UFC 332: 13 Favorites Won, but Did the Odds Offer Any Value?

UFC 332 looked like a good night to back the favorites. Thirteen of the 14 favored fighters won in Salt Lake City on October 3, with Roman Kopylov’s first-round stoppage of Ateba Gautier producing the card’s only upset.

The results were profitable for anyone hypothetically placing equal-sized straight bets on every favorite. Using the MyBookie odds published by Fightful before the event, a $100 bet on each would have generated approximately $379 in net profit, a 27.1% return on the $1,400 staked.

Yet a parlay containing all 14 favorites would have lost. That contrast raises a more interesting question than the winning percentage alone: did UFC 332 actually offer good betting value, or did an unusually successful night for favorites make the prices look better in hindsight?

Thirteen Favorites, One Upset

UFC 332 featured 14 fights at the Delta Center, with 11 ending by knockout or technical knockout and only three reaching the scorecards.

Natalia Silva captured the vacant women’s flyweight championship with a unanimous decision over Wang Cong. The judges scored the contest 48-47, 48-47 and 49-46, reflecting a competitive five-round fight despite Silva entering as a clear betting favorite.

Payton Talbott delivered a more decisive performance, stopping former flyweight champion Deiveson Figueiredo after 2:09 of the opening round. Johnny Walker also made an impressive heavyweight debut, knocking out Mick Parkin with a knee in the first round.

Elsewhere, Roberto Soldić survived early trouble against Khaos Williams before taking control and winning a unanimous decision. Ismail Naurdiev also went the distance against Marvin Vettori.

All five entered as favorites, although their victories followed very different paths.

The exception was Kopylov, who stopped Gautier in the opening round of their middleweight contest. His victory prevented the entire card from ending with the bookmakers’ preferred fighter winning every matchup.

By the final bell, the favorites had recorded a 92.9% success rate. But that statistic only describes how often they won, not whether their prices were worth taking.

What $100 on Every Favorite Would Have Returned

Fightful published MyBookie’s UFC 332 moneylines on October 1, two days before the event.

Using those prices, a hypothetical bettor placing $100 separately on every favorite would have committed $1,400 across the 14 fights.

The 13 winning selections would have generated approximately $479.27 in combined profit. Subtracting the $100 lost on Gautier leaves a net gain of $379.27, equivalent to a 27.1% return on the total amount staked.

That is a strong result for a single event, particularly given how heavily favored several fighters were.

However, the calculation has limitations. It uses the odds displayed in Fightful’s published report, not independently verified closing lines. Those prices may have changed before the event, and the calculation does not establish that every quote was simultaneously available when an actual customer attempted to place the bets.

It also assumes identical stakes on every favorite, regardless of the probability implied by the odds.

The results demonstrate that this particular approach would have been profitable at those quoted prices. They do not establish that following the same approach across future UFC cards would produce similar returns.

Heavy Favorites Did Not Deliver the Biggest Returns

Not all of UFC 332’s winning favorites contributed equally to that hypothetical profit.

Jacobe Smith entered his welterweight contest against Bruce Whitehead at -1099, making him the heaviest favorite on the card. Smith won by first-round TKO, but a $100 bet at those odds would have earned approximately $9.10 in profit.

Talbott’s victory over Figueiredo returned just $11.81 in profit on a $100 stake at -847.

Compare those figures with Johnny Walker and Ismail Naurdiev, who entered at considerably shorter prices.

Winning favorite	Published odds	Profit on $100
Jacobe Smith	-1099	$9.10
Payton Talbott	-847	$11.81
Ismail Naurdiev	-141	$70.92
Johnny Walker	-130	$76.92

Walker and Naurdiev generated substantially greater individual returns despite their outcomes being less strongly favored before the event.

The five shortest-priced favorites, all listed at -500 or shorter, won their fights. Combined, however, those five victories would have produced only about $71.34 in profit from $500 in total stakes.

One losing $100 selection would have been enough to erase those gains.

This is why betting accuracy cannot be assessed independently of price. A fighter may be overwhelmingly likely to win, but that does not automatically make the available odds attractive.

Kopylov’s Upset Changed the Entire Picture

Gautier entered UFC 332 with considerable momentum and was listed at -270 against Kopylov, who was available at +204.

