2017 Recap & Analytics

[Sadistics]

Learned a lot this year, with the biggest learning experience coming from my biggest loss at UFC 217. Tried some different styles and found what works best for me. For a while there I was betting 30-40 units a card with multiple 5u bets, but max bets should be reserved for a perfect scenario. I have trouble going over 2u on a bet now and that's saved me a few times.

I only started properly tracking June 17th 2017 at UFN 111 and am up 165 units with a 22.42% ROI since. I was able to find my total BR amount from the beginning of the year and am up 355%.

I've been toying with the idea of using 2% units but for now I'm leaving it at 1%. I've solved my limit issues and for reasons related I won't be posting my bets anymore, but will be more active in the discussion.

 

[Caicara]

i completely and utterly fucked up the first 9 months of this year. beginning of september i had a profit of £7.

i would have been up £5000 or so from solely ufc bets but i kept playing soccer, basketball, baseball and other garbage.

i realise why this happened now.

i had insane sleep deprivation due to sleeping next to a construction site (literally a few feet next to my head) and was sleeping during the day so i could work at night when my deranged mother was asleep.

impulse control is so much harder when you're lacking sleep and because i was constantly looking for a distraction to my depressing existence, i would drop out of life for a few hours and watch a random ball game. obviously i was betting on the games too, like an idiot.

almost every week i was blowing chunks of my profit on bouncing ball sports, which was a double hit on the weeks when i had a bad ufc.

anyway, i moved house in october and i've been doing well since then with much more disciplined plays. i've only been playing the occasional nba game.

in the past 3 months i've gone from £7 to £4245. ironically, 6 months rent for me is exactly £4200 so it helps a tonne as i make very weak income.

my original goal for the year was £10,000 which i would have been thereabouts if i had been disciplined year round.

it's okay to not be the genius of all sports, know your one thing and double down on it.

some lessons i learned on the ufc:

flaky fighters always find ways to lose. one of my deficiencies has been betting on fights based on technical skills and the way styles align while not paying enough attention to fighters being flaky fucks.

on paper, there is no way justin scoggins should have possibly lost to sasaki, yet i parlayed him up and look what happened. bermudez was another huge loss and it was all down to a bit of positional control.

live bet has some gift lines. i've found it's also very useful for hedging when your fighter looks nothing like expected. i was on cannonier and rountree and i got both their opponents at + money during the fight when they looked like dogshit, helped to lessen the blow.

remember it's a long-term game. because of my style, my night is normally anchored on one or two fighters. embrace the nights that are damage control, you can't always be positive every fight night, it's the upward trajectory that matters.

i also think acb has some massive betting potential, more than any of the other promotions. you can find tonnes of youtube footage and there have been some wacky lines this year.

I honestly think you are one of the most talented/with the best perceptions of fights overall.

Flaky fighters always find ways to lose but sometimes always find ways to win as well. It is quite strange. I wouldn't bet them as big favorites/favorites, maybe only slight. I've done this mistake A LOT too.

Yeah, I lost lots of money on those fights, Kalindra and Aldana. WMMA is VERY unpredictable and I'd say that betting on the dog, in general, is better than in men's MMA. There are a few variants, but take a look at Esparza/Calvillo - lots of us were in Esparza and somehow the lines were still great.

Keep your head up.

 

[Caicara]

I had a good year overall, +50u...But I had quite a few downfalls.

There's this one thing that I'm really good at: Props trixies.

I will try to explain it in more details later on, but when I do my analysis on fights, I feel there's just too big of a chance of that outcome to happen. For instance: I was pretty sure that Condit could win either ITD or GTD, and his DEC line was good - I'm in - but not that big

Esparza, on the other hand, would probably win by DEC and that line was great. Big bet.

Cyborg SUB/DEC seemed VERY likely to me.

There are other examples, but, for instance, Cyborg's line was +300 and Carla's +375 - a double parlay of +1800! So it means that I didn't even need a trixie to put a bet on.

I usually choose around 6 props to play with, in 20x trixies. If ONE of them hits, I get my money back.

