The UFC’s Fight Night in Las Vegas turned into a betting controversy when odd wagering patterns around a mid-card bout pushed Dana White to contact fighters, investigators and eventually the FBI, as unusual line movement and a quick finish raised red flags about a potentially fixed outcome.
The card at the UFC Apex was rolling like any other night until bettors and monitors flagged one fight as suspicious, forcing the promotion to act. The bout between Yadier del Valle and Isaac Dulgarian drew sharp attention when money piled up against the expected winner. That attention came from a partnership the UFC relies on to spot odd activity in real time.
“About one o’clock that day — we’re with a company called IC360, and they are the best bet-monitoring company in the business — and they reached out to us and they told us that there was some unusual action going on with that fight,” White told TMZ Sports. The monitor’s alert put the promotion on high alert and set a chain of calls into motion. Dana and his team moved quickly to try to understand what was behind the spike in bets.
White said the UFC phoned the fighter and his lawyer to get answers before the bout. He asked blunt questions, including, ‘Are you injured? Do you owe anybody money?’ and he wanted to know whether anyone had approached the fighter about the match. The initial response from the camp was a flat denial, but the warning signs were loud enough to keep eyes glued to the fight.
White said he let the fight go on but stayed involved, noting that Dulgarian came into the contest as a heavy favorite. “Do we know anything? We didn’t, so what we did was we called the fighter and his lawyer and said, ‘What’s going on? There’s some weird action going on in your [fight]. Are you injured? Do you owe anybody money? Has anybody approached you to, you know,’ and the kid said, ‘No, absolutely not. I’m going to kill this guy.'”
The bout ended abruptly with a quick submission, prompting immediate escalation from White. “The fight plays out, and first-round finish by rear-naked choke. Literally the first thing we did was call the FBI,” White said. The speed and specifics of the outcome matched the odd bet patterns, so federal involvement followed as a precaution.
The fight is available online, and viewers can watch as Dulgarian with his Cuban opponent before eventually tapping to a rear-naked choke with 1:19 left in the first round. The visual replay shows a rapid sequence that, combined with the betting patterns, tightened suspicion for regulators and the promotion. Seeing the outcome unfold on tape only intensified the need for a full review.
IC360’s co-founder Scott Sadin explained why the company flagged the contest in the first place, saying the system looks for “two strange things or more” when monitoring lines. He added there was “significant [betting] line movement, not just on the outright winner of the fight but also when the fight would end in the first round.” “Something that at least warranted further investigation,” Sadin said, and that was enough for UFC officials to dive deeper.
The monitor reported higher-than-expected total handle and an unusual amount of money specifically betting on Dulgarian to lose and on a first-round finish. Those layered indicators — volume, direction and timing of wagers — pointed toward a narrow outcome that bettors seemed to anticipate. When multiple signals line up like that, the possibility of a prearranged result becomes a real concern.
White described his reaction in stark terms, saying he literally moved from the octagon to make calls once the finish happened. “Fight-fixing is absolutely insane,” White said. “… I’m not saying this kid’s guilty. … There’s no proof that he’s done this yet, but I can tell you this … it definitely doesn’t look good.”
“[Dulgarian] and his lawyer denied … everything. … We asked them all the questions,” White added, noting that denial alone won’t stop an investigation. The promotion’s duty is to protect the sport’s integrity, and when bets align with an outcome in a suspicious way, they have to escalate. Calling federal authorities was the step White felt necessary given the stakes.
Former fighter T.J. Laramie told reporters his brother Tony was approached to throw a match overseas, and that the offer was generous compared with standard purses. “My brother actually got approached prior to his fight in Rizin this past weekend to throw the fight, essentially, and they were willing to compensate him minimum three times his fight purse,” T.J. told Blaze News. That anecdote underscores how tempting outside money can be for fighters on smaller cards.
T.J. framed the problem as a structural one: fighters grind for little pay, and the incentive to take a payoff can be substantial in low-profile shows. “We put in so much and get paid very little, so I could see why it would be enticing for certain people. Especially in these smaller shows, where there’s less eyes on it and less on the line in general. I personally wouldn’t do that, but I could certainly see why someone would,” T.J. added. He also warned that insider information can mimic fixing when someone close to a camp knows about an injury that oddsmakers do not.
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“Maybe someone in the camp knows about an injury or something compromising a fighter that no one else would know — and definitely not the oddsmakers,” he said. The sport’s ecosystem now includes heavy betting flows, and that creates more opportunities for manipulation or for insider edges to be exploited. Fighters’ records vary widely; Tony is 11-3 overall while T.J. sits at 16-3 with four straight wins since leaving the UFC.
