Come again?
Yes, there is no typo in the title. You are officially able to bet on the World Wrestling Entertainment staged wrestling matches. For those of you that have seen the light and know that the WWE is staged, you are probably confused. Don’t worry, we will hold your hand and walk you through this. For the rest of you, we are about to break your hearts.
Pro WWE Wrestling is scripted, and the winners and losers are predetermined. That being said, only a very few select people know the outcome of these events, and they guard that information with their lives. For this reason, several online sportsbooks will allow fans to bet on the outcomes of major WWE events.
Now that we’re all on the same page let’s break this down in detail and LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!!
What is the WWE?
The World Wrestling Entertainment, commonly referred to as the WWE, is a professional wrestling promotion founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt in the early 1950s. Currently the largest wrestling promotion in the world, the promotion puts on over 500 events a year and regularly broadcasts to about 36 million viewers in more than 150 countries. These shows are just that, shows. The matches are all scripted and staged with the winners predetermined before the show even begins.
Don’t worry; you can still bet on the WWE, and there is still skill involved.
The shows center on several recurring characters that rise and fall as champions, depending on what the writers decide to do. Being able to identify these writing patterns and predict where they writers will go next could make you very profitable at betting WWE. We will get into this later when we discuss betting strategies.
Wrestlers typically “win” matches by pinning their opponent to the mat for a count of three from the referee. However, if matches followed this simple storyline, the WWE would not be very entertaining to the fans. For this reason, matches are typically anything but structured or straight forward. Wrestlers are known to cheat (scripted) as well as show up unscheduled to try and win a match they aren’t part of.
The WWE is really a soap opera for men (and women). Expect the unexpected to happen, and you’ve got a leg up on the competition. Regardless of how crazy the events and matches are, the events and full season always culminate with a definitive winner. You’ll never get done watching a match or a season and not be sure if you won or lost your bet.
Why Bet WWE
Surprisingly, there is actually quite a bit of good value and money to be made in WWE betting. Most casinos limit the amount that patrons can bet, so the amount you can win is limited, but for most recreational players, the limits are plenty high. Sportsbooks do this in case information happens to get leaked to the public before the event. They also set these limits for another reason which explains why there is so much value.
Sportsbooks spend a lot of time and money setting their lines properly for their big money games because they stand to win or lose so much more if they are off (football, basketball, baseball, soccer, etc.). Because of this, they choose to spend way less time and resources setting their lines for smaller events like WWE and choose to protect their mistakes by just limiting the amount people can bet. Limiting the size of the bets allowed is proof that the casino is admitting they will probably set bad lines. If you’re able to take advantage of these, you can make some money.
Sometimes this feels like a cheesy benefit to list, but it is the reason for the season. It’s the main reason we should be gambling in the first place and can make sporting events (regardless of “realness”) so much more fun to watch. Imagine if every time you watched Law and Order, you got to bet on who the killer was? The show would be so much more fun! Imagine if every time you watched the Simpsons, you got to bet on how many times Homer would say “Doh!” This is even truer with WWE as it is modeled after actual sporting events, so the entire event is directed at finding a winner.
As we discussed, sportsbooks limit the amount of action they are willing to take on the WWE. Because of this, the amount you are even physically capable of losing is limited. If you’re ever worried about getting too carried away with your bets, you might be interested in checking out a sport that has caps. Actually, if you are truly worried about getting carried away with your bets, you should probably not bet at all. Just enjoy the show for the entertainment that it is.
WWE Betting Strategy
For those of you whose minds we exploded when we said you could bet on WWE, your heads are going to explode again because we are now telling you that there is actual strategy involved that can help you to improve your odds of winning.
At its core, smart and sharp betting is all about analyzing situations and making educated and correct predictions of the outcomes. For example, when you bet football, you look at the past games and try to figure out how everything is going to go down in the next game. You take all the information you have at hand and try and make predictions of what the outcome is going to be.
With WWE, this is exactly the same except you need to adjust what you are looking at. Since the athletes are not actually competing against each other, you shouldn’t be looking at their skills or anything like that.