This is something I got from writing down my bets and probabilities on each one. I had a very big trauma in UFC 216, I could've literally gone rich if I had bet the MINIMUM on Vannata's and Dariush's draws, which I had wrote down but somehow forgot to include on my bets.

Ferg R3 and DJ R5 parlay did it for me.

I lost lots of money on ML parlays, and these hurt too much for my taste. Even though favoritism and scenario plays a big role, I have to go with @EzFlyer's opinion that price is the most important thing. I'm 100% sure about that and I lost good money because I did big bets in "BIG" favorite ones, even though their lines seemed off.

Livebetting is amazing, I agree with all of you.

BOL!!!

 

[Barkus]

I'd like to my share my gambling story with my sherdog bros. I've actually only told it to a handful of people in real life, because I just assume most people wouldn't believe it. I've been gambling on mma since 2007. My first time betting online was UFC 68 when Randy Couture fought Tim Sylvia. I was so sure that Sylvia (-250 I think) would smoke Couture that it was motivation enough for me to research all I could on how online gambling works and then made a deposit. I ended up losing my big Tim Sylvia bet and lost on every other bet but one on that card for a total loss of $500 altogether, which was pretty much my entire deposit. It was devastating at the time, but I kept at it and came close to breaking even that year. From 2008 - 2011 I turned small profits every year using a meager bankroll. 2010 was my most successful year when I turned my $100 bankroll (I was totally broke after buying a house) into about $1700. 2012 was my first real losing year where I lost about $2000. But starting in 2013 I've been on run that has changed my life thanks mostly to live betting on MMA. Since live betting became a thing I've used it on every book that I could sign up with. Usually I'd have 5 to 6 windows open at the same time and spread several small bets across different books to effectively create a large bet while staying under the bookies radar. It can be tricky because I'm not looking at the fight for a stretch while making a string of bets, but it's worked out well. I still do this, and even though I've been limited on every live bet book I can still scratch out decent profits from live betting this way. Anyway, I'll break down my run since 2013 based on each sportsbook I've used. The numbers are approximations because I don't record keep very well. Left is deposit totals, right side is what the deposit grew to in Canadian dollars.


$1000 to $33000 on 5dimes - They limited me to $100 base bets but I still actively use them since the limit resets when the line moves
$300 to $28000 on Betdsi - They totally stopped offering live betting on mma (they used the same lines as betcris and bookmaker). They were one of the best if not the best. I miss them.
$400 to $49000 on Bet365 - I'm now limited to $40 maximum wins per bet, but I still use them since the limit resets every time the line moves. It's easy to make 20+ small bets per fight.
$300 to $7200 on Unibet - I was limited at 2000 but grinded out another 5000 more out of them even with the low limits. I don't use them much anymore since they stopped offering lb on Fight Pass prelims and their new interface absolutely sucks for live betting.
$200 to $5000 on Will Hill - they limited me to something like $10 total bets so I don't use them at all anymore
$200 to $2000 on Ladbrokes - I can't use them anymore since they left the Canadian market.
$1000 to $7000 on Draft Kings - I got really lucky and won a contest where 2 of my fighters lost early - but it turned out to be the insane night of upsets on the Mir/Bigfoot card and I somehow landed in first. I only use Draft Kings occasionally now because it's just so hard to get an edge.
$1000 into $30000 on pinnacle - This year I've started to focus on making straight bets on very select fights (maybe 1 or 2 per card). And I have no fear hammering their lines because of their reputation for not limiting bettors.
$4000 to zero on Nitrogen - I put most of a bitcoin on BJ Penn to beat what I thought was a depleted Siver - it was pretty much my only bet there and it was a bad one.

Random thoughts:

-When live betting became an option I came to a point where I decided to stop making straight bets altogether for the most part because I would get such bad bias for the fighter I bet on pre-fight. I would be pissing away opportunity rooting for my original fighter which made me hesitate to bet against him even if there was obvious value on the other side. Cutting out pre fight bets made a big difference for being able to beat live betting consistently.

