Breaking down boxing trading at #boscon2017

After discussing boxing on a panel at the Betting on Sports 2017 conference, head of sports at Scandinavian betting systems provider, BettingCloud, Endre Nesset broke down the intricacies of trading boxing.

Endre said: “For us as a modelling company, it comes down to the models we have, so with boxing, essentially you have to calculate the chances of a fighter winning in each round, based on criteria like style, form and fatigue. A good model is our foundation, obviously you need to input the right things but for us the model is key.”

He then went onto reveal some of the lesser known factors in pricing a fight: “The weigh in can be a big factor as you can see how much a fighter has been forced to cut, the best example for that is the McGregor and Mayweather fight, at the weigh in they were the same weight, but on the night of the fight McGregor was probably ten kilograms heavier than his opponent.

“Another thing we have to take into account is the judges, this is a big deal, because certain judges prefer certain types of boxers. So if you know that two of the three judges rather a powerful style compared to a more technical style, the likelihood of the power fighter winning a decision increases.

“This is why I think match fixing and home advantage aren’t true in boxing, it’s one of the most clean sports in the world. But, sometimes it just comes down to differences of how judges rate different styles” Endre added.

Endre went onto describe the differences between trading MMA and boxing: “if you look at MMA at the same time you have to take into account more factors, but it’s also more predictable because they come from different martial arts, which have strengths and weaknesses against other martial arts, it makes it easier to know about fighter’s strengths and weaknesses, whereas with boxing, it comes down to form.

“On the other hand, if you look at MMA at the same time you have to take into account more factors, but it’s also more predictable because they come from different martial arts, which have strengths and weaknesses against other martial arts, it makes it easier to know about fighter’s strengths and weaknesses, whereas with boxing, it comes down to form.

Evaluating the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, Endre said: “The market is never wrong in a sense, but we priced it up ourselves and we strongly disagreed with the market in this case, because we felt that the market was overrating McGregor a lot.

“You had one of the greatest boxers of all time, boxing against a guy that doesn’t really do boxing, it is two different sports, for us it was an incredible mismatch, the only x-factor that you can’t really count for is whether there was some planned play, especially the rumours about them setting up a second fight, these little things are the super tricky part of trading.”