SSBET77 Sabong Terms: Meron, Wala and the Odds Explained

What does it actually mean when the crowd shouts “Meron” a half-second before the referee releases the birds? This sabong terms page collects the words sabungeros use at a live cockpit and on television broadcasts, and they are older than any of today’s arguments about betting apps. Online sabong itself has been suspended nationwide since Executive Order 9 in December 2022, a topic this site’s sabong online rundown covers in full, so nothing below describes a way to bet online.

What follows is the vocabulary itself: meron, wala, llamado, dejado, kristo, tari, ruweda, pustahan and how the odds get called, the way you’d actually hear them used, not as textbook definitions.

Sabong Terms at a Glance

Term	What it is	Where you’ll hear it
Meron	The betting call for the side treated as favorite	Shouted seconds before release
Wala	The betting call for the other side	Same moment, from the opposite corner
Llamado	The rooster tagged as the odds favorite	Announced by the kristo
Dejado	The rooster tagged as the odds underdog	Announced alongside llamado
Kristo	The bet caller who matches wagers by hand signal	Standing inside the ruweda
Sentensyador (Koyme)	The arbiter who rules on a disputed match	Called in only when the fight doesn’t settle it
Tari	The blade fitted to a rooster’s leg	Fitted just before every match
Ruweda	The circular arena where the match happens	The center of the cockpit
Pustahan	The general word for betting itself	Used for the whole activity, not one call
Odds shorthand	The number pairs the kristo shouts to set a payout ratio	Called out between llamado and dejado

Meron

Meron is Tagalog for “there is,” and inside the ruweda it marks the side treated as favorite once the kristo has called the odds. It is the word you’ll hear loudest in the half-second before the birds are released, usually from bettors trying to get a late wager matched.

1. Meron is called first, before wala, in almost every match.
2. The kristo’s opening odds decide which corner gets tagged meron.
3. A meron bet pays out at whatever ratio the kristo called, not at even money by default.

Wala

Wala means “there is none,” the mirror call to meron, and it marks the other side of the same match rather than a separate kind of bet. Bettors backing the dejado, the underdog, are the ones shouting it.

1. Wala is always the second call, never the first.
2. A wala bet only pays if the underdog corner wins outright.
3. The word carries no judgment about which bird is actually better; it just marks the side.

Llamado

Llamado comes from the Spanish word for “called,” and it names the betting favorite once the kristo has set the odds, not necessarily the stronger rooster on paper. A llamado can lose exactly as often as it wins; the label describes the betting market, not a guarantee.

1. Llamado odds run shorter, meaning a smaller payout for backing the favorite.
2. The label can flip between matches even for the same handler’s birds.
3. Sabungeros read llamado alongside dejado, never in isolation.

Dejado

Dejado, from the Spanish for “left behind,” names the underdog in the same call the kristo makes for llamado. It carries a longer payout precisely because fewer bettors expect it to win.

1. Dejado odds run longer than llamado’s, which is the whole reason some bettors chase it.
2. The dejado tag resets every match; there is no running record attached to it.
3. Some sabungeros bet dejado deliberately for the bigger payout, not because they expect it to win.

Kristo

The kristo is the person standing in the ruweda taking and matching bets by hand signal, named for the outstretched-arms pose the job requires. A busy kristo can match dozens of bets in the seconds before a match starts, using nothing but hand signs and a loud voice.

1. The kristo sets the opening odds that decide who gets called llamado and who gets called dejado.
2. Bets are matched between bettors directly, with the kristo as the go-between, not the house.
3. A kristo works one match at a time, then resets for the next.

Sentensyador (Koyme)

The sentensyador, also called koyme in some cockpits, is the official who rules on a match the birds themselves don’t settle cleanly: a draw, an injury, or a bird that refuses to fight. Their word is final inside the ruweda.

1. A sentensyador only gets involved when the fight itself doesn’t produce a clear winner.
2. Their ruling on a disputed match cannot be appealed inside the cockpit.
3. The role is separate from the kristo, who handles bets, not outcomes.

Tari

The tari is the blade fastened to a rooster’s leg before a match, and it’s the reason a sabong fight ends quickly rather than through exhaustion. Handlers fit it by hand just before the birds are released.

1. The tari is fitted fresh before every single match.
2. Its placement on the leg is checked by cockpit officials before betting closes.
3. An oversized or improperly fitted blade is grounds for a match to be stopped before it starts.

Ruweda

The ruweda is the circular arena at the center of a cockpit, the space where the match itself happens and where the kristo works the crowd for bets. Everything else, the tari, the sentensyador, the shouted odds, happens around or inside it.

1. The ruweda is fenced or walled to keep the birds contained during the match.
2. Betting activity concentrates at its edge, where the kristo can reach the most bettors.
3. The word comes from the Spanish “rueda,” meaning wheel or circle.

Pustahan

Pustahan is the general Tagalog word for betting or wagering, and it covers the whole activity rather than any single call. Meron, wala, llamado and dejado are all vocabulary inside a bigger pustahan system, not separate kinds of it.

1. Pustahan can refer to any bet at a cockpit, not just the ones on a specific match.
2. It’s the word used to ask whether someone is betting at all, before naming a side.
3. Nothing about the word itself is specific to sabong; it just gets used there constantly.

Reading the Odds Shorthand

The kristo calls odds as a ratio, something like “siyam-sampu” (nine-ten), shorthand for how much a dejado bettor would need to risk against a llamado bettor’s stake. It’s shouted, not written, and it changes as more bets come in.

1. The first number in the call is almost always the smaller side of the ratio.
2. Odds tighten as betting slows and the kristo runs out of unmatched wagers to pair.
3. None of this shorthand has anything to do with an online product; it describes what happens inside a physical ruweda.

The Words That Matter Most If You Only Remember Three

If none of the rest sticks, keep these:

1. Meron and wala mark the two sides of a call; llamado and dejado mark which one is favored.
2. The kristo sets and calls the odds; the sentensyador only steps in if the birds don’t settle it.
3. None of this vocabulary describes a way to bet online. Online sabong itself is suspended nationwide, unchanged since Executive Order 9 in December 2022.

For the online sabong legal status page or whether online sabong is legal today, the other two pages in this section cover the law itself; more about this SSBET77 page says who publishes it, and the site’s responsible gambling info is there if any of this touches a habit rather than curiosity.