the champion knowing ahead of time which opponent they would fight. While the challenger did not know they would be fighting the champion, until shortly before the fight took place.

Watched the video and it i really thought this would be ancient history, and it mostly is but i had trust in regulators that they could weed rigged matches out completely and it would only happen on some low level fights anymore. But who knows, maybe i was naive, because even if that gets harder and harder to cover up, we still have a doping problem that's apparently happening all the time as so many people get caught, so why would it be any different with rigged fights.

It would not surprise me if this has happened before at MMA, as even if it is forbidden by the code of conduct it is not as if people follow the rules all the time, probably one of the biggest scandals of this type was when Pete Ross received a lifetime ban from baseball in the year of 1989 because he was betting on baseball games involving the Cincinnati Reds, the team which he was coaching, he has appealed several times but since he basically confessed this was true it is likely the ban will never be lifted.

I think that ruling is for majority of the sports. I saw an esports player posted about avoiding to bet just to avoid issues that has been made into their community before when the popular '322' thing.

It's probably part of their code of conduct for being professional athletes and maybe it's up to how many degree of their relationship to that relative that's not allowed to bet.

But, we still don't know what happens exactly if there are insiders that's part to their immediate family and spreads it over their community of bettors.

I see no problem with the MMA gambling connections.

I believe that the problem is not really gambling in of itself, but rather the problematic people it attracts. For example, as you have already mentioned, there is a lot of crime and corruption within gambling, and some shady casino owners do not mind capitalizing on that, as long as they can get some extra profit. Its in human nature to be greedy and everyone has their own varying degrees of greed. Shady people do not shy away from using addiction and even creating addiction in people.

But again, these are all outside problems. Anyone with a rotten mind and heart will be rotten, even if they were selling medicine or apples. It does not matter. That does not cast a bad light on the MMA in my eyes.

We can’t say all the fighters involved in the gambling.When some players was lagging with some financial problem,they may get into gambling for their personal benefits.Most of the boxer will play their game and try to make an new history.They mostly like to become a player with huge reputation in boxing.In recent days gambling became a cancer to the boxing and many of the sports.

Some black money was get into this gambling sites by the mafia.Some crypto project itself scamming the investors and get their money into gambling of real sports game like boxing.By this they will try to double their money.

Does MMA Have A Gambling Problem?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK2zv1DjkAQ

in every broadcast of the fight, MMA experts the likes of Jon Anik and DC provides analysis of what happen and who they thought won the round while odds are also flashed sponsored by sportsbookie like Draftkings.  the video take a closer look at the relationship between gambling and combat sports to see what lies ahead for mixed martial arts while MMA sports becomes popular like boxing.

a lot of things said including the histoy how boxing and MMA started. i actually learn fighters, the team and even their family members are not allowed to bet on UFC bouts, i think was part of the code of conduct. because the general public now trust the system where there are no mafia or corruptions like rigged fights. will MMA have a gambling problem?