// UFC 331 · Sat, Sep 19 · Los Angeles
UFC 331 odds:
how to read Van vs Pantoja 2.
Crypto.com UFC 331: Van vs Pantoja 2 is on Saturday, September 19, 2026 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, streaming on Paramount+ in the United States. Early prelims start at 5:30 PM ET / 2:30 PM PT, prelims at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT, and the main card at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT.
This page is educational only. It explains how to turn the prices on this card into probabilities, how to remove the sportsbook's margin, and what a very short favorite price is actually claiming. There are no picks, no predictions and no recommendations here.
- UFC 331 is Saturday, September 19, 2026 at Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles. Main card 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT.
- Van vs Pantoja is a moneyline market — convert the price to a probability before anything else.
- The no-vig price removes the sportsbook's margin and shows what the market actually thinks.
- Huge favorites can be likely and still expensive. A −1800 price claims roughly 95%.
The card
Prices below are read live from the feed when the page loads. They move constantly — a fight card three days out can reprice several times a day, and anything quoted in the written sections further down is a snapshot from when this page was written.
“Fair” is the two-way market with the sportsbook's margin removed, so the two sides sum to 100% instead of more. It is what the market thinks, rather than what you are charged to bet it.
Reading a moneyline
An MMA moneyline is a price on one fighter winning the bout by any method — knockout, submission or decision. There is no spread to cover and no total to clear. One fighter wins, one loses, or very occasionally it is a draw.
The sign tells you the direction and the number is always relative to 100.
- Negative (−135) — you risk 135 to win 100.
- Positive (+114) — you win 114 on a risk of 100.
Converting to a percentage is the useful step, because it turns a price into a claim you can argue with. For a negative price, divide the number by itself plus 100. For a positive price, divide 100 by the number plus 100.
When this page was written the main event was Van −135 and Pantoja +114. That converts to 57.4% and 46.7% — the share of the time each outcome has to happen for that price to break even. Check the table above for the current number.
Stripping the vig from Van vs Pantoja
Those two percentages add up to 104.2%, not 100%. That cannot be a real probability distribution — the extra 4.2 points is the sportsbook's margin, and it is inside the number before you ever see it.
Removing it is one step: divide each side by the total of both.
| Posted | Implied | Fair | Fair price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Van | −135 | 57.4% | 55.1% | −123 |
| Pantoja | +114 | 46.7% | 44.9% | +123 |
| Total | 104.2% | 100% |
Snapshot from September 16, 2026. The live figures are in the table at the top of this page.
−123 / +123 is what the market thinks. −135 / +114 is what you are charged to act on it. The difference between those two pairs is the cost of the transaction, and it is the same arithmetic on every two-way market in every sport. Work it yourself here.
A heavy favorite: Tsarukyan vs Ruffy
The five-round lightweight co-main event was priced far shorter. At the time of writing the market was Tsarukyan −325 and Ruffy +260.
| Posted | Implied | Fair | Fair price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tsarukyan | −325 | 76.5% | 73.4% | −275 |
| Ruffy | +260 | 27.8% | 26.6% | +275 |
| Total | 104.2% | 100% |
Snapshot from September 16, 2026.
So a −325 price is a claim that this fighter wins roughly three times in four. That is the question the number is asking, and it is a more demanding claim than “is he better.” He may well be better and still not win 73% of the time in a single five-round fight.
Notice also that the margin is the same 4.2 points as the main event, but it is distributed differently. On a short price, a few points of margin move the fair number a long way: −325 becomes −275, a gap of fifty points of price.
An extreme favorite: Steveson vs Sharaf
Further down the card the prices get much shorter still. At the time of writing this bout was Steveson −1800 and Sharaf +1000.
| Posted | Implied | Fair | Fair price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steveson | −1800 | 94.7% | 91.2% | −1042 |
| Sharaf | +1000 | 9.1% | 8.8% | +1042 |
| Total | 103.8% | 100% |
Snapshot from September 16, 2026.
