Jeff Haney on how a replacement fighter has tightened the line

Monday, Nov. 26, 2007 | 7:14 a.m.

From an oddsmaking standpoint, the new main event of the big New Year's weekend Ultimate Fighting Championship show shapes up as a more competitive match than the original headliner.

Georges St. Pierre will step in to fight Matt Hughes for the interim welterweight title Dec. 29 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, replacing reigning champion Matt Serra, who withdrew with a herniated disc in his back.

The featured fight on the UFC 79 card, scheduled to be officially announced by UFC president Dana White this afternoon, pits the organization's two previous title-holders at 170 pounds in the third head-to-head matchup of their careers.

The betting line, when it's released, figures to be tighter than the early line on Hughes-Serra, which had Hughes a minus-350 favorite (risk $3.50 to win $1).

In their first fight Hughes went off as a 4-1 betting favorite before stopping St. Pierre in the first round for the welterweight title in October 2004 in Atlantic City.

In the rematch last November, however, Hughes was favored at odds of just 3-2 before losing his belt by technical knockout to St. Pierre in Sacramento.

The winner is expected to fight Serra next year, assuming Serra recovers from his injury.

In another UFC 79 fight, light heavyweight Wanderlei Silva is a short minus-125 favorite against Chuck Liddell.

The UFC has always welcomed sanctioned wagering on its fights, according to owner Lorenzo Fertitta, who runs the UFC and Station Casinos with brother Frank.

Lorenzo Fertitta characterized the organization's stance on gambling as "the polar opposite of the NFL's."

"If people want to bet legally on the UFC, we think that it's not a bad thing," Lorenzo Fertitta said.

UFC betting lines are available at sports books throughout Nevada, although Station officials opt to keep them off the board to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

Contest update

Las Vegas professional handicapper Andy Iskoe went 4-3 in seven selections against the point spread to advance past Larry Trusley (2-4 with the Steelers minus 16 tonight) in the Leroy's sports books "Money Talks" contest, a $160,000 winner-take-all, single-elimination tournament.

In this weekend's second match, Doc Moseman of Doc's Sports and poker pro Bill Edler both finished with 2-5 records.

The contest carries a $5,000 entry fee, making it the largest handicapping contest in the state, but the contestants' results have been disappointing. The entrants are a collective 129-137-14 (48 percent) against the spread.

On Friday Adam Meyer meets "Sal" of Maddux Sports, and Patrick Little faces Jorge Gonzalez.

The final round is scheduled for Dec. 28.

Book signing

Former offshore bookmaker Steve Budin will sign copies of his book, "Bets, Drugs, and Rock & Roll: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Offshore Sports Gambling Empire," from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Friday at the Gambler's Book Shop, 630 S. 11th St.

In the book, Budin claims his father was involved in fixing a 1954 Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game in a scheme that entailed poisoning Oklahoma players. He also paints Jaromir Jagr as a reckless sports bettor who lost heavily to Budin's operation in the 1990s.

Budin now advocates legalizing and regulating online sports betting in the U.S. and basing the whole operation in Nevada, a move he contends would devastate shady underworld bookies.

Accountability corner

(In which accurate predictions made in past columns are righteously praised, and the ugly details of inaccurate predictions are rehashed.)

Handicapper Joe D'Amico took two big cuts but made no contact in Friday's column, ending up on the wrong side of the Giants' 41-17 loss to the Vikings in the NFL and Boise State's 39-27 loss to Hawaii in the WAC this weekend.