Daily Sports Betting Preview 7/15/2020: Serie A Matchups and UFC On ESPN

• In Serie A, Udinese is fighting to stay out of the relegation zone, with +2500 odds to be relegated.
• Udinese face off against Lazio today, who have +2500 odds to win the league, but are only a half-point favorite over Udinese.
• In the UFC, Jimmie Rivera is a -140 favorite over Cody Stamann, in a compelling featherweight match that could go the distance.

LAS VEGAS - Welcome to this Wednesday’s edition of the Daily Sports Betting Preview, where the focus is on the best bets of the day!

Today, the Preview starts out with the Italian Serie A, as Udinese faces off against Lazio in an interesting matchup.

Then, the UFC is hosting an event on ESPN tonight, and the Preview takes a look at some of the odds.

Serie A Betting

Serie A, the Italian top flight soccer league, is all but wrapped up, as Juventus have a six-point lead over their closest competitors.

The league runs through August 2nd this year, which means that teams like Atalanta and Lazio only have a few games to make up the gap.

Let’s start by looking at the odds for each team to win Serie A, as they do inform today’s highlighted match:

Lazio faces off against Udinese today, in a bid to keep their title dreams alive. They are eight points behind Juventus, so they’ll need some luck in order to stay alive as well.

Udinese, meanwhile, are currently fifteenth in Serie A, and, according to the sportsbooks, are as close to the relegation zone than Lazio are to winning the league.

In fact, Udinese have +2500 odds to be relegated, which are the same odds that Lazio has to win the league.

In other words, the match is important to both of these teams to stay alive, although in most cases the result won’t be incredibly impactful for either.

Despite the gap in quality between the two teams, the moneyline does not demonstrate much of a difference. Lazio are favored but +100 odds as one of the top teams in the league against one of the bottom ones is not incredible.

Udinese’s +265 odds are slightly below those of a draw, which has +250 odds.

The spread is similarly uninspiring on Lazio’s end. They’re favored by half a goal, and yet even on that spread, there is shading towards their opponent.

Udinese +0.5 has -125 odds, while Lazio -0.5 has +105 odds. This likely reflects the movement of the line as people wager on it.

This match should be a great one, for fans of the sport and casual soccer bettors alike.

UFC On ESPN Betting

Tonight’s UFC on ESPN card is headlined by a bout between Dan Ige and Calvin Kattar, but some of the best action comes from the rest of the main card.

One fight that has potentially gone overlooked is the fight between Jimmie Rivera and Cody Stamann in the featherweight division.

This is a battle between the 8th and 9th ranked fighters in the division, which means it should be an even, exciting fight.

The odds back up the idea that this fight looks to be a pretty even one. Rivera is a favorite, but not a huge one, at -140, while Stamann is a very slight underdog at +100.

The method of victory betting odds also reflect that this fight looks to be a pretty even one, with chances for excitement.

At the top of the odds boards are both fighters winning by decision. Each of the fighters involved in this fight is by far more likely to win by decision, according to the online sportsbooks, than by any other method.

This makes sense - both fighters have gotten more than 50% of their victories by decision, with 58% of Stamann’s and 73% of Rivera’s victories coming due to the judge’s scorecards.

KO wins come next, followed by submission wins, which indicate that the fight could be one of those fights that goes the distance, so let’s check out those odds to wrap this up.

One thing to note before we do is that, while Rivera is favored in the fight, he’s been less likely than Stamann to win by KO or submission throughout his career.

This is a big reason why the odds for KO and submission are close between the two fighters, with Stamann and Rivera actually having equal odds to win by submission, despite Rivera’s favored status.

The fight is pretty heavily favored to go the distance, and need a decision to separate the two fighters involved.

While -325 odds to go the distance are pretty impressive, the +250 odds on the fight-ending before the final horn sounds is a genuinely interesting bet.

Whatever the various UFC bettors decide to do, the fight should be a compelling one.

Happy betting!