Due to a lack of time I did little research on the fighters pre fight and would just live bet blind based on the flow of the fight. This actually helped in some respects - for example, I had a tendency to sometimes pull the trigger anticipating a fighter would gas based on past performances (who often wouldn't) rather than waiting until I could visually see the fighter gassing. For me it's been much better to pull the trigger when he's visually gassing, even if some value is lost by then.

-I try to resist betting on other sports unless I'm bored and happen to be at a sports bar. However, I do love NFL football and will sometimes get caught up gambling on it, but I know I can't beat it. I'm skeptical that it's even possible for anyone to get an edge betting on any of the major sports.

I lucked out on timing when Betdsi stopped offering live bets on MMA. When that happened I cashed out my entire account in bitcoin. I also cashed out a few grand from 5dimes and bought a few grand worth using my own money. That was when bitcoin was around $800-$1000 CDN. I've sold most of it off during this crazy run up and have made a bit more than a half million.

-I'm a bit socially awkward and one of the more awkward experiences of my life was funding my Betdsi account using Western Union. I was rejected outright at a pay day loan joint when I was asked what the transaction was for and I couldn't think of a lie and just blurted out 'gambling.' I then went to Walmart and told some lame lie about helping out a family friend my mom met travelling to a skeptical manager there. It was a painful way to fund offshore bookies pre bitcoin.

-I'm still too cheap to buy PPVs so I bring my chromebook to a sports bar to gamble.

-Since there is less profit to be made from live betting after being limited across the board, I'm back to making straight picks. I will make an effort to post my picks on the betting thread on the regular.

Good luck to everyone in 2018!

 

[Joedaman55]

Lost about $500-$600 this year. Biggest losses were Cormier and Aldo (2nd fight). Ngannou was the fighter that has won me the most money this year.

Started following MMA right at the McGregor/Mendez PPV and a lot of things changed since UFC 100. I’m still learning the markets and the systems so I feel okay about my performance) expected to take a 3-5 year loss until I started profiting.

I’ve learned a lot and the biggest lesson I learned this year was wait to bet until after weigh ins to see how the weight cut went and many good fighters of the past have better odds than what they should be at (notably Aldo, Lawler, Cerrone, Holm,etc). I think USADA changed things a lot of things and I picked up those changes slower than the more talented gamblers.

The biggest problem is learning all of these fighters in a limited amount of time (I don’t enjoy spending massive amounts of time researching fighters before a fight as it feels like work and I got a kid to watch).

 

[EzFlyer]

I'd like to my share my gambling story with my sherdog bros. I've actually only told it to a handful of people in real life, because I just assume most people wouldn't believe it. I've been gambling on mma since 2007. My first time betting online was UFC 68 when Randy Couture fought Tim Sylvia. I was so sure that Sylvia (-250 I think) would smoke Couture that it was motivation enough for me to research all I could on how online gambling works and then made a deposit. I ended up losing my big Tim Sylvia bet and lost on every other bet but one on that card for a total loss of $500 altogether, which was pretty much my entire deposit. It was devastating at the time, but I kept at it and came close to breaking even that year. From 2008 - 2011 I turned small profits every year using a meager bankroll. 2010 was my most successful year when I turned my $100 bankroll (I was totally broke after buying a house) into about $1700. 2012 was my first real losing year where I lost about $2000. But starting in 2013 I've been on run that has changed my life thanks mostly to live betting on MMA. Since live betting became a thing I've used it on every book that I could sign up with. Usually I'd have 5 to 6 windows open at the same time and spread several small bets across different books to effectively create a large bet while staying under the bookies radar. It can be tricky because I'm not looking at the fight for a stretch while making a string of bets, but it's worked out well. I still do this, and even though I've been limited on every live bet book I can still scratch out decent profits from live betting this way. Anyway, I'll break down my run since 2013 based on each sportsbook I've used. The numbers are approximations because I don't record keep very well. Left is deposit totals, right side is what the deposit grew to in Canadian dollars.


