Being successful at MMA daily fantasy means you must use all of the information at your disposal. Vital yet often misused and misunderstood information can be found by using Vegas odds. To use the betting lines properly, you must embrace the market to properly exploit the advantage.
The salary cap makes it nearly impossible to have every MMA betting favorite in your lineup. Thus, you have to find fighters that have a chance of an early knock out or submission. If you have ever been punched in the face, you know it sucks, no matter who you are it can knock you out. You need to find the glass jaws while avoiding the grapplers.
MMA Betting Lines
Understanding how the market works is key to taking advantage when setting your lineups. A good starting point for this information are the MMA betting lines. MMA fights, UFC in particular, have the over card lined well in advance, with the under card appearing a week prior to the event.
Most DFS sites will post their salaries on the Tuesday before the event, based off of the current odds at that time. Quite the advantage to the player, as by the time the fights take place on the weekend, the markets will have moved considerably.
You’ll want to look at two markets: Fight outcome and Total Rounds.
UFC Round Length
For total rounds, you’ll generally see an over under of 1.5 when one of the fighters has a high knockout or submission probability, where totals of 2.5 indicate a longer fight provided it is not for a championship belt.
Knowing the UFC round length for championship matches is important. Totals of 3.5 and 4.5 are a regular occurrence, with 4.5 totals reserved for those fights anticipated to end with a judges decision. Identifying these matches and using them in your lineups will allow you to score secondary points which will aid your total in the event a quick finish does not happen.
Fight Odds
The fight outcome will let you know who the betting market thinks is the favorite to win the match. These lines will move drastically once the fight weigh-ins occur. Weigh-ins generally take place on Friday afternoons.
Compare the fight odds from Thursday with the odds from Friday evening to get an idea of where the sharper gamblers have put their money. This will give you a good indication of which fighters were under priced, and more so, where the daily fantasy site has left an edge open to be exploited. Follow the money holds true here.
DFS MMA Picks
As an example, if DraftKings posted their salaries on Tuesday based on a fighter lined at -200, and come Friday night the market has pushed this fighter up to -300, DraftKings salary will not reflect the odds which were used to set it their prices.
Utilize this information to make your DFS MMA picks when setting your winning lineups. If you’re having trouble figuring which of our top projections to fit onto your team, look to the betting markets to find on edge that other’s may not see.
Combine this knowledge with our DraftKings projections by clicking here…
