Following the money: UFC 328 betting line movements tracker | Khamzat vs. Strickland

The “Prelims” are headlined by Ateba Gautier vs. Ozzy Diaz. There’s also Jim Miller vs. Jared Gordon and Joel Alvarez vs. Yaroslav Amosov.

I’ve been watching the lines (see them here) for all the fights on UFC 328 and tracking the changes to see which fighters the betting public are siding with. Below, you’ll find all the line movement info since the odds were released (per Best Fight Odds).

UFC 328 PPV Main Card Line Movement Tracker

Khamzat Chimaev (-571 -7.1%) vs. Sean Strickland (+426 +25.2%)

The movement on this line has been rather predictable. That’s thanks to there being no Polymarket line for it on Best Fight Odds (I’ll get into this later).

Chimaev opened as the -400 favorite and quickly received a lot of action. That drove him up to a -513 favorite and he has slowly continued to trend in that direction.

Strickland opened at +300.

This is Chimaev’s biggest opening line since he fought Kevin Holland in 2022. He opened at -1000 there and was bet down to -549. Against Dricus du Plessis, he opened at -225 and closed at just a little shorter than that. That sounds absurd given how one-sided that fight ended up being.

Chimaev opened at -195 for Whittaker and, again, only got lukewarm public support. He opened as an actual underdog against Kamaru Usman, with a +170 line. But, the public supported him there and had him close as the favorite.

This is the second time Strickland has opened at +300. That’s what he was when he fought Israel Adesanya. He actually closed at higher odds than he is on pace to close now, too. So, if you think lightning might strike twice, that should be good news for you.

Strickland has actually been the underdog in his last two fights, a win over Anthony Hernandez and a loss to du Plessis.

Joshua Van (+137 +2.1%) vs. Tatsuro Taira (-163 -3.5%)

Things are getting weird. Best Fight Odds included Polymakert odds on this average and, as a result, the line movement looks like a row of shark teeth. Taira opened at -150 (on average) and that average went to -180 almost immediately. Then he and Van’s lines are bouncing up and down until they land at close to where they started.

The inclusion of Polymarket odds on Best Fight Odds are making things harder for someone who is trying to infer meaning from the line movement shown there. Polymarket is a crypto based trading space and the odds made there aren’t generated by the professional oddsmakers at big betting sites and casinos. This might be leading to odds being thrown out that are very far from what we see at a Betway or a FanDuel. Right now Van’s line is +150 on Polymarket and around +140 on those other two I mentioned. I’m going to talk about this more further down in this article, where the lines really go bananas.

This fight is a rare instance of a champion being the underdog to the challenger in their first ever title defense. Van was the underdog against Alexandre Pantoja, too. We don’t know what would have happened in that fight, though, since it was called off so early due to injury.

It’s taken some time for fans to come around to Van. He was faded before his wins over Rei Tsuruya and Cody Durden.

Taira was the underdog in his last fight; his win over Brandon Moreno. He’s mostly been a big favorite in his UFC career, though. With public bets shortening his odds, not lengthening them.

Alexander Volkov (-154 +6.4%) vs. Waldo Cortes-Acosta (+128 -15%)

Volkov opened as the -185 favorite in this fight. Cortes-Acosta opened at +160. As you can see, there’s been some narrowing of those lines with a good section of the public thinking Cortes-Acosta can continue his amazing run from 2025.

Volvkov was the underdog in his last three fights, against Jailton Almeida, Ciryl Gane and Sergei Pavlovich. He won all those fights, technically. He was, of course, robbed by the judges in that Gane fight.

Cortes-Acosta was a big favorite when he fought Derrick Lewis in January. That ended up making a lot of sense. The public were with him in 2025, backing him in his wins over Shamil Gaziev and Ante Delija.

Sean Brady (-161 +17.6%) vs. Joaquin Buckley (+135 -50.9%)

Brady opened at -300, while Buckley opened at +250. Then all hell broke loose. Differing lines and potential public betting has brought this fight much closer with Brady now just a -161 favorite. That’s great news if you think he’s going to be able to expose Buckley’s poor takedown defense.

The last time we saw Buckley he was a -200 favorite to beat Usman. But, that takedown defense proved everyone who bet on him wrong.

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King Green (-393 -19.9%) vs. Jeremy Stephens (+299 +32.5%)

Green opened at -200, while Stephens opened at +170. There’s been a lot of action on Green and that’s made him a much bigger favorite in this fight.

You can expect that trend to continue, with Stephens missing weight by four pounds.