$1000 to $33000 on 5dimes - They limited me to $100 base bets but I still actively use them since the limit resets when the line moves
$300 to $28000 on Betdsi - They totally stopped offering live betting on mma (they used the same lines as betcris and bookmaker). They were one of the best if not the best. I miss them.
$400 to $49000 on Bet365 - I'm now limited to $40 maximum wins per bet, but I still use them since the limit resets every time the line moves. It's easy to make 20+ small bets per fight.
$300 to $7200 on Unibet - I was limited at 2000 but grinded out another 5000 more out of them even with the low limits. I don't use them much anymore since they stopped offering lb on Fight Pass prelims and their new interface absolutely sucks for live betting.
$200 to $5000 on Will Hill - they limited me to something like $10 total bets so I don't use them at all anymore
$200 to $2000 on Ladbrokes - I can't use them anymore since they left the Canadian market.
$1000 to $7000 on Draft Kings - I got really lucky and won a contest where 2 of my fighters lost early - but it turned out to be the insane night of upsets on the Mir/Bigfoot card and I somehow landed in first. I only use Draft Kings occasionally now because it's just so hard to get an edge.
$1000 into $30000 on pinnacle - This year I've started to focus on making straight bets on very select fights (maybe 1 or 2 per card). And I have no fear hammering their lines because of their reputation for not limiting bettors.
$4000 to zero on Nitrogen - I put most of a bitcoin on BJ Penn to beat what I thought was a depleted Siver - it was pretty much my only bet there and it was a bad one.

Random thoughts:

-When live betting became an option I came to a point where I decided to stop making straight bets altogether for the most part because I would get such bad bias for the fighter I bet on pre-fight. I would be pissing away opportunity rooting for my original fighter which made me hesitate to bet against him even if there was obvious value on the other side. Cutting out pre fight bets made a big difference for being able to beat live betting consistently.

Due to a lack of time I did little research on the fighters pre fight and would just live bet blind based on the flow of the fight. This actually helped in some respects - for example, I had a tendency to sometimes pull the trigger anticipating a fighter would gas based on past performances (who often wouldn't) rather than waiting until I could visually see the fighter gassing. For me it's been much better to pull the trigger when he's visually gassing, even if some value is lost by then.

-I try to resist betting on other sports unless I'm bored and happen to be at a sports bar. However, I do love NFL football and will sometimes get caught up gambling on it, but I know I can't beat it. I'm skeptical that it's even possible for anyone to get an edge betting on any of the major sports.

I lucked out on timing when Betdsi stopped offering live bets on MMA. When that happened I cashed out my entire account in bitcoin. I also cashed out a few grand from 5dimes and bought a few grand worth using my own money. That was when bitcoin was around $800-$1000 CDN. I've sold most of it off during this crazy run up and have made a bit more than a half million.

-I'm a bit socially awkward and one of the more awkward experiences of my life was funding my Betdsi account using Western Union. I was rejected outright at a pay day loan joint when I was asked what the transaction was for and I couldn't think of a lie and just blurted out 'gambling.' I then went to Walmart and told some lame lie about helping out a family friend my mom met travelling to a skeptical manager there. It was a painful way to fund offshore bookies pre bitcoin.

-I'm still too cheap to buy PPVs so I bring my chromebook to a sports bar to gamble.

-Since there is less profit to be made from live betting after being limited across the board, I'm back to making straight picks. I will make an effort to post my picks on the betting thread on the regular.

Good luck to everyone in 2018!

