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UFC costs sportsbook nearly $1M
Updated: February 23, 2015, 2:50 PM ET
By
Darren Rovell | ESPN.com
Mir Stops Bigfoot, Ends Four-Fight Skid
Frank Mir beat Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva by first-round TKO at UFC Fight Night 61 in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to capture his first win since 2011.
Tags: Frank Mir,
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A remarkable number of upsets at UFC Fight Night 61 resulted in a historic beating for the sportsbook Bovada.LV.
Frank Mir's victory over
Antonio Silva in the main event in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on Sunday night marked the 10th win by an underdog, costing Bovada nearly $1 million, according to the sportsbook's manager.
Underdogs went 10-1, and as a result, parlay bets, in which gamblers bet between $1 and $5 on all underdogs, hit big.
According to Bovada sportsbook manager Kevin Bradley, one bettor had a $4 all-underdog parlay that paid $85,000. Another had four $1 parlays that paid $25,000 each.
"We had at least a dozen of these bets that paid out $10,000 or more," Bradley said.
When all was tallied up, Bradley said the loss approached nearly $1 million on the single event.
"We take in so much more money on the NFL or the NBA that when you have these types of parlay winners, it's hard to hurt [our business]," Bradley said. "With UFC, this will be hard to come back from."
"Normally, going into an event, I know what we need," Bradley added. "But I was focused on the Oscars and the Daytona 500, both of which we were ... doing well on. What happened with UFC is just so rare."
Bradley said the result was such a loser for the sportsbook that Bovada will likely need to win big in the Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao fight on May 2 to make its UFC/boxing book a profitable one in 2015.
"We're not getting this money back from the people that won," Bradley said. "The type of bettor that wins these bets throws a small amount of money on all the favorites or all the underdogs to try to get rich. Well, I guess it worked."
