Live Betting Tips and Strategy

One of the most enjoyable – and often profitable – innovations in online sports betting in recent years has been the explosion of live betting. This in-game betting comes in a variety of flavors, but all share one thing in common: they let you bet money on a game that’s in progress already, meaning you can get your action at the same time the players are making the action happen on the field!

Types of Live Bets

One form of in-game betting that’s well-known is the halftime bet. This is a bet that takes place during the halftime break, which allows you to bet on what you think will happen in the second half, and only in the second half. In other words, it’s not the final outcome of the game you’re betting on, but instead, it’s as though you’re looking at just the points/goals/whatever scored in the second half as a separate game entirely.

However, there’s an even more dynamic form of in-game betting that truly deserves the name of live betting. In true live betting, you can bet on the result of the game at any time during the course of play! The bookmaker will change the odds as events dictate that one team or another gains an advantage.

For instance, imagine you’re watching a soccer match where one team was a heavy favorite – perhaps they went off at -300 before kickoff. However, just five minutes into the game, the underdog scores a goal to take an early 1-0 lead. Now the live betting market is likely to undergo a major change; the favorite may now be only a slight favorite, or perhaps even an underdog! If you still like the chances of the favorite to come back and win, now would be a great time to jump on with much better odds than you could have gotten before the game.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there may be times when the market temporarily closes. This usually happens immediately after a score or a major injury – the kinds of things that would immediately send a lot of money in one direction before the sportsbook could set a more appropriate line. In these cases, the online sportsbook will close betting for a minute or two, set a new line, and then reopen for betting.

Live Betting Strategies

One of the key things that’s necessary for success in live betting is an understanding of how various in game events make the odds change. This means not only how the sportsbook will adjust the odds in response to an event, but how that event actually affects the odds of each team winning.

Since sportsbooks must constantly move lines during games with live betting, they tend to fall into patterns in how they do it – obviously, extensive research is simply not possible. This allows them to make fast changes that avoid giving away big advantages to players who can react quickly. However, that doesn’t mean that they don’t make mistakes. Such a structured approach can’t always take into account all the factors involved in an individual game, such as momentum, how well the teams are actually playing compared to what the score shows, and many other minor details. If you’re paying attention and figuring out what’s really going on during a game, you’ll often find times when you can see that one side of a live line is easy money. Also, since live lines are set quickly, different sportsbooks often set very different lines during a game. You can sometimes lock in a profit by betting on opposite sides at two different sportsbooks that have set lines which are very far apart from each other.

Finally, sites that offer live betting markets (where the odds are mostly set by bettors taking and laying bets) can also be exploited. In this case, the problem is usually that many casual gamblers are prone to overreacting to small events. You’ll often see dramatic odds shifts after a turnover in football, or a couple runners get on base in baseball. That’s your cue to take the opposite side! During a game, there are usually many of these shifts, and by taking the time-tested strategy of “buy high, sell low,” you can make consistent profits during these events.