The 24-year-old prospect had established a reputation for finishing opponents with powerful strikes, but Kopylov refused to let him dictate the exchanges.

The Russian used his movement and counterstriking to disrupt Gautier’s offense. A straight left repeatedly found its target before Kopylov followed up with additional strikes, forcing referee Marc Goddard to stop the contest at 3:12 of the first round.

It was the only victory by an underdog on the card.

At +204, a successful $100 bet on Kopylov would have generated $204 in profit. That was more than the combined return from several of the card’s heavily favored winners.

The result also illustrates the difference between straight bets and parlays.

Someone holding 14 separate favorite selections could still finish the night in profit because the other 13 won. A 14-leg parlay containing Gautier, however, would have lost regardless of the success of every other selection.

Kopylov’s victory was an upset, but not evidence that the market considered him incapable of winning. His quoted +204 price implied a probability of approximately 32.9% before accounting for the bookmaker’s margin.

An outcome can be less likely than its alternative and still occur without making the original price unreasonable.

Eleven Knockouts Did Not Tell the Whole Betting Story

The number of finishes at UFC 332 added another unusual dimension to the event.

Eleven fights ended by KO or TKO, including nine in the first round. Yet the success of the favorites in moneyline markets does not tell us whether the same fighters delivered profitable results in other betting categories.

Method-of-victory markets, round totals and fight-duration wagers involve different probabilities.

Talbott’s early stoppage of Figueiredo satisfied the moneyline outcome, but a bet requiring the fight to last beyond the opening round would have failed. Walker’s knockout of Parkin likewise produced a winning moneyline result without establishing whether the available knockout price was favorable.

The three decisions illustrate the opposite situation.

Silva needed all five rounds to defeat Wang Cong, while Soldić and Naurdiev secured their victories on the judges’ scorecards. Their moneyline backers won, but wagers requiring those fighters to finish their opponents would have lost.

Soldić’s performance was particularly instructive. Williams hurt him early before the Croatian recovered, adjusted and took control of the later rounds.

That sort of momentum shift makes it difficult to reduce an individual fight to its final result.

Without archived prices for the method-of-victory and round markets, there is no reliable way to establish whether UFC 332 was equally profitable outside straightforward winner selections.

Winning Bets Are Not the Same as Value

The most important distinction from UFC 332 concerns the difference between a profitable outcome and a good price before the event.

A moneyline expresses a probability, with the bookmaker’s margin built into the odds. To identify genuine value, the assessed chance of a fighter winning must exceed the probability implied by the price being offered.

Winning a bet does not prove that the original estimate was correct.

Consider the combined probabilities from Fightful’s published moneylines. After normalizing both sides of each matchup to remove the quoted bookmaker margin, the prices imply approximately 9.9 winning favorites across the 14 fights.

Thirteen actually won, considerably more than the market-derived expectation.

That difference is noteworthy, but it does not independently establish systematic mispricing. The normalized probabilities are estimates derived from the bookmaker’s prices, not an objective measurement of each fighter’s true chances.

The distinction between an attractive headline figure and its practical value also appears in other gambling comparisons. Sister Casinos NZ examines casino offers alongside wagering conditions and other terms that affect their value. UFC moneylines involve a different calculation, but the underlying question is comparable: what does the advertised figure actually mean once the conditions and potential returns are considered?

For UFC 332, the answer is clear in one respect. Equal-stake bets on the favorites would have generated a profit at the published odds.

Whether those prices offered positive expected value before the fights is a separate question that cannot be settled by the results of one unusually predictable card.

The Verdict: Accuracy Was Not the Whole Story

UFC 332 delivered an exceptional night for favorites. Thirteen won, eleven fights ended inside the distance, and the quoted moneylines would have produced a 27.1% return from equal-stake straight bets.

Kopylov’s upset nevertheless demonstrated how one result can undermine an apparently reliable set of selections, particularly when those selections are combined.

The card showed that backing favorites could have been profitable on this occasion. It did not establish that the bookmakers consistently underestimated them.

There is a difference between knowing who won, calculating what those victories paid and determining whether the original prices justified the risk. UFC 332 provides a useful example of why all three questions deserve separate answers.