UFC fighter claims to win over $5 million with Freedom 250 bet
UFC Lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan apparently made a lot of money at this weekend’s UFC White House event, and he wasn’t even on the card. Tsarukyan claims that he put a bet of $1 Million on Justin Gaethje to beat Ilia Topuria to win in the main event, and if he really did, then it came off in a big way.
The main event between Topuria and Gaethje to crown the undisputed UFC Lightweight Champion ended between rounds 4 and 5 when Topuria was unable to continue. Tsarukyan claimed on a livestream that he had bet $1 million on the fight, meaning that the payout would have been $5.7 million when Gaethje was officially declared the winner.
Can UFC fighters bet on fights?
We are reporting that he “claimed” this as in October 2022, the UFC updated its UFC Athlete Conduct Policy to completely ban all fighters and their teams from wagering on any UFC-promoted event. Prior to this, fighters were permitted to bet on fights as long as they were not betting against themselves.
UFC President Dana White reportedly claimed that Tsarukyan himself DIDN’T actually place the bet. Speaking on the Full Send podcast (via Bloody Elbow), White reportedly claimed that “it is one of his [Arman’s] buddies that bet. One of his buddies bet $1 million on Gaethje.”
Again we can’t actually confirm if Arman did place the bet, but by all accounts, he seems to be indicating that he did in fact put a million dollars on the White House main event, especially based on the tweet and video below:
Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator for NationalWorld. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012. His work has also been featured on Wrestling Headlines, Wrestlingnewsco, HotNewHipHop, The Hard Times and Sportskeeda.
Previously, he worked as the Editor in Chief of 24Wrestling, building the site profile with a view to selling the domain, which was accomplished in 2019. Jake was previously the Editor in Chief for FightFans, a combat sports and pro wrestling site that was launched in January 2021 and broke into millions of pageviews within the first two years. He previously worked for Snack Media and their GiveMeSport site, creating Evergreen and Trending content that would deliver pageviews via Google as the UFC and MMA SEO Lead. Jake managed to take an area of GiveMeSport that had zero traction on Organic and push it to audiences across the globe. Jake also has a record of long-term video and written interview content with the likes of the Professional Fighters League, ONE and Cage Warriors, working directly with the brands to promote bouts, fighters and special events.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling, as PR Head and Head of Media across the social channels of the company.