Ronda Rousey’s shock defeat to Holly Holm At UFC 193 crushes sports book bettors

The main event for UFC 193 was the Ronda ‘Rowdy’ Rousey vs. Holly ‘The Preacher’s Daughter’ Holm match in Melbourne, Australia on 15^th of November. Rousey, the defending and reigning bantam weight women’s champion had an undefeated streak in the UFC and had a remarkable feat of defeating her last 6 opponents during the first round.

Rousey was the crowd favorite as well as the bookies with odds being recorded at lower than a minus-1,000 favorite while Holm was being booked at plus-650. These odds kept changing as the match got closer with Rousey going up to minus-1,500 while Holm went to plus – 1250. For fans that follow the UFC, there were never any doubts that the champion would leave the octagon undefeated and the question was mainly whether she would be able to do defeat Holm before the first round.

Holly Holm changed all of that on Sunday when she proved that she could go toe to toe with Rousey, avoid her trademark armbar and draw first blood. The first round went to Holly and left the champion in a state of shock as both fans and sportsbetters realized that Holly was not only able to keep up with the champ but looked like she could pull off a major upset.

A minute into the second round, Rousey found herself on the mat after a roundhouse kick caught her at the back of her neck and two punches to the face caused the referee to jump in and stop the fight. Holly Holm not only defeated Ronda Rousey but also the odds that defied her and in the process sent sports betting sites into a frenzy. Jay Kornegay, the sports book director of Westgate sports said that a number of bets ranging from $2,000 to $20,000 for Rousey to win came in before he finally closed on Holm at plus -800.

In a statement, Kornegay said  “We took four limit bets on Rousey about 20 minutes before the first bell. I wasn’t feeling that comfortable accepting them at the time, but it worked out for us. We broke even on the fight. The results around town were not good. Most books got crushed, as typical underdog betting was popular. The low-risk, high-reward scenario was appealing, as usual.”

Rousey was taken to the hospital to see if she suffered any injuries to the head and also to get her lip stitched. There have already been talks of a re-match and sports book analysts believe that if the match was to be sanctioned then Rousey should have odds of minus-250 and once again be the favorite.