How Seth Rollins' & Dean Ambrose's Title Wins Settled Bets Last Weekend

With both Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship this past Sunday, a handful of special bets that had been in-running since the springtime have now been settled. In this post, I'll go through the specials one-by-one and note how the odds were early on and at other points during the months that followed.

Next Champion After Roman Reigns

The Next Champion After Roman Reigns market was set up where customers could bet on the wrestler they thought would end Roman's reign.

I first wrote about it on Wednesday April 6th. At that time, Seth Rollins was priced as a 5/1 second-favourite. I liked the price on him and felt that he deserved another run with the title. The bettors appeared to be in agreement as, by May 30th, his price had plummeted to 2/5. This drop in price did coincide with the return of Rollins and his placement into a program against Reigns.

By June, the odds for Rollins had improved slightly. Dean Ambrose's number that lowered from 10/1 to 6/1 between June 12th and 18th. Once again, there is a reason behind the move and it's due to the fact that, on June 17th, it was clear from the off-shore betting odds that Dean Ambrose was booked to win the Money in the Bank contract.

Here's how the top part of the market moved from April to the weekend of Money in the Bank with particular interest in the odds for both Rollins and Ambrose as they were the ones to watch.

Next Champion After Roman Reigns Betting (Click Image To Expand)

The gamblers who took Seth Rollins at 5s early on were the real winners here.

To Win The Championship On The Road To WrestleMania 33

The sportsbooks had also put out a market where customers could bet 'Yes' or 'No' on certain wrestlers winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship at any point from the moment the bet was placed right up to the close of next year's WrestleMania. I covered this in another post published on April 8th and noted that I liked the chances of Seth Rollins winning, but the 1/5 odds didn't appeal to me. For what it's worth, Rollins not winning the title at any point between April 8th 2016 and WrestleMania 33 was 3/1.

I did not comment at all on the Dean Ambrose price in this market. The 'Yes' was 2/1 and the 'No' was 1/3.

Rollins and Ambrose both winning now means the market has had two 'Yes' covers so far.

Championship Matchbets

Another WWE World Heavyweight Championship market was set up where the bookmakers published matchbets where the proposition was to bet on which of two wrestlers won the title first. An option for 'Neither win the title' before the close of WrestleMania was also in the running.

A handful of props were published, but the ones that matter right now are the following head-to-heads:

- Seth Rollins and John Cena
- Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar
- Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar

Rollins .vs. Cena
The Seth Rollins .vs. John Cena matchbet market opened with Rollins a 1/2 favourite, Cena was 13/10 and the 'Neither' was 6/1.  In the post published on April 9th, I wrote, regarding this particular matchbet, 'I think Rollins has a better chance of getting there before Cena.'

The customers evidently felt the same way They backed Rollins as well. Here's how the market changed in nearly two months:

Rollins .vs. Lesnar
The Rollins versus Lesnar matchbet market went almost the same way as the one above. Almost.

Lesnar opened as the favourite in this case. The money went the way of Rollins, though. In the time between April 6th and May 30th, Lesnar was announced as returning to the UFC for what is at this moment being billed as a one-night thing and Rollins came back to WWE from injury. Rollins was also added to the Money in the Bank main event for the title, so this could explain the interest going the way of The Architect. At the time I first saw the prices, I stated that I 'cannot see beyond Rollins'. This was based mainly on Lesnar's contract and that I had been anticipating the former champion regaining the title he was forced to relinquish in the latter part of 2015. And doing so before Lesnar,

Ambrose .vs. Lesnar

Brock Lesnar's limited date contract led me to write 'for some reason, I like the 2/1 on Ambrose more than I like the 'Neither'. 

The punters appear to have been in disagreement with this notion as the 'Lesnar' or 'Neither' selections seeing action forced Ambrose out from 2/1 to 7/2.

World Heavyweight Championship Reigns

Another market I wrote about in early April was one where customers could bet on when Roman Reigns lost the WWE World Heavyweight Championship and predict when certain names would claim the title. In today's post, the only names worth focusing on are Reigns for dropping the title, Ambrose for his Money in the Bank cash-in victory and Seth Rollins' short reign.

Date Roman Reigns Drops The Title Odds (Click Image To Expand)

Going by the odds, the sportsbooks' customers did back into the 'Before or on Money in the Bank' and 'On Raw after MITB but before SummerSlam 2016'. I was not in that party as I incorrectly predicted the 'Between SummerSlam but before Survivor Series option'. I did announce that 'I won't be betting on it, though'. An incorrect pick is still an incorrect pick!

Date Dean Ambrose Wins The Title Odds (Click Image To Expand)

Predicting when Dean Ambrose would win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship was a tough choice. I had a feeling he would within the times being offered, My suggestion was to avoid taking the 'No title win before MITB 2017,' That's hedging right there.

It's interesting to see just how far the 'Before of on Money in the Bank (2016)' market drifted out. You could have picked him up at 20/1 a week before he actually won the title.

Finally, I really like what happened with the Seth Rollins market.

Date Seth Rollins Wins WWE Title Odds (Click Image To Expand)

In the post of April 7th, I wrote that I had no doubt that Rollins would regain the title. I was a bit off as I predicted this title win would come between SummerSlam but before the Survivor Series'. 

Once he was back and inserted into the main event of Money in the Bank, a WWELeaks.org visitor - Jordan Kaye - commented on a post noting that he was interested in taking the 7/1 odds on Rollins winning the title 'on or before Money in the Bank'. His trick was to get the best odds on a Rollins title win in the MITB main event. I did not think Rollins would regain the title in the match, but thought the idea was worth sharing as it was a good opportunity for the punters to pick up Rollins at odds better than they would get in a regular match market. It was a slight gamble as the rules were calling for Rollins to win the title rather than the match (he could have been victor by countout or disqualification and the belt stay with Reigns). 

I also went one step further by recommending new customers of 888Sport.com place the bet and get 21/1 odds because the company was (and still is as of the time of writing) welcoming new clients with treble the odds on their first bet. All of it can be read in the post titled 'How You Could Get 21/1 Odds On Seth Rollins Winning The Belt At MITB 2016'.

It was a great call by Jordan that paid off thanks to whatever went down with Roman Reigns.

This isn't the last post of this kind you'll see this week. I have another one in the works that should be published in another day or so. In it, I'll go through the Money in the Bank specials that had been available in the months leading up to last week's PPV.

For those of you interested in the markets I've covered in the post above, you can find a list of the sportsbooks where you could have found them in this special page that has been created over at BetOnWrestling.co.uk.