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UFC 331 · Featherweight · Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles

Buying Giga at +319: the case for a 35¢ cash-out, and how it played out

We bought Giga Chikadze's YES contract at 22¢ before UFC 331 and set a sell order at 35¢. The bet was never that he'd win. It was that he'd win the early minutes. He briefly pushed the price to 31¢, then the market collapsed.

By Jay · PM Countdown trade desk Published Updated 6 min read

Odds at open · Sat, Sep 19

Recorded 6:30 AM PT
FighterMoneyline (open)ImpliedKalshi YES at openKalshi as moneyline
Giga Chikadze 15-6 · underdog+31923.9%22¢+355
Joanderson Brito 19-5-1 · favorite−40080.0%79¢−376

Our exit: 35¢ ≈ +186. The sell order fills if the market ever prices Giga like a +186 dog, not a +319 one. He doesn't have to win the fight for that to happen, just win the early minutes.

Moneylines are BetOnline's opening line (Sep 15, via Forbes). Kalshi prices are the YES asks we recorded at 6:30 AM PT, before fees. "Implied" is the chance the price assumes: the two book numbers add up to 103.9% because of the bookmaker's margin. Kalshi as moneyline converts the contract price, so 22¢ pays $1, which is +355.

Live from Kalshi

How the odds moved

Chikadze's YES price minute by minute since 6:30 AM PT, when we recorded the entry price, with our 22¢ entry and 35¢ target. Updates every 30 seconds.

Chikadze now—
Brito now—
High since 6:30 AM—
Distance to 35¢ target—at the peak

Loading Kalshi price history…

Source: Kalshi public market data, 1-minute candles (last trade). Times in Pacific.

Cash-out simulator

What a $2,000 position did

Same plan, bigger stake: buy YES Chikadze at 22¢, resting sell at 35¢, hold if it never trades. Kalshi taker fees included.

Entry8,620contracts at 22¢ · cost $1,999.95 incl. $103.55 fee
ScenarioExitNet
Sell order fills at 35¢ The plan's cash-out35¢+$879.77
No fill, Giga wins Hold to settlement$1.00+$6,620.05
No fill, Giga loses What the plan did · pending official settlement$0−$1,999.95
Hindsight: sell order at 30¢ Would have filled; 31¢ traded at the peak30¢+$459.33
Bail out after the collapse Sell at 1¢1¢−$1,919.73

Fees use Kalshi's taker formula, 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), rounded up to the cent. A resting order can pay less. Large orders may not fill completely at one price. The 30¢ row is hindsight, not the plan: we grade the plan as written.

The plan · prices from 6:30 AM PT, posted 2:16 PM PT

Buy Giga, sell at 35¢

How we lock and grade
UFC 331 · Free tradeKalshiSat, Sep 19 · Crypto.com Arena, LA

Buy Giga, sell at 35¢

Giga Chikadze (15-6) vs. Joanderson Brito (19-5-1) · Featherweight · early prelims opener

Buy22¢YES Chikadze, Kalshi ask at 6:30 AM PT
Sell order35¢Resting at 35¢ before the fight
If 35¢ never tradesHoldSettles at $1 or $0

The thesis: Giga opened at +319 (22¢ on Kalshi). In 21 pro fights he has never lost in the first round, and in his last fight he was winning the exchanges before one spinning backfist caught him. He's fighting about an hour from his Huntington Beach gym. If he takes the early minutes, a +319 dog gets repriced fast. I sell into that at 35¢ and I'm out, whoever wins.

Posted before the fight Prices recorded Sat, Sep 19, 2026, 6:30 AM PT. The plan went live on pmcountdown.com at 2:16 PM PT, about 30 minutes before the fight, and hasn't changed since.

What 100 contracts do

Sell order fills at 35¢+$10.19+44% after fees · +59% before fees
No fill, Giga wins+$76.79Settles at $1 per contract
No fill, Giga loses−$23.21The most 100 contracts can lose
Know before you copy it
  • Cost is $22 plus a $1.21 fee. Selling at 35¢ costs a $1.60 fee. Fees use Kalshi's taker formula.
  • The opener of a card can trade thin. A 35¢ sell order may not fill even if the price touches it.
  • A first-round finish can take the price to 0¢ before you can react. Size it as money you can lose.
Run your own numbers

Pre-fight analysis · published 2:41 PM PT, before the fight

Why Giga can get this to 35¢

This isn't a bet that Chikadze wins. It's a bet that he's still dangerous enough, and hard enough to put away, that the price moves in his favor before the fight is decided.

He doesn't get finished early

Chikadze has had 21 pro MMA fights and has never lost one in the first round. Four of his six losses went the full distance. The only time he's been knocked out came at 1:29 of the second round against Kevin Vallejos in December 2025. For a sell order at 35¢, that's the whole point: the trade needs time, and Giga reliably gives you at least a round.

The striking is real

He came to MMA after a 38-10 kickboxing career and has won nine of his fifteen MMA fights by knockout. His body kicks and combinations are exactly what makes live prices move. When a +300 underdog cleanly wins the first round, the market reprices him fast.

He looked good before he got caught

Against Vallejos, Chikadze was the one landing the bigger shots in round one, digging kicks to the body and forcing the clinch, and he kept pressing early in round two. Then one spinning backfist against the fence ended it. The skills that win rounds were still there. That's the version of Giga this trade needs for five or ten minutes.

A home crowd, basically

Chikadze has trained at Kings MMA in Huntington Beach since he moved to MMA in 2015. Crypto.com Arena is about an hour up the road, so this is as close to a home fight as it gets for him: no long travel, his own camp, and a Southern California crowd that knows him. It's not a stat you can bank, but it's a real edge for a fighter who needs a strong start.

What could go wrong

  • He's 38 and has lost three straight. Brito is a heavy favorite for good reasons.
  • He missed weight against David Onama in 2025. A bad cut would show up early.
  • If Brito wins the first round, the price can slide toward single digits and the 35¢ order never fills. Then the plan holds to settlement, and the most 100 contracts can lose is $23.21.

Record and fight details: Wikipedia, Cageside Press (Vallejos fight recap, Dec 14, 2025), EssentiallySports (Kings MMA, Huntington Beach). Checked Sep 19, 2026.

How this one gets graded

The 35¢ exit counts only if Kalshi's public trade history shows the Chikadze contract trading at 35¢ or higher after the plan was posted. If it never trades there, the position holds to settlement: $1 per contract if Chikadze wins, $0 if he loses. A draw or no contest settles at 50¢.

Win or lose, the result goes on the public ledger. Nothing gets edited after the lock.

What we take from it

The read was half right: Chikadze did move the market, from 22¢ to 31¢, before it turned. The target was the problem. A +319 underdog in an early-prelim opener rarely gets repriced by 13 cents before one big moment decides it, and this one ended within a few minutes of the price first moving. Next time, a first target closer to the price the market actually reaches in early exchanges, around 28 to 30¢ here, is the adjustment we're testing.

See the market on Kalshi All UFC 331 fights

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