Long may the zewkey vets reign

 

[t6p]

2017 was my second full year of gambling on MMA. I finished the year up a little over 72 units, including UFC bets only. I actually did fairly well on Bellator too, but I don't make enough bets for it to be worth tracking. I'm pretty satisfied with the overall number, but I definitely feel like I still have a lot of room for improvements. Some thoughts and things I plan to focus on in 2018:

• Avoid playing very juiced favorites altogether and only play favorites in general when I'm very confident. Overall this year I ended up -10u on straight favorite bets, which is embarrassingly bad. Some of my bigger loses were Cirkunov vs Volkan, Manuwa vs Volkan (I hate Volkan btw lol), Font vs Munhoz, Duffy vs Vick, Cerrone vs Till, Jacare vs Whittaker and so on. Some of those losses were flukier than others but it doesn't really matter. I'm finding that high-risk/low-reward is not profitable in MMA, at least for me. Moving forward I'm going to be looking to play many more underdogs and going bigger on them.
• I'm still working on improving my live betting. I don't do nearly enough of it and I need to stop being afraid to make larger bets when the situation warrants it. Perfect example was the Rountree fight this past weekend. I was telling everyone in the room that Rountree was done and was expecting to see Michal as the favorite after the first. He opens at +100, and I only put 1u down. Also, like @Barkus mentioned, I need to stop letting my bias for the fighter I bet pre-fight affect my live betting, i.e. I can't be afraid to buy out or switch sides altogether.
• I'm generally pretty successful at betting props, so I'm planning to start betting them bigger when I really see value.
• I've been considering raising my unit size, but when I hear all of these stories about people getting limited, having issues with payouts, etc. it makes me second guess whether or not it's worth it. I do this as a hobby, so it's not technically about the money for me, although who doesn't want more money. I'm going to think it over some more and make a final decision before the first of event of year next weekend.

That's about all I can come up with for now. It looks like the majority of us in here did very well this year and I'm glad to see that. Best of luck in 2018 guys.

 

[LEMONZEST]

I suck at this and usually end up chasing my losses...My correct win % is around 60% based on the UFC PIck Em. My plan going forward is to almost exclusively play high return parlays.

Overall I am down about 300 USD which I am not sure how many units.... depends. Sometimes my units are 20 and sometimes they are 100 lol. probably why I went broke.

Who organized the UFC Pick Em group for Sherdog? Lets get that setup again this year before the next event. It would be fun if EZ and some others participated.

 

[EzFlyer]

i already do toutmaster and gamblemaster, any more pick'ems just too many things to juggle!

 

[Naught2Sixty]

Welp. I'm super new to gambling (First bet was 200$ to win 190$ Ferguson ML vs Kevin Lee) but have been watching mma for years. Try to watch everything mma and follow nba casually as well. Made a second bet of 100$ on Thug Rose ML and shortly after found the SD forums (always used SD to research fighters but never went on the forum) and have been lurking and learning ever since. Just been dicking around with the original deposit but will be taking these few lessons away from these past few months.

1. Need a better book. I didn't know about 5d but hear about a newer reputible book in mybookie. Lines are out way late and no props. Gonna transfer some bankroll to 5d.
2. Trust others opinions but confirm for yourself.
3. Don't get discouraged losing. (Lost 250$ on the u2.5 Camacho/Brown fight. Come on who thought that would go the distance?)

Despite the novice level and bad book I still manage to be up. Up is up and I'm not throwing away rent money to chase a dream. I hope you all have a great year this year and thanks to everyone for what they bring to the table here.

 

[northsofia]

I also watch MMA for maybe 8 years already, but 2017 was my second year of betting it. It was a losing year, but the amount i lost is not something that bothers me. Started doing this just for fun, but now when i am watching you guys i understand that with a little more researches and discipline i can make some money from this. I am really inspired for 2018, i have grate respect to all you guys and trying to learn from my and your mistakes.
Maybe it sounds funny but when i saw how patience and discipline in betting pays off, i try to implement these qualities in my job and in some other aspects of my life and it really works. Happy new years and all the best to all of you, guys!

 

[beepboopbeepbeep]

Congrats everyone, good to see so many winners and even those who had a tough time it appears have done some solid reflection.

Learned a lot this year, with the biggest learning experience coming from my biggest loss at UFC 217. Tried some different styles and found what works best for me. For a while there I was betting 30-40 units a card with multiple 5u bets, but max bets should be reserved for a perfect scenario. I have trouble going over 2u on a bet now and that's saved me a few times.

