In-play betting, or in-game betting, is a great way of making wagers and winning money before the game has finished. Watch the game live and place bets as the action is fully underway!
Betting odds can change quickly when in-play betting, so you’ll have to be smart when placing your bets. Follow the action and enjoy real-time profits at your favorite online sportsbook today.
What is Live Betting?
In-play betting is a totally new way to enjoy sports betting online. It’s perfect for gamblers who don’t want to place pre-game bets using the opening lines.
Live in-game betting allows you to place a wager after a match or game has started. It’s a big difference from a futures bet or moneyline wagers where you must use fixed odds before kick-off.
During sporting events, odds change in real-time as the situation of the game changes. If you like how the odds have changed, you then place bets at the new odds via your laptop or mobile phone.
When betting on football and basketball, in-play betting is very popular. But, you can also find game odds on tennis, soccer, and much more. You can even get exclusive in-game betting bonuses on big events like the World Series or the Super Bowl.
How Does Live In-Play Betting Work?
In-game betting is available on a range of sports like basketball, baseball, and hockey. As the circumstances of the game changes, so do the odds.
To find the in-play betting markets, click on the ‘Live Betