Before we list the top boxing betting sites on the web, let’s have a word about the sport. Boxing is without a doubt one of the oldest competitive sports and a vastly popular betting market around the world. However, there was a brief period in history, around the 1990’s, when betting on boxing declined.
That was all thanks to the rise of pay-per-view contracts. This single-handedly changed the way boxing was viewed on televisions in the UK. Bookmakers used to offer bets only on the biggest fights and excluded all the other lower-level bouts.
Nowadays, almost every England based betting site offers match betting on every major bout across every single one of the professional weight divisions. If you want to find out which are the best sites for boxing, keep reading this article.
In fact, after reading this article, you will know more about different betting options, boxing odds and bonuses and even a bit about the history of boxing. So keep on scrolling to learn everything you need to know about boxing and the best betting sites for boxing.
Top 6 Boxing Betting Sites
- Bet365 Review98
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- Bet365 offers 2-way format boxing odds
- Prop betting odds are available quicker than other sites
- 98/100Best Choice
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- Up to £30 in Bet Credits
- Visit now
New Customers only. Bet £10* & Get £30* in Free Bets. Sign up, deposit between £5* and £10* to your account and bet365 will give you three times that value in Free Bets when you place qualifying bets to the same value and they are settled. Free Bets are paid as Bet Credits. Min odds/bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. Registration required, T&Cs, time limits & exclusions apply. #AD
Bookmaker | Bonus | Features | Grade | Link |
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10Bet Review |
100% up to £50 |
Exclusive special boxing bets available
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95 |
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New bettors; Code SPORT; Wager deposit & bonus 8x; Max qualifying bet stake=initial bonus; Valid 60 days; Min odds, bet and payment method exclusions apply; T&C apply; 18+ | ||||
Unibet Review |
Money Back up to £40 + £10 Casino |
Attractive odds for the Fight Night matches
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91 |
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18+ begambleaware.org. New customers only. Min deposit £10. Money back as bonus if first bet loses. Wagering requirements: all sportsbook 3x at min. odds of 1.40 (2/5), casino 50x. Unless forfeited the sportsbook bonus must be wagered before using the casino bonus. Bonus expires 7 days after opt-in. Full T&C's apply...#AD. |
* T&C’s apply, 18+. Click on Visit now to view the offer!
Here are the 7 bookmakers that fans of the sport rate as the best
Paddy Power
Paddy Power is a bookmaker with a huge presence both online and offline. Besides the fact that this bookie operates Ireland’s biggest telephone betting service, they also have close to 600 shops across Ireland and the UK.
Paddy Power has one of the best boxing odds prices and a very creative range of specials bets. Overall, considering the variety, Paddy Power offers, it is understandable why this site is among the best boxing betting sites.
Betway
Betway is considered to be one of the best bookies for UFC and MMA. They are making a name for themselves as the online bookmaker for the so called “less popular” sports like golf, eSports and darts.
When it comes to boxing, Betway offer decent regular odds, a good money back offer and a good market depth. The deals offered by them are money back if the fighter wins by knockout or technical knockout, refund if the match happens to end in the first round and so on. These offers are of better value comparability as well, seeing how the usually give money back on stakes which are up to £ 50, rather the usual seen £ 25. Plus, you can get a deposit bonus up to £ 100.
William Hill
William Hill is another industry giant. This site has a nice layout, which spits competitors by class (lightweight, featherweight, bantamweight, etc.) and that makes finding your fights extremely easy, especially in advance. Speaking of which, William Hill is definitely the site to go to when looking into early prices. This is proven by the fact that they tend to offer markets on probable fights that aren’t even officially announced yet.
Another plus is that William Hills offer a lot of news and statistics for their betters. Their welcome bonus may not be huge, but you can still claim a £ 20 free bet provided you do not have an account with them.
BetVictor
Another one of the best betting sites is BetVictor. If we are talking about most of their odds prices, they simply can’t be beaten. If you want to be sure you are getting a good rate this is the bookmaker for you. They usually beat most of their competitors at least for their result lines.
This site of Betvictor is also good when it comes to releasing early prices. Usually, bookmakers wait to see who jumps first and that helps them to set their own odds. This is a strategy rarely used by BetVictor. They release the odds much earlier than other sites; guess they are extremely confident in their pricing.
When it comes to deals, BetVictor doesn’t offer them frequently, but when they do, they tend to be high-value ones.
Their platform is extremely user-friendly, and a very important thing that has to be mentioned is that their minimum accepted stake is at 10p. True there are other operators who accept lower amount bets, but this is more than a reasonable amount.
And as far as the maximum winning limits go, for the popular sports like horse racing and football, they are set at £ 1 000 000 per day. While that for the specials betting markets and the non-sports are up to £ 10 000.
Boxing Betting Offers
Truth be told, even the best betting websites do not offer promotions very often. Special deals are mostly found if there are big fights, championships, etc. Some sites do offer special enhanced odds price deals to new customers, but that is a rarity. Also, some money-back offers can be found but on rare occasions. Keep in mind that these deals tend to be one time only and they are not available throughout the whole year.
Betting at the best betting sites
If you think about it, boxing is not really the type of sport, which offers a variety of outcomes. There are only two competitors plus the rules are pretty straightforward, so it is no surprise there are only a handful of types of bets one can make. And of course, some of the bets do offer a better value than others. Some of the most common ones can be found in the guide below.
Round Betting
As the name suggests the wager here is made on the round, you think the fight is most likely to end. So in order for the bet to pay out the fight has to end in the exact round stated on the bet slip.
Grouped Round Betting
This is sort of a variation on round betting. Here you are supposed to predict the result within a range of rounds instead of betting on an exact round. For example, you can bet on rounds 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12. Within these ranges you can also bet on the win, decision, draw, technical decision and draw.
