In Which Sport do Underdogs Win Most Often?

As a sports bettor, there’s nothing more satisfying than cashing in on a big moneyline underdog bet. Whether you’re a hard-core handicapper who’s crunching every possible number or more of a recreational bettor who relies on your gut more than anything, the thrill and greed of going after that plus-money action is perhaps the most competitive aspect of sports betting.

Be careful, though, because we all know some jackass who beat the book big that one time on some ridiculous parlay bet (I have been that jackass a time or two). It’s likely a story they bring up often, but the truth is, these big multi-leg parlay bets rarely win and the best course of action when betting underdogs is to limit your risk and make individual game bets. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a comprehensive breakdown of how underdogs perform in the most popular sports leagues in North America.

Underdog win percentages by sport:

Here’s the win percentage of underdogs for the last five full regular seasons of the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, NCAA Basketball and NCAA Football, along with the last five years of the UFC:

These numbers shouldn’t come as much of a shock, although I would have expected the NHL to be higher than MLB since hockey is a lower-scoring sport. As for the two college sports, we often see matches that are so lopsided that moneyline odds aren’t even on the board. Each college league offers some matchups with such drastic disparities in performance levels and ability, often on a nightly basis. We don’t see this in the pro leagues so the low underdog win percentages make sense.

The predictability of the NBA in recent seasons appears to extend to the betting window for individual games, while there’s also less parity in the NFL, which is why we see a greater number of games with larger moneyline underdogs in each league.

While MLB and the NHL have only seen a combined 93 teams close as an underdog of +300 or more in the five-year span, the NBA has had 1,532 and the NFL has had 212. Given that they have many more teams, the college numbers are in a completely different ballpark with NCAA Basketball seeing a whopping 7,487 underdogs of +300 or more, with NCAA Football having 1,677 underdogs in that range.

Here’s how underdogs performed in each league in five separate odds ranges. Profits (or significant lack thereof) are based on $100 bets:

What jumps off the page is that an overwhelming number of these ranges are unprofitable. This is hardly a surprise, though, as blindly betting every single underdog is a godawful betting strategy.

Over in the UFC, we’ve seen dogs of +100 to +150 cash in over the last five years. This is one of my favorite betting spots, as usually these matchups are tighter than the odds indicate. Setting lines for UFC fights can’t be easy as we often see matchups between fighters with drastically different fighting styles and experience levels. Keep those two things in mind when analyzing UFC odds.

Ultimately, the bottom line for betting underdogs is to dig deep and do your homework. Sportsbooks hit the jackpot year after year based on people simply betting on instincts and chasing those sexy +600 parlays. However, by limiting your risk, and putting some time in, you’ll be able to pick some winning underdog betting spots and burn the books no matter what sport you like betting on the most.

Biggest Underdog Wins per League:

Here’s the biggest upsets in each league over the five-year period:

MLB

NHL

NFL

NBA

NCAA Basketball

NCAA Football

UFC

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