How To Bet On Boxing Online: Boxing Betting Guide

Muhammad Ali. Jack Dempsey. Floyd Mayweather. Little Mac from Punch-Out!! One of those boxers is fictional but the rest are fierce competitors that boxing bettors look for when betting on this knockout sport. Or more accurately, because this is boxing and punches must land (bad pun alert!).

There are many sports betting options and each requires a different strategy. We’ll explain how to wager on boxing, break down the weight classes, and help you handicap your bets.

How Can I Bet On Boxing Online?

#1: Pick a Betting Site

Sportsbooks are the online betting sites you visit so that you can wager on boxing. All of Odds Shark’s boxing gambling sites are safe, secure, trustworthy and meet all of our criteria. There are boatloads of places to bet on boxing online. Weave through our boxing sites page, and select the sportsbook that suits your preferences.

See Odds Shark’s Best Boxing Sites

#2: Sign Up

Signing up is a cinch. Put in your name, email, deposit information, and birthdate. A confirmation email or link will be sent to you. Once the sign up process is completed, you’ll then be able to make your first boxing wager.

#3: Make a Deposit

First, you have to decide on a deposit method. The majority of online betting sites accept credit cards such as Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, e-wallets like PayPal, Neteller, Skrill, and debit. Many online sports betting sites will allow you to make deposits by taking cryptocurrency. More and more online gambling sites are also taking Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, and Ethereum.

#4: Place Bet

Pick the fight, your boxer, your bet type, enter in your dollar amount, and submit your boxing ticket.

Bam! Now you're ready to bet on boxing like Butterbean biting into a burger at his Mr. Bean's Barbeque Restaurant!

Moneyline: Who Will Win the Fight?

To make a moneyline bet, you would need to pick a Sportsbook straight up (SU). Boxing odds for this kind of bet would look something like this:

Apollo Creed -160

Rocky Balboa +130

For the purpose of this example, we’re using the characters played by Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers in the Rocky franchise because it is, in our humble opinion, the greatest collection of movies about boxing EVER.

Favorites are always represented with the minus sign (-). Underdogs are always shown with the plus sign (+). This is consistent across every sport from the NFL to the UFC. In this case, Creed is the fave and Rocky is the underdog.

Payouts

If you believe that Creed is going to win and you bet $100 on him, you’d get a payout of $162.50 – your original $100 is returned along with your winnings of $62.50. On the other hand, a winning bet on Rocky gives you a payout of $230 – you get your $100 back coupled with your winnings of $130. Dogs are a riskier bet which is why you make more money when they win. To see how much you’d win based on the odds and amount wagered, check out our Odds Calculator.

The above example between Philadelphia’s favorite son and The Dancing Destroyer is considered a competitive matchup. However, there are times where you’ll see boxers listed as huge favorites with lines like -10000. You’d have to bet $10,000 to win $100. An example of a matchup with a huge fave would be the September 2018 fight between Anthony Joshua at -1100 and Alexander Povetkin at +650.

Prop Betting: Method of Victory and More

These are bets made on the occurrence or nonoccurrence of certain events or milestones that may not necessarily correlate to the final outcome of the fight. All popular sports have prop betting options and boxing is no exception. The most common boxing prop is the method of victory. Instead of betting on the fighter you think will win, you would make your picks on how the fight will end.

Using the same Rocky vs Creed example from above, instead of betting on Creed to win, you could bet on him to win by knockout (KO). Odds would appear like so:

Apollo Creed by KO +120

Boxing Proposition Bets

• Will there be a knockdown? – To win this bet, one of the two fighters would need to be knocked down at some point during the fight.

• Will the fight go the distance? – For this bet, you would need to bet YES if you believe the bout will last for the scheduled duration, or NO if you feel it will end earlier or later. This is different than total rounds betting which we will look at in a bit.

• Will there be a point deduction? – This is also a YES or NO situation. You’d bet YES if you think the ref will deduct a point from any fighter or NO if you don’t think anyone will lose points. This is not the same as on-points betting which we will cover later on.

• Will the fight go to a decision? Decisions can be announced at any time after four rounds have been fought. You’ll see outcomes like this if there’s an injury.

Individual Props

• Will Canelo Alvarez win by TKO?

• Will Anthony Joshua win by KO?

• Will Andy Ruiz Jr. win by DQ (disqualification)?

Total Rounds: How Long Will the Fight Last?

This involves betting on the number of rounds a fight will go. You’ll see action that looks something like this:

Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury

OVER 11.5 rounds

UNDER 11.5 rounds

If you think the fight will finish within 11.5 rounds, you would bet the UNDER. If you think the fight will go beyond 11.5 rounds, you would take the OVER. This is kind of like a totals bet you’d make on other sports. FYI, the halfway point in a three-minute round is the 90 second mark.

On-Points Betting: The Scoring System in Play

In professional boxing, fighters are judged on a 10-point scale. Most rounds will end 10-9 for the dominant boxer. If the round is considered even, both fighters get 10. Fighters lose points every time they are knocked down. If both fighters get knocked down, they cancel each other out and the points are redone accordingly.

Intentional fouls also result in subtracted points, and in some cases, unintentional fouls can also cause a fighter to lose a score. This type of bet is like the point spread in other sports, and you would need to guess which boxer has the stronger chance of winning and by how much they’d win.

Parlays: More Boxing Bets for Your Buck

A parlay combines multiple bets on one ticket. You can bet Terrence Crawford vs Errol Spence Jr. moneyline, Vasyl Lomachenko vs Mikey Garcia to end in TKO, and Sergey Kovalev to win by DQ. You can also create a parlay slip that combines boxing bets with sports like college football, basketball or any other event that is going on at the same time. Our Parlay Calculator will let you know how much you’d win based on the odds and the amount you bet.

Handicapping Your Boxing Bets

Odds Shark’s boxing expert can help you make your picks on every big boxing match. Moreover, we have betting news – so you know what’s going on in the wagering world – and odds. You’ll also need basic knowledge of fighter weights.

Weight Classes Explained

The day before a fight, the boxers weigh in while talking trash to each other. Between bouts of insults, each fighter stands on the scale barefoot, wearing only their trunks, without gloves. Even heavyweight boxers weigh in for the photo-op aspect even though there is no weight limit in that class.

Now that you know how to bet on boxing and the types of boxing bets you can make, you’ll need to find a suitable sportsbook. We have an entire page dedicated to the best boxing betting sites. Choose one and you’re on your way to becoming [cue the Rocky theme] the best boxing bettor you can be.