15 minute read. TL;DR at the end.
Highlights in bold for quick scim

First off, what I’ve learned.
It is hard to make money gambling on cage fighting. Crazy right!? What kind of sicko would think otherwise??

Well, I did. For extended periods of my adult life, I have been that sicko. It seemed so simple, all I had to do was take it serious and track my bets! I’d totally definitely be profitable…

And it’s not like this is my first year gambling, but if you’re not actually tracking your bets it can lead to a false sense of ability and success. Overweighting the genius wins, and discounting the totally not serious losses that you’d never make if you were tracking..

Well, as it turns out, actually tracking your bets and proving you can profitable is completely different.

Gambling is an absolute trip. It’s hard enough to pick winners, but you also have to deal with being an emotional idiot. You’ll start chasing, and overthinking. It is too easy to get in your own head! Because even when you are making a bet with a clear mind, it is hard to find an edge on the books and be consistently profitable.

So the first lesson has been humility. Without question. This game ain’t easy.

I tracked my bets for every UFC event in 2022 (except for Vegas 59 which ended up being a great event for chalky PRPs!! gawd).

Here are the results. Please note the average odds are weighted, meaning a 2u bet at +110 will have a greater impact than a .25u bet at +1000.

I spent the break compiling a more comprehensive set of data for my results.

Here are the numbers;

The takeaways ended up being fairly obvious (lower the odds, higher the hit rates. ML more profitable than props, etc). But I am a fan of data, so I am happy to add this to my tool kit going into the new year. I will continue to add and evolve the data as needed.

I should also note if it wasn’t obvious, these are all self tracked. I am not on betmma.tips. I use Excel to track my bets and I post a graphic of my bets from that Excel file before each event. I make a point to make no edits to that page once the event starts, but more importantly – I have no interest in the appearance of success, I am interested in true success as a capper. I am not selling my bets, I don’t even have ads on my website.

While this first year has been humbling, I am still confident I can figure this out. The first reason is that I am genuinely enjoying it! I love capping fights, worst case scenario I’d be happy to continue doing this as a hobby. However, this is gambling we’re talking about. There can be a fine line between addiction and dedication. One minute you’re “grinding” and “having fun” the next you’ve lost your shirt.

So another source of confidence comes from my years of betting MMA and still having my shirt. I feel confident in saying I will (hopefully) not develop a life crippling gambling addiction at this point. We should always be mindful of the risk, but I am more than happy to paper bet if I need – I did for a stretch of events this year. It’s not even really about the “money”, the focus is more so on my record and developing a profitable process.

Which brings me to what’s next; How my betting process has changed.

How my betting process has changed.
Trying to dial in my betting process has, without question, been the most costly lesson. Because I expected to lose making bad bets and picks; but I did not expect to lose galaxy braining how I bet.

When I started, I was making simple straight bets. Very few parlays. And small total unit sizes. After the first 8 events this year, I was up 24.38u with a 19.62% ROI. What happened after event 9? Well, the 9th event this year was the first UFC London, and it was the first event I built a progressive parlay!
Now, you may be guessing that my next takeaway will be that it was the parlays that got me into trouble..

While this is true, it is not the whole story.

I am a big believer in progressive parlays. IMO – PRPs are a great way to find +EV while also building in some asymmetry. (I’d guess mentioning +EV and parlays in the same sentence would make some people nauseous. But I believe taking high probability events that have reasonable EV, and combining them into one line can produce +EV).

However, my confidence in PRPs is by no means confirmed. There is very real risk on the other side of those favourable returns. Even with a conservative approach, you are putting up a lot of units! If your top line busts you are eating a substantial loss. A few rough events, and you can find yourself in a pretty nasty hole.

This is all still an experiment, and I can rationalize all day, but results level the bullshit. And on the year, I am down on PRPs. But – within the last 13 events I am positive. It is small, 6.22u and 3.57% ROI. But it is a large enough sample size that a reasonable takeaway can be that I have begun to make progress in finding an edge using PRPs. We’ll see.

With all that said, it was the increased focus on parlays and PRPs that got me in trouble this year. Without question.

I tried too hard to make PRPs my own. I had terrible unit allocation. If the top line hits, your PRP should be profitable. Every time.

But my bets for a long stretch in the middle of the year were just a mess. I was far too greedy, chasing what felt like cheap +EV building these Super Genius PRPs.

I ended up with too many units on low conviction plays. I would give back units from a topline win with prop bets. I was just doing way too much, while ultimately having zero focus/direction.

But ~13-14 events ago I started to narrow down a process. And the last 6 events I have been utilizing what I would call a clearly defined and structured process. Highest conviction picks go in the top line of the PRP, the only other bets on those fights will be small units on a juicy line, if at all. I’ll do simple ML bets on other picks, try and throw some darts on some juicy reads. I also use the “Prop PRP” to build in some low risk, high reward plays. Once again, this is very much still a work in progress. But feels like progress nonetheless

Having a dialed in structure helps you focus on what is important. Which brings me to the next topic,

How do you pick winners.
This seems like a good time to redirect you to my record..

With that said, I would like to share some general guidelines I’ve been developing. They’ll mostly be considered “soft” guidelines. Intangibles. Might even seem a little “woo-woo”. But it’s fitting, because even as someone who loves the numbers – gambling is feeling more and more like an art, and less like a quantitative science.