None of those matters when trying to make a sharp WWE bet. What you need to focus on is the history of the writing decisions and apply those to the current situations.
- What have the writers typically done in past seasons?
- How do they usually treat certain wrestlers?
- What sort of surprises have they used in the past?
Writers are humans. For this reason, they are inherently bound to personal preferences and patterns. As much as you might think each outcome is random, it’s typically not.
Current scientific evidence states that humans are capable of creating random number patterns, but they’re always going to be heavily biased. Extrapolating this to WWE, we can assume that even if the writers are trying their hardest to be random, they will still follow some patterns and biased. This is assuming that the writer’s main goal is to be random, which it is not.
Their main goal is to entertain as they are probably not even aware that people can bet on their production. They just want to produce the most exciting show possible while still staying within the confines of their story line. This is information you can use to help formulate your decisions. You can apply additional weight to outcomes that you think might be exciting and less weight to outcomes that might be boring.
Again, all of this is dependent on the trends of the writers.
Do they tend to pick the more outrageous outcomes early in the season or stick to the likely outcomes early to set up for bigger surprises late in the season? As you can see, there is plenty of data to analyze for the WWE just like in the NFL. The only difference is instead of analyzing the players on the field, you are analyzing the decision maker’s behind the scenes.
Find the patterns and the tendencies of the writers (not the participants), and you’ve cracked the code.
Types of WWE Bets Offered
Typically, WWE bets are rather simple in nature. As it’s not a huge money maker for sportsbooks, they usually offer straightforward bets. These are great for beginners or patrons looking for a simplistic experience. The most common bet offered is the straight bet which is choosing the winner of a match, tournament, or season long championship.
You’ll usually see a long list of wrestlers (and sometimes celebrities) with associated odds of them winning. Some of the most recent WWE competitions had odds for Barrack Obama to win the tournament and he wasn’t even slated to show up. If there is any speculation that something might happen, you can usually get some sort of odds on it. For those curious, Obama was 1000 to 1 and did not show up at all. All you have to do is pick who you think is going to win and sit back and enjoy the show.
Some online sportsbooks will also offer basic prop bets for players to bet on. Here are a few of the more popular prop bets that we have seen offered. This is not a complete list as there are specific situations that may be offered only once and never again (based on the script).
First-time winner is a prop bet that pays if the winner of the event has never won before. This can be a fun bet to place a small wager on as it is usually unlikely but allows you to cheer for a lot of different wrestlers at once.
Longest ring time is a bet on which wrestler will spend the longest time in the ring during an event. This is another fun one to bet but can be spoiled pretty quickly if your wrestler meets their fate quickly.
First to appear is a prop bet that allows you to bet which wrestler will make an appearance on the show first. This has nothing to do with them winning or losing, but simply who shows up first.
Appearance bets are prop bets centered around if a certain person or type of person will show up at the event. This can include female contestants, UFC fighters, retired wrestlers, or politicians. For example, you might be able to bet if you think any female contestants will compete in the Royal Rumble. If a female competes, you win!
Bout Outcome bets are prop bets where you wager on how the events will end. Instead of betting on who will win, you are betting on how anyone will win. For example, you might bet that all three undercard matches end via disqualification. If all three end in DQ, you’re a winner.
Most Elimination bets are prop bets that are typically only offered during the multi-person bouts (like the Royal Rumble). You will be wagering on which wrestler will eliminate the most other contestants. This does not have to be the outright winner of the event, but just the most eliminations.
Popular Events
Year round, there are three main WWE TV shows that run regularly. These include Monday Night Raw, SmackDown, and NXT.
Monday Night Raw, commonly referred to as Raw, is a WWE professional wrestling program the airs live on Monday nights at 8 p.m. on the USA Network in the United States. Debuting in 1993, Raw is commonly known as the flagship program and brand of WWE. Since its creation, Raw has been broadcast live from 208 arenas in 171 different cities in 11 different countries.
There are currently five different championships that are exclusive to the Raw brand.