Method of Victory
This is a very tricky bet type; it’s one of the harder to get right, but if guessed correctly it can bring very good returns. Here you have to decide what the fight outcome will be – knockout, technical knockout, disqualification, draw, technical draw, submission, referee’s decision and so on.
Over and Under Rounds
Here the bookmaker sets a threshold, and you decide if the fight is going to last more or fewer rounds than stated. A good knowledge of the fighter’s form and style of fighting is important for this bet type.
Specials Markets
Some of the best betting sites offer extremely creative specials markets, which allows you to make some interesting bets. For example – in which city do you think a fight will take place, or in what year.
Live Boxing Betting
Unfortunately, betting sites are prohibited from offering live streams for prized boxing bouts. This is thanks to the strict regulations and rules when it comes to pay-per-view contracts regarding boxing matches. As somewhat of an alternative, some operators offer live commentary via their own radio platforms.
Boxing Fight Coverage
The fact that there are no set seasons in boxing in without a doubt one of the most attractive features of this sport. You can find bets on matches from a few different divisions at any time. Speaking of divisions, there are 17 weight divisions, which range from light minimum weight to heavyweight.
More specifically these divisions are: light minimum weight, minimum weight, light flyweight, flyweight, super flyweight, bantamweight, super bantamweight, featherweight, super featherweight, lightweight, super lightweight, welterweight, super welterweight, middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight, cruiserweight and heavyweight.
And all of the best sites featured in this article support match betting for every single one of them. An important thing to mention is that betting sites do not list every professional fight but tend to list a selection of the most high-profile ones.
Boxing Betting Strategies
There aren’t any official betting strategies that players use to increase their profits over time. However, there are some important practices that are advisable to be taken into consideration before placing a wager. For example, like in many other sports markets, it is extremely important to study the past form of the competitors and not just seeing the number of bouts the fighter has won and lost. It is typical for fighters to try to maintain an unbeaten record for as long as they can and one way to guarantee that is if they fight weaker opponents.
So make sure to check who your fighter has been fighting, the weight category in which he has been fighting and also make sure to check the final score cards if they are available. It is also a good idea to watch playbacks of the fighter’s previous matches and see how they performed. What mistakes they made, see in which areas they were tested and compare them to the fighting style of the upcoming opponent.
Another thing worth studying is the judges that are set to officiate a particular match. After all, statistically speaking around 30% of the boxing matches get decided by points. So the judges outside of the ring do play quite a significant role in deciding the outcome inside the ring. It is a good idea to see what kind of judges they are – do they award work-rate over execution, do they get easily influenced by the crowd, or if there is a belt on the line do, they tend to be extremely generous.
Even if you do not want to go that far into research, you should at least check where the match is taking place, because that can influence the outcome seeing how as some judges are known to show favouritism towards home fighters.
When you place boxing bets, it is advisable to look for value rather than short-term gains. Which means that you should calculate the percentage of an outcome by yourself, rather than just accepting the listed odds prices. After all, there may be some inconsistencies, and you are betting your hard earned money, don’t you want to make sure you minimized the risk of losing it?
The History of Boxing
Boxing has not always been the well-respected, global sport it is today. In fact, during the 19th and even early 20th centuries, it was viewed as an illegal and underground sport. Come to think of it, it really is no surprise why boxing has been and continues to be so popular. Fighting is as old as human history, it’s in our genes.
The first documentary proof of fighting as a sport comes around the 3rd century BC, where depictions of men fighting with fists which were wrapped with cloth were found made by the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians.
In the 6th century BC, the Greeks made fist fighting a part of the original Olympic games. That was a result of their belief that their Gods practised this sport as a game so naturally, it became part of their culture. Back then the contestants would wrap their hands in leather as a means to prevent injuries.
The Romans even invented “cestus” – a special battle glove, which was pitted with studs with the sole purpose of causing as much damage as possible. During that time the fighters, which were usually slaves, competed in fights to the death all for the amusement of the Roman emperor and the people.
After that, there are no real records of boxing in history during the end of the Roman empire and the 17th century. This is probably contributed by that fact that later cultures abolished fights to the death as entertainment and besides that new forms of combat became popular, sword fighting and jousting for example.
Fist fighting became somewhat popular again in 1719, when James Figg, the first recorded champion, took the title in Britain. He is even considered to be the father of modern boxing. Figg was actually a man of many talents, besides boxer, he was also a fencer and sword fighter. It was then the word “boxing” was first used to better describe fist fighting.
The first written rules of boxing came to be in 1743 by Jack Broughton, they were known as the Broughton rules. They were meant to protect the fighters from serious injuries. They contained some of the rules we still use today like no hitting below the waist, no hitting when on the ground and the countdown when a player is downed.
After that, the next set of rules came out in 1867, they were written by John Chambers and were known as the Queensburry rules. Nowadays, not much has changed since the introduction of the 12 Queensburry rules.
Final Verdict
Since the faraway days of illegal, underground boxing rings, betting on boxing has changed significantly. When boxing was first acknowledged as a legitimate sport, bets were placed at only two places – at the ringside with official bookmakers or at specially designated betting shops.
Nowadays, all you need in order to do some betting is to have a smartphone, tablet, laptop or some other gadget with internet access and visit one of the many betting sites available. Now, online betting constitutes a huge part of all of the bets placed on boxing. Especially in the UK, where the best boxing betting websites we talked about in this article constantly offer coverage of all fights and amazing value-for-money odds price offerings.
Overall, boxing is, in fact, a simple sport, which many people find enjoyable. The difference between these best websites is quite minimal, so you should definitely make your decision based only on your personal preferences.