Trust your gut.
Gamblers know, when they know. Yea, know?

I was listening to a trader talk about his time at Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital, and how they leveraged behavioral psychology to help their traders understand themselves better. Their focus was on a well-known concept that first came from an experiment called the Iowa Gambling Task. IGT is a study that measured the stress of their subjects while they selected green and black cards from 4 decks on a computer. There was a financial incentive, and the goal was to pull more green than black. But what the subjects don’t know is 2 decks are good (more green) and 2 decks are bad (more black).

What the study shows – is that after about only 10 selections, the subjects will feel stress when they hover over the bad decks, but despite these negative emotions, the subjects “chase” their losses and pull from the bad decks more frequently! It is after approximately 50 selections the subjects begin to realize there are good and bad decks. Meaning – your intuition will know there is something wrong before your brain (you) is able to figure it out. And during this internal conflict that occurs while losing, it is human nature to let the emotional part of the brain take control, opposed to the analytical.

Or to make a long story short, trust your gut.

This is not some cheat code. In the experiment, you’re still going to pull black cards from the good deck. You’re not suddenly going to bat 100% because you’re super intune with your feelings. Plenty of bets that “feel good” will still lose. Especially if you’re betting primarily on cage fighting like I am.

But the goal should always be to maximize your odds of success. And you are more likely to be successful – in anything – if you understand yourself and your emotions. But especially with something that can be as emotional as gambling or trading!

Don’t bet on bad fighters.
Something that should be obvious but isn’t.

Awh geez, thanks tips. “Don’t bet on bad fighters.” WHO WOULD HAVE EVER THOUGHT.

This might be too trite and obvious to be insightful, but we all do it! Eye up a matchup and a line we like and convince ourselves “Bad Fighter” is worth putting our money on. Without enough consideration being put into who we are putting our money behind.

And this gets tricky. Because if you’re betting on UFC fights, it is easy to convince yourself Bad Fighter is actually Good Fighter! They’re in the UFC!! But, with that said there are some warning signs,

Are they,
– on a losing streak?
– (well) past their prime?
– experienced in fighting, and beating, UFC level competition?
– a good athlete? (The most dedicated and technical fighters usually have ceilings if they are not good athletes)
– well rounded?

Better yet – just ask yourself, do you know they are good? Are they trending up? Could you see them in the top 15? Are they reliable/disciplined people? Are they on a winning streak!?

The point is to look outside the stylistic matchup and also consider who you are putting your money on. Especially for the top line of a PRP.

I am sure I will venture outside of this guideline again soon, but my hope is that I am disciplined enough to limit my exposure.

FYI – I wrote this over the course of the last few months of the year, and the very next event after I wrote this…

smh

Do not assume someone will do something.
The best predictor of what someone will do in the future is what they’ve done in the past.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Far too many times I have deluded myself into believing some hypothetical scenario for how a fight will play out based mostly on assumptions. Assuming a fighter who has landed zero takedowns will be able to win a fight by wrestling. Assuming a fighter will last 3 rounds when they have not proven an ability to do so. Assuming a fighter who hasn’t won in X years can now find a way to win!

Another way to put this; build a picks PTV with skills and attributes they have proven recently to possess.

A few others
– Respect and recognize momentum. Fighters trending up can find new ceilings quick. And fighters trending down will find new lows even quicker.
– Fade chain wrestlers and ‘Madovs with great caution. They don’t go undefeated, I know. But, just… be careful…
– Make a point to consider each specific attribute; striking, grappling, physical attributes, etc. Treat it like a reminder/checklist to make sure there are no blind spots. Sometimes something obvious can fall through the cracks when you fall down the tape study rabbit hole.

Last thing I’ve learned – importance of discipline.
Discipline is an obvious requirement for a handicapper. Basically, everything I’ve written to this point can be summarized as “be more disciplined”.

But it also requires discipline to dedicate the correct amount of time to make educated picks! So, it is also about literal personal discipline. To get where I want to go, I need to be more disciplined.

I need to focus and plan better. There is too much wasted time. Eat and sleep can improve! I am sure that is the same for everyone, we could all improve ourselves and be better. But I would like to use my track record/this website as a form of accountability.

Because I really do enjoy this! Trying to become a good gambler, an actual good gambler, is something I want to dedicate some time to.

PS – What I plan to do with “The Degenerate Mark”
Last quick note. This was initially the co-subject of this post, but rambling about how and why I burned cash betting on cage fighting took up more words than anticipated.

The primary focus currently is on becoming an effective MMA handicapper. But I’d also like to write and/or create content, and I would like to venture outside of MMA! There are a few specific subjects I think would be fun to write about. But once again, this will require more discipline.

Posting my trades like I do my bets would be fun. But I am not ready for that. I think my first financial content will be my crudely worded takes on whatever.

But I am also a total UFO mark. So maybe I will get a little weird with it too…

Lets see what happens! Shoutout to whoever read up to this point 🙂

TL;DR
Gambling on cage fighting is hard.
The first year of tracking bets has been a humbling experience.
Structure, discipline, and your betting process is just as important as being able to pick winners, which is already difficult.
A large focus – at this point in time – is on PRPs (progressive parlays). I am of the opinion they offer good EV and asymmetry.
Learning how to trust my gut, and the fighter I am backing.
Really enjoying the process, while being aware of the risks involved.
Also, discipline. More, discipline.