- WWE Universal Champion
- WWE United States Champion
- WWE Raw Women’s Champion
- WWE Cruiserweight Champion
- WWE Raw Tag Team Champion
WWE SmackDown, commonly referred to as SmackDown Live or SmackDown, is a WWE professional wrestling program that airs live on Tuesday nights on the USA network in the United States. Debuting in 1999, SmackDown acts as a complementary program to the flagship Monday Night Raw. SmackDown has been broadcast from 162 different arenas, in 147 different cities, in seven different countries.
There are currently four different championships that are exclusive to the SmackDown brand.
- WWE Champion
- WWE Intercontinental Champion
- WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion
- WWE SmadkDown Tag Team Champion
WWE NXT, commonly referred to as NXT, is one of the supporting brands for the WWE that serves as a developmental division. Basically, this is like the minor leagues of professional wrestling and the WWE. Though it’s technically the lowest of the three divisions, there are still plenty of fans, and you can usually get action on it as well.
There are currently four different championships that are exclusive to the NXT brand.
- NXT Champion
- NXT Women’s Champion
- NXT Tag Team Champion
- WWE United Kingdom Champion
Learning the Lingo
With just about any sport you can expect there to be special lingo and phrases commonly used. If you’re a serious fan of a sport and have been watching it for years, this lingo is probably second nature to you. You probably use it on a daily basis. However, if you are brand new to a sport, the sport can seem much more confusing than it actually is because the announcers and participants sound like they are speaking a different language.
If you’re going to be betting on the WWE, then you need to be up to speed on all of the lingoes so you can fully enjoy the experience. We’ve put together a list of some of the more popular words and phrases used that might be important to understanding what you’re betting on.
This is not a complete list of the terminology used, but just a few highlights of the most common to get you started in the right direction. Picking up the rest will come easily the more you watch the events.
| Terminology |
What it Means |
| Babyface |
This is the good guy or the hero of the story. Typically, this will be a fan favorite who is well liked and plays by the rules. |
| Buried |
This is when a wrestler will constantly be losing matches and start to be added into storylines in a negative manner. While this is, of course, all scripted, it can happen as a result of the wrestler angering management or other wrestlers in real life. Keeping up to speed on the relationships between wrestlers and management (in reality) can be important to identify wrestlers who may be poised to fall and thus will become bad bets to win. |
| Blowoff |
This is the last match of a feud between two wrestlers. There will usually be an added stipulation to ensure that the wrestlers go their separate ways after the match. |
| Clean Finish |
This is when a match is settled without any type of cheating, interference, disqualification, or shenanigans. These matches typically end in a pin or submission that is uninterrupted. |
| Dirty Finish |
This is when a match ends by some sort of cheating, interference, disqualification, or shenanigans. These are fairly common in the WWE and are used a lot to spice up the action. |
| Heat |
This refers to when a wrestler is disliked or booed by the crowd. It can also be used to refer to the issues between two wrestlers inside or outside of the ring. |
| In-Ring Psychology |
This refers to the structuring of the match and storyline so that everything flows smoothly and without major jumps. This is important to remember when developing your betting strategy as the writers pay a lot of attention to this. There will be many surprises in every wrestling match, but everything will always be believable and fit into a smooth story line. If you are picking a winner that can’t fit into a storyline smoothly, it’s probably a bad pick. |
| Jobber |
This is a wrestler who always loses and is used to build up his opponent’s resume. Identifying these wrestlers is important when betting so that you can make sure to never bet on them. |
| Push |
This is the opposite of being buried. This is when a wrestler begins winning a lot of matches in a row and is being pushed into positive story lines aggressively. Again, this can happen because it fits into a more entertaining storyline or as a result of a positive relationship between the wrestler and management (in reality). Identifying the wrestlers who are getting the push can help to pick some easy winners and make some quick cash at the sportsbook. |
This is the opposite of being buried. This is when a wrestler begins winning a lot of matches in a row and is being pushed into positive story lines aggressively. Again, this can happen because it fits into a more entertaining storyline or as a result of a positive relationship between the wrestler and management (in reality). Identifying the wrestlers who are getting the push can help to pick some easy winners and make some quick cash at the sportsbook.
