A Guide Live Betting Sports Online
Live Betting, also known as in-play or in-running, is the ability to wager on a match while it’s still in progress. At many sports betting sites it’s possible to wager not only on who will win the match, but also on unique propositions. Using tennis betting as an example, here, in addition to match winner and set winner, you can wager on the result of each point, next game to deuce, next game score, current set race to five games and many other propositions. Although many sports betting sites offer in-play wagering, when it comes to number of games offered, number of markets, betting odds, and software, there are distinct market leaders for each.
Best Live Betting Sites
Which betting sites to use for live betting largely depends on the sport wagered. For football (soccer) Asian Bookies are hands down the best place to make in-play wagers. For example, www.188bet.com offers European odds 1.94 / 1.94 base on Asian handicap which is extremely difficult to beat. They also offer more than 4500 football matches each month for in-play betting including all the popular leagues as well as leagues from all over the globe many of which are not offered by the competition.
Best for American Sports: The sportsbook with by far the best live betting interface and most markets for American football, hockey, baseball and basketball is www.bookmaker.eu. Although their competitors claim to offer live betting, this is via an archaic interface with limited markets. Using 5Dimes as an example at this site you’ll find only point-spreads and totals offered via an interface that requires you to refresh your browser during commercial breaks. Bookmaker.eu on the other hand offers a state-of-the-art in-play wagering platform where the point spreads, moneylines, totals and many propositions offered are all updated in real time with no need to refresh. These guys are also highly creative. As an avid fan of live betting NFL football, I use them week in and week out, yet still each week I see at least one proposition offered that I’ve never seen before. So in short, Bookmaker.eu is best for live betting American sports, and honestly there isn’t a competition in close sight.
Best Overall: Overall best for live betting is hands down the world’s largest online betting site www.bet365.com. If you were visit the websites of their top three competitors Ladbrokes, William Hill and Paddy Power at 5PM GMT on a Monday night you might find 1-3 football matches and a single match for each of cricket, volleyball and hockey available for in-play betting. Doing the same at Bet365 you’ll probably find 8 football matches, 5 tennis matches, 5 basketball matches and 1-3 matches for each of cricket, floorball, handball, volleyball and hockey. The difference here stems from the fact Bet365 is a global brand available in dozens of languages and currencies. However, their dominance isn’t only about having the most coverage; Bet365’s in-play betting interface is also second to none. Here you’ll find tons of wagering options for each match all updating in real time without the need to refresh, unique sounds and alerts that make their overall scoreboard more exciting, and live streams for many of the matches they offer.
Best Odds: By far the best in-play odds can be found at Betfair. However, this not a site you can just start using blindly. This is because Betfair is not a traditional bookmaker/sportsbook but rather is the world’s largest peer to peer betting exchange. I’ve written an article that will probably take you 10-15 minutes to read, process, and understand titled How Betfair Works. If you read and assimilate the information in this article and then put it into practice you’ll make far more money betting sports.
Mentioned in this section are the sites I like best for live in-play betting. I did however write several reviews for Live Betting, a website dedicated to this topic. If you’re looking for more information on betting in-play this is a great website to check out.
Live Betting Warning
When betting in-play it is vital you only do so with reputable bookmakers and even so, there are still risks. For example recently Centrebet.com cheated a client for €2500 over a live bet. In this case it was the reverse of how it usually occurs. The more common situation is a less than reputable betting site cancelling a winning wager by claiming “past post”. Meaning the punter wagered after the results were known or with advanced knowledge of a goal, injury or similar occurrence. While past posts do happen and the bookmaker has every right to void these bets, they should do so immediately. When a bookmaker waits until after match is decided to claim past post, very likely they are freerolling. If the bet wins it gets voided, if it loses it stands. This is why it’s VERY important to stick to only reputable companies such as Bookmaker and Bet365 when live betting.
Live Betting Strategy
Many sports bettors make the mistake of believing live betting is a novelty reserved for recreational punters. Perhaps in the future I’ll write an entire in-running strategy section, but for now let me give a few hints on how to use live betting to your advantage.
Slow Starts: Let’s say you spot a football club who in all their recent English Premier League victories started slow but then finished strong. If they are the favored in a match and you’d like the bet them, why do so prematch? If instead you waited for the odds to drop via in-play wagering, you could make the same wager at better odds.
Fast Starts: This applies less to soccer, and more to the sport called football (NFL). Each season there are teams that have all the stats, a great Pythagorean record, etc. that just find ways to lose games. A good example, the 2011/2012 Philadelphia Eagles had major composure issues and gave up more late game leads than anyone. If you believed there was more to this than just luck – then all you all you had to do to gain an edge was bet against them (on the point spread) for any game they were leading late in the third quarter.
These are just two examples. Some of the most talented sports bettors derive the majority of their profits from in-running wagers. You see, in-play odds are set by a computer using advanced mathematical algorithms. While the odds they generate are near impossible to beat over the long haul via random bets, they can still be exploited. This is because sports are not entirely mathematical, there are human factors involved that the system generating the odds can’t always account for. Watching the games and seeing how teams appear on the field, the composure, motivation etc. a good eye and body language reader can beat the computer in certain spots. Just be sure if you’re new to live betting that you take it slow and wager responsibly. Too many punters let their emotions get the best of them. This is especially true when there is only seconds to decide on a bet, as opposed to prematch wagers which you can analyse hours in advanced.