Betting on WWE and novelty props
A wrestling match is decided before the bell, by the people who write the show. A pageant is decided by a panel of judges. Books that take bets on either are pricing a decision a few people already know or will make in private, so the limits are small and the rules give the book a way out. Bet them for fun, and for small money.
A result someone writes
Professional wrestling is entertainment with a scripted ending. The winner of a WWE match is chosen by the company ahead of time, and the wrestlers perform their way to it. Nobody hides that any more.
So a bet on WWE is not a bet on who is better. It is a bet on what a handful of writers and executives have decided, and on whether word of it has got out. A book pricing a match is reading the same things you are: the storyline, who the company has been building up, who has a big event coming next, and the money coming in on each side.
That last part is the one that counts. On a real game the book's line is an opinion about the players. On a scripted match the only real information is who knows the ending, and the only way a book can see that is in the betting. A sudden run of money on the underdog is a warning light, and books treat it as one. They move the price hard, take the market down, or both.
Why the limits are so low
Every book sets its limits by how much it trusts its own number, and the limits page explains the rule. On a scripted event the book trusts its number least of all, because somebody out there knows the answer for certain. If I were dealing it, I'd take enough to let the fans have their fun and not a dollar more, and that is how most books handle it.
For you, that means three things. You won't get much down, often far less than on a minor league game. The prices carry a wide cut: a two-way match at -250 and +180 adds up to 71.4 plus 35.7, or 107.1 percent, against 104.8 on a standard -110 spread. And a big winner can find the market pulled before the next event and the account limited after it.
Many books also keep the right to void bets on a market where they believe the result was known in advance. Read that rule before you bet. A ticket you can't be sure will be honoured is worth less than its price says.
Whether a book can offer scripted events at all depends on its regulator, and many regulated books don't. So whether you can bet WWE depends on where you live.
WrestleMania
WrestleMania is the biggest card of the wrestling year and draws the most money, most of it on the main event and the title matches. More money means more attention on the line, and more chance that a move in the price means something. It doesn't make the number fairer.
The undercard is where you'll often find the odder prices. The book spends less time on those matches, and the betting on them is thin. That cuts both ways. A thin market is easier to move on very little information, and the move may come from someone who knows.
How a match is graded matters as much as who wins. Most books settle on the official result as announced at the event, so a match ruled a no contest, a draw or a disqualification follows the book's rules, not your idea of who won. A champion can lose a match by disqualification and keep the title, so a bet on him to win the match and a bet on him to retain the belt are two different bets. Read which one you're holding.
Miss Universe and judged contests
Miss Universe is decided by a panel of judges. That's not a script, and nobody knows the winner until they choose, but the choice is made in private, by a few people, on standards nobody scores in public. A book prices it from the favorites in the press, the earlier rounds of the contest, and above all the money.
The board has many runners, and it carries a fat cut. Add up every price as a percentage, as the implied probability page shows, and you'll find it well over 100. The limits are as low as on wrestling, for the same reason: the people closest to the decision can know more than the book.
Most books settle pageant markets on the official crowning on the night. If a result were ever changed afterwards, the book's own rule would decide your ticket, so it is worth a look before you bet.
Other novelty props
The big sporting events bring their own novelties, the coin toss and the anthem and the rest, and our page on how to bet on the Super Bowl works through the cut on those. Award shows are judged by voters, and how to bet on entertainment awards covers them. Results that rest on judges in sport, a boxing decision for one, are on the boxing page.
What they share is that the book has less to go on than on a game, so it charges more and takes less. The props page explains why that holds for every prop.
How I'd treat it
I'd bet wrestling or a pageant the way I'd buy a ticket to the show: a small amount, for the sweat, with no thought of making money from it. I never liked writing a market where the answer was sitting in somebody's script. You shouldn't like betting into one.
If you have the urge to bet bigger because you're sure, ask yourself how you could be sure about a result someone else wrote. Either you're guessing, or you know something you shouldn't, and the book is watching for both.