If you’re looking to become fluent in WWE speak, here is a link to a complete list of professional wrestling terms. Some of these terms are rarely used, but all of them have been used at some point in professional wrestling.
Recommended Sites
As you can imagine, not every sportsbook is trendy enough to offer WWE betting to its customers. You also may be able to find sites offering this kind of wagering, but you might not be sure if they are trustworthy.
For this reason, we researched and found the trusted sites that are offering WWE wagering on a consistent basis. Most of these sites will allow you to bet the season-long winner as well as individual winners of the weekly competitions and prop bets. Many of these sites also offer significant bonuses to new players so make sure to look into those. We’ve highlighted those below as well for you.
Pick the site that looks like the best fit for you and get started betting WWE today! There’s money to be made in the ring, and you don’t even have to leave your couch.
Frequently Asked Questions | WWE Betting
Isn’t the WWE fake? How can you bet on it?
Yes, the WWE is staged entertainment. The winners and losers of matches are selected and scripted long before the matches actually take place. However, only a select few individuals are privy to this information and protect it from public eyes. Because the outcome is unknown to the masses, some gambling sites will allow patrons to bet on the outcome of these matches.
Is there any skill to betting WWE or is it just guessing?
Surprisingly, there can actually be some skill applied to betting on the WWE. Sports betting is all about reading the current data you have and making a correct prediction on the outcome of an event. If the outcome of WWE matches were completely random, there could be no skill to choosing a winner. However, the outcomes are not completely random. They are selected by a team of writers who are prone to following patterns to develop the most entertaining television experience they can. They have goals and confines they must stay within which makes for predictable decisions if you can analyze the information properly.
The difference with betting on WWE versus unscripted sports competitions is that instead of looking into the actual contenders competing, you should look at the history of the writers and what tendencies they have and use in their story lines. If you can identify these tendencies and predict what they will script next, you will be a winner at WWE betting.
What kind of bets are offered?
Typically, online sportsbooks will offer very simple bets with caps on the amount of action they will take from each player. These bets are almost always the winners of specific matches or championships. Some sportsbooks will offer prop bets to players. You won’t see more complex betting options as the main goal of WWE betting is entertainment. The sportsbook will cap the amount that any player is allowed to bet on a match or season as they want to protect themselves in case information is leaked or in case they have set a bad line.
Is there really value in betting WWE?
Anytime that a sportsbook offers betting on a less popular sport, there will be a higher probability of incorrect and more favorable lines being set. The sportsbooks spend most of their time focusing on their bigger sports where they take big action. They usually offer these smaller sports just for entertainment value and to get new bettors through the door. Because of this, they don’t spend much time on their lines for these matches. Even if their lines are set correctly, they will often not be updated quickly or at all if something changes throughout the week. If you’re able to locate these bad lines, you can definitely make an easy profit betting WWE.
Why do sportsbooks limit the amount of action they will take from a player?
This is the sportsbook’s way of protecting themselves from bad lines or leaked information. As the results of matches are already determined, it is possible for the winner’s name to be leaked. In football, there is no chance of the winning team being leaked as the game hasn’t been played when bets are taken. As this is not the case with WWE, the sportsbooks must take precautions to protect themselves in case information is revealed.
The sportsbooks also don’t spend as much time or resources setting and updating their betting lines for WWE. Because of this, it’s possible that there will often be bad lines that are way too favorable for the players. Instead of spending the additional money and resources to stay on top of this, the sportsbooks elect just to limit the amount of action they are willing to take and accept the small losses. Their small losses can be your good sized gains.
Do I have to bet a lot of money to get started?
Of course not. Most sites will allow you to bet as low as $5 (sometimes lower) on different sports. You are more than welcome to bet only a few bucks on each match for a little added fun and excitement. If you think you see a good opportunity to take advantage of a bad line, go for it. You are not obligated ever to bet more if you don’t want to. A lot of players only bet a few dollars on each match for the added excitement.
MENU