I only started properly tracking June 17th 2017 at UFN 111 and am up 165 units with a 22.42% ROI since. I was able to find my total BR amount from the beginning of the year and am up 355%.

I've been toying with the idea of using 2% units but for now I'm leaving it at 1%. I've solved my limit issues and for reasons related I won't be posting my bets anymore, but will be more active in the discussion.

Limit issues with 5d? Pls PM the solution you've come across if so

 

[raketmannen]

Went from 9k bankroll to around 57k bankroll in 2017 (don't know exact figure due to spending some). Profit was mostly from live betting (multiple bet365 accounts, multiple 3-6k nights. Free money). Pre bets were on fire first half of the year but I admittedly struggled towards the end. Flukes or bullshit big losses like Martins vs Kajan, Bermudez vs Elkins, MJ vs Gaethje, Volkan the fluke merchant fucked me. Still made bank but I have big, big goals this year. Gonna smash 100k and look into investing some of it into ICO's and crypto. Don't be a dummy and compound your profit lads. Retirement in my 20's is gonna happen believe you me. Let's go

Look into some Canadian cannabis stocks aswell

 

[Soccer Steve]

Look into "shorting" some Canadian cannabis stocks aswell

There, fixed that for you.

 

[InTheCut]

@EzFlyer do you have your breakdown results from prefight bets and live bets by any chance?

 

[EzFlyer]

@EzFlyer do you have your breakdown results from prefight bets and live bets by any chance?

I have some internal systems that can differentiate it but it's largely lumped together.. it's the biggest flaw in my record keeping. Somewhat inconsistent in where I categorize results from live action .. usually against prefight prices.. like the +7 units or whatever it was recently on saenz went in small dog results even tho the $ came from way higher payout options

 

[rille31]

@EzFlyer you should actually sell that system

 

[null]

For 2017 I took no payouts once again, so it's easy to calculate that my USD bankroll at the three sportsbooks I primarily bet at grew by over 51 units or $5123.30. This was especially aided by a strong fourth quarter and a few big odds underdog bets that paid off huge like Guto Inocente vs Benjamin Adegbuyi in Glory around +1300 and big more than 10u bets on Rafael Lovato Jr. vs Chris Honeycutt in Bellator at +225. The real success however was a 2.48 BTC increase through gambling of my Bitcoin holdings, mostly wagered earlier in the year when the value was much lower, the present value of which is worth nearly $35,000. For 2018 I am going to be betting somewhat bigger in spots that I really like selectively and figuring out how to track my bets in more detail so I can keep track of the kind of detailed analytics that break my results down in more detail.

 

[AxeMurderer]

For 2017 I took no payouts once again, so it's easy to calculate that my USD bankroll at the three sportsbooks I primarily bet at grew by over 51 units or $5123.30. This was especially aided by a strong fourth quarter and a few big odds underdog bets that paid off huge like Guto Inocente vs Benjamin Adegbuyi in Glory around +1300 and big more than 10u bets on Rafael Lovato Jr. vs Chris Honeycutt in Bellator at +225. The real success however was a 2.48 BTC increase through gambling of my Bitcoin holdings, mostly wagered earlier in the year when the value was much lower, the present value of which is worth nearly $35,000. For 2018 I am going to be betting somewhat bigger in spots that I really like selectively and figuring out how to track my bets in more detail so I can keep track of the kind of detailed analytics that break my results down in more detail.

How do you see bitcoin holding up? Are you going to continue to leave a big balance there? I have been thinking about leaving some in but I always talk myself out of it.

 

[null]

How do you see bitcoin holding up? Are you going to continue to leave a big balance there? I have been thinking about leaving some in but I always talk myself out of it.

I'm not quite sure what the future holds. I first purchased BTC very low, spending only $600 a few years ago to purchase 1.34 BTC at $447, and grew that via gambling to the several BTC total I have now while the value grew exponentially at the same time. That means that I'm so very far ahead that I'm not that eager to sell out. I was tempted when it went over $20,000 recently, but even though it's bouncing around $13,000-$14,000 this week I think I am going to hold and see what happens.