Dana White has already had an interesting week and it’s only Tuesday night. The UFC CEO is preparing for a trip to New York City the middle of the month for UFC 322 inside Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Before the November premium event can take place, the promotion is currently in its Las Vegas home base for two successive weeks of action at the UFC Apex, with the first having occurred last Saturday night in UFC Vegas 110.
Ahead of a featherweight bout between Issac Dulgarian and Yadier del Valle on last weekend’s show, activity on the money line for Dulgarian swiftly changed, resulting in some sportsbooks, DraftKings included, removing bettors’ abilities to make prop wagers on the contest. Dulgarian lost the featherweight affair by way of submission inside the first round to del Valle. Now, there’s a much bigger problem.
Dana White Confirms FBI Investigation Into del Valle vs. Dulgarian Line Movement
Issac Dulgarian found himself out of a UFC roster spot on Monday morning, less than 48 hours after UFC Vegas 110 in the wake of the betting shifts over the weekend. Tuesday, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed to TMZ Sports that the FBI is looking into the matter.
“Probably about 1 o’clock that day, we’re with a betting company called IC 360, and they are the best bet monitoring company in the business,” Dana White began. “They reached out to us and they told us that there was some unusual action going on in that fight, did 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 betting action going on with your fight. Are you injured? Do you owe anybody money? Has anybody approached you?'”
Dulgarian answered in the negative to all of Dana White’s questions. After the fight ended in a first-round submission, White confirmed he placed a telephone call with federal agents.
Dana White is breaking his silence after suspicious betting activity was observed before Isaac Dulgarian, a heavy favorite, lost on Saturday.
The @UFC honcho walks us through everything that's gone down, from being alerted to potential irregularities before the event to meeting… pic.twitter.com/cVrp99W82Z— TMZ Sports (@TMZ_Sports) November 4, 2025
“I’ve met with the FBI twice today. That’s the whole thing,” he said.
FBI Involvement Nothing New in Sports Today
While Dana White’s decision to report what happened to the government is a proactive move, it’s unfortunately a sign of the times in pro sports in late 2025. A couple of weeks ago, just two days into the 2025-2026 NBA regular season, the FBI got involved there, as well.
On Oct. 23, it was revealed that both Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier, guard for the Miami Heat, were among those arrested in a vast illegal gambling ring by the FBI. Cleveland Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones was also apprehended. FBI Director Kash Patel discussed the magnitude of these arrests in a presser that day.
“The fraud is mind-boggling,” Patel told the media. “It’s not hundreds of dollars, it’s not thousands of dollars, it’s not millions of dollars, it’s not tens of thousands of dollars. It’s not even millions of dollars. We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars.”
Dana White Did Job Well, Dulgarian’s Future a Question
We’ve all heard the allegations when something sketchy goes on with our favorite competitors or teams and it causes them to lose: “Oh, this game is fixed.” In recent weeks, all the cries of “it’s fixed” now have a little bit more validity to them.
The UFC and Dana White are in a difficult situation now. In the aftermath of Issac Dulgarian’s release from the promotion’s active roster on Monday, north of 100 fights under the organization’s banner have now been flagged by the government for potential improprieties with money lines.
Three years ago, irregularities cropped up in a fight between Darrick Minner and Shayilan Nuerdanbieke, won by the latter. In the wake of that contest, the UFC investigated the changes on the money line.
White’s handled the situation quite well up to now, but Issac Dulgarian’s days in MMA as a whole could be done and dusted, however.
“There is no proof that he’s done this yet,” Dana White said, “but I can tell you this: It doesn’t look good. It definitely doesn’t look good.”