This is the clearest illustration of why converting matters. The posted −1800 implies 94.7%. Strip the margin and the market's own estimate is 91.2% — a fair price near −1042.
Put differently: the posted price charges you as though the outcome is a 19-in-20 certainty, while the market's actual opinion is closer to 9-in-10. That 3.5-point gap is small as a percentage and enormous as a price, which is the general property of extreme favorites.
This is not a suggestion to back either fighter, and it is not a claim that the market is wrong. Both sides of this bout are shown for the same reason: to demonstrate what the arithmetic does at the extremes. Educational only.
Why MMA moneylines move so much
Fight prices are among the most volatile in any sport, and they move for reasons that have no analogue in team markets.
- Five rounds, or three. A championship or main event fight is five rounds; the rest of the card is three. More rounds means more chances for the better fighter to assert an edge, which is why the same two fighters would be priced differently over three rounds and five.
- Finishing risk runs both ways. One clean shot or one submission ends the bout regardless of who was winning. That compresses how confident any price can reasonably be, even against a large skill gap.
- Judging. A fight that goes the distance is decided by three people scoring rounds. Close rounds are genuinely close, and scorecards introduce variance the fighters do not control.
- Weight cuts. A missed weight or a visibly hard cut changes a price quickly, and that news often arrives the day before the fight.
- Late news and withdrawals. Cards change. A bout can be pulled or replaced at short notice, and a short-notice replacement is priced with far less information than a full camp.
- Thinner markets. Betting limits on an undercard bout are much lower than on an NFL game, so a smaller amount of money moves the number further.
The practical consequence is the one stated at the top of this page: any price written into prose goes stale quickly. The table at the top is read live from the feed; every figure in the sections above is labeled with the date it was taken.
Use the tools
Three calculators cover everything on this page. None of them tells you what to bet.
- Odds converter — turn any single price into an implied probability.
- No-vig calculator — enter both fighters' prices and strip the margin out, exactly as done above.
- Betting math glossary — moneyline, implied probability, vig, overround and the rest, defined plainly.
Elsewhere on the site: the UFC archive keeps closing prices from finished cards as a record of where markets ended, and today's board shows everything currently priced across sports.
Get the Morning Board and the No-Vig Cheat Sheet
One page, free: how to strip the vig out of any two-way market, what every common price really costs you, the key numbers, and how to read a line move in four cases.
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Common questions
What time does UFC 331 start?
The early prelims begin at 5:30 PM ET / 2:30 PM PT, the prelims follow at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT, and the main card starts at 9 PM ET / 6 PM PT on Saturday, September 19, 2026. The event is at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles and streams on Paramount+ in the United States.
Who is fighting in the UFC 331 main event?
Joshua Van defends the flyweight title against Alexandre Pantoja in a five-round rematch. Van won the title from Pantoja at UFC 323 in December 2025. The five-round lightweight co-main event is Arman Tsarukyan against Mauricio Ruffy.
What do UFC moneyline odds mean?
A moneyline is a price on one fighter winning the bout by any method. A negative number is the amount you risk to win 100, and a positive number is the amount you win on a risk of 100. Converting that price into a percentage tells you how often the outcome has to happen for the price to break even.
What is the no-vig price for Van vs Pantoja?
It depends on the posted price when you look, because the market moves. When this page was written the market was Van -135 and Pantoja +114, which implies 57.4% and 46.7%. Those sum to 104.2%, so dividing each by the total gives about 55.1% and 44.9%, which converts back to fair prices near -123 and +123. The table on this page recalculates it from the current price.
Why are UFC favorites sometimes so expensive?
Because a single fight has no series to average out a skill or experience gap, so the market can price one fighter very high. A price of -1800 implies about 94.7%. Removing the sportsbook's margin lowers that figure, and the gap between the posted price and the fair price is what the favorite costs you.
Should I bet UFC 331 favorites?
This page does not answer that and makes no recommendations. It is educational only. What it shows is how to turn a posted price into a probability and how to remove the sportsbook's margin, so you can compare the market's number against your own view before deciding anything.