alt Hacker NewsBy nature they are violent because they are fighting. I would not like these odds.
> There have been works that estimate the actual percentage of deaths; the highest I've heard is 1/5 matches resulting in a death, quite often accidentally. That was Mary Beard's estimate. Many other authors have estimate somewhere between 1/5 and 1/8 matches resulting in deaths.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12k1r6/how_f...
That about the odds to be killed in a year for a Russian volunteer signing up to go to Ukraine. They do it for just $3k/month - for many Russians it is a great money and thus they risk their lives. Giving the limited options, it may as well be that many gladiators were happy to fight in the arena instead of dying from hunger and exhaustion in say quarry.