Years ago, racetracks found that people no longer were anxious to wait 20-30 minutes between races for another chance to wager. That led to the advent of simulcasting, and the chance to wager on horse racing of all kinds from across the world, literally hundreds of races per day. Bettors want action, and in today's fast-paced world of instantaneous gratification, bettors don't even want to wait until the end of the game they've wagered on to see if they are a winner. This reality has caused the concept of live betting to explode on to the online sportsbook scene.
Live Betting: The Future of Sportsbooks
Live betting, also known as in play wagering, allows you to place bets on a game while that game is in progress. You don't have to do it, but if you've already bet on a game and you're watching that game anyway to see what the outcome will be, why not have a little fun in the meantime? That's what live betting allows you to do.
Why Live Bet?
There are two reasons why live betting makes perfect sense. First of all, it gives you more chances to win. Depending upon the sport and the sporsbooks, you will offered chances throughout the event to wager on the next outcome that will take place in the game. But live betting also allows you the opportunity to rectify matters if things look to be going south in terms of your original wager.
Say you bet on a favorite, and it's becoming evident that it simply isn't going to be that team's day. As this in unfolding, of course the odds are going to be altered from the original wager. Live betting gives you the chance to cut your losses, maybe break even and perhaps in some instances still make a small profit by putting an in play wager on the underdog in the game to balance out your original bet that looks almost a certainty to be a loser.
Or maybe there was a game you liked from a wagering standpoint, but it was just too close to call at the outset. With live betting, you can patiently wait to see which way the flow of the game is moving and then pounce on a bet when you feel comfortable and the odds are more in your favor.
How It Works
Here's a look at a live betting window from Bovada on the 2018 FIFA World Cup game between Uruguary and Saudi Arabia:
As you can clearly see, the live button is active in the left-hand corner, with the time clock counting next to it, along with the scoreline. As this match continued, live betting options would continue to change onscreen, giving you the chance to lay a wager at any time during the action.
While traditional punters will calculate variables over and over on a particular game before making the decision how to lay their wager, that sort of time and patience simply isn't a part of the live betting experience. This is like the rapid-fire round of questioning at the end of a game show. If you take your time and ponder your decision, the chance will elude you, because the odds can change at a moment's notice. This is fast-paced action, like the type of hyper activity you see on the trading floor at the stock market.
How It's Done
From the standpoint of the bettor, access to live betting is a simple and easy process. All you need to do is login to your favorite online sportsbook, access the live betting section of its site and then make wagers from your account. But you'd better be on your toes and ready to pounce when the odds are favorable, becuase they won't stay where they currently are situated for long. Live betting is not the form of wagering for you if you are someone who daydreams or who is easily distracted.
The sportsbooks utilize their deep database of sporting outcomes when assessing in play odds for live betting purposes. Algorithms are used that have been evolved from this database of thousands upon thousands on past results and this allows the computer to quickly update and post new odds on each live betting game. You may find that the line changes as much as 100 times during the course of a basketball game, with quikci hitting updates coming up on the screen two or three times per minute.
The intense action of live betting gives sports wagering a feel that can be more closely associated to the rush you get while participating in a fast-paced table game in a casino. It's up to you to figure out the speed that works best for you. Some bettors will be keeping an eye on several games in progress at the same time, looking for that one bet that could prove to be the big winner.
Things Change
Anyone who follows sports knows that what makes the games that people play so compelling is that there is no certainty in any outcome. Sports is the ultimate version of reality TV, because you truly don't know what is going to happen next. And that's why live betting can prove to be so advantageous to the sports bettor.
Maybe you're watching an NFL game and the team's all-pro quarterback goes out of the game with a concussion, leaving the unproven back-up to take over against one of the league's best defenses. Suddenly, the whole outlook of this game has changed, and so will the odds on it.
Likewise, perhaps an NBA team finds the hot hand from three-point range in the midst of a game, or an NHL goalie doesn't have it on a particular night and is fighting the puck. These are all uncontrollable factors that impact the progress of a game, and some are not the type of data that a computer can process. That's your edge here. You bring a human element to live betting and can see things that a computer may not be able to calculate.
Is live betting for you? That's a decsion you'll have to make on your own. Why not give it a try, and see if this up-tempo pace of wagering turns your crank? One thing's for sure - live betting isn't going away. It's the future of sports wagering.