UFC 328 Late ‘Prelims’ Under Card Odds

Ateba Gautier (-1390 -3.2%) vs. Ozzy Diaz (+806 +16.4%)

Gautier is our biggest favorite on the card. He opened at a whopping -1000. Poor Diaz opened at +675.

This is pretty common for “Mini Ngannou.” He was -900 when he fought Andrey Pulyaev (who gave him a lot of trouble) and -1100 before he walked through Treston Vines.

Joel Alvarez (+154 +40.2%) vs. Yaroslav Amosov (-184 -75.6%)

Joel Alvarez opened at -200 and Yaroslav Amosov opened at +170. This is one of the biggest reversals I have seen since I started doing this in 2024 (the biggest one is further down the card). We have a flip and a mighty one at that. Amosov, in his second UFC fight, is now the -184 favorite and Alvarez (who looked like a dark horse title contender at Lightweight) is now +154.

I think Polymarket has played a significant role in this line movement. It might be the case that Polymarket’s odds, which are made in isolation, are forcing the other oddsmakers to follow suit. So, is this movement a result of public money or just competition between markets? I don’t know.

Grant Dawson (-171 -20.7%) vs. Mateusz Rebecki (+144 +20.5%)

This was a pure pick ‘em when they opened with both men at -110. As you can see, though, there’s more people out there (or odds markets) that believe Dawson deserves to be the favorite.

UFC 328 Early ‘Prelims’

Jim Miller (+245 +9.6%) vs. Jared Gordon (-311 -6%)

There’s not much change in this line. It seems there is a consensus that the veteran Jared Gordon deserves to be the favorite over the uber veteran, Jim Miller.

Roman Kopylov (+155 +43.1%) vs. Marco Tulio (-183 -89.3%)

Here’s the biggest line movement I’ve ever seen.

Roman Kopylov opened at -225, while Marco Tulio was +190. Look, though! Tulio has almost had a 100 percent inversion of his odds. That’s crazy. I’m making some claims about what might be behind this, but I don’t know for sure. The only thing I’m super certain about is that the lines weren’t this volatile before Polymarket was included in Best Fight Odds’ averages.

Pat Sabatini (-224 +5.1%) vs. William Gomis (+179 -18.3%)

Pat Sabatini opened at -270 and William Gomis opened at +230. Seems there’s some action on Gomis, though. Is this French bettors feeling nationalistic?

Baisangur Susurkaev (-665 -5.9%) vs. Djorden Santos (+502 +22.1%)

Baisangur Susurkaev was the big favorite in this fight. That’s been the case in all his UFC bouts so far. And the public like that. Djorden Santos, as a result, has gone from +375 to +502.

Clayton Carpenter (+150 -4.4%) vs. Jose Ochoa (-180 +0.4%)

There’s not much change between how these lines opened and where they are right now. There was a lot of bouncing up and down in the interim, though.

UFC 328 Biggest Line Movements

TLDR: Here are the biggest line movements at UFC 328:

• Marco Tulio: From +190 underdog to a -186 favorite (-89.3%) (B)
• Yaroslav Amosov: From +170 underdog to a-184 favorite (-75.6%) (B)
• Joaquin Buckley: From +250 underdog to +144 underdog (-50.9%) (C)
• Roman Kopylov: From -225 favorite to a +155 underdog (+43.1%) (D)
• Jeremy Stephens: From +170 underdog to a +302 underdog (+32.5%) (A)

Since I’ve been tracking line movements on UFC PPVs, a few early trends have started to develop.

A: Fighters who opened with plus odds and whose odds have then lengthened are 9-51.

B: Fighters who opened with plus odds and whose odds have then shortened, enough to give them minus odds, are 16-12.

C: Fighters who opened with plus odds and whose odds have then shortened, yet they remain at plus odds, are 6-13.

D: Fighters who opened with minus odds and whose odds have lengthened, enough to give them plus odds, are 6-5.

E: Fighters who opened with minus odds and whose odds have shortened are 5-4.

F: Fighters who opened with minus odds and whose odds have lengthened, though they remain at minus odds are 2-0.

UFC 328 Best Underdogs Bets

I’m fading these crazy line moves this week. I liked Alvarez to beat Amosov and Kopylov to beat Tulio before I saw the odds. Traditional oddsmakers also liked those fighters in those match-ups. Both are now underdogs because of what’s going on at Polymarket.

Enough about me, though. What do you think? Tell me your favorite dogs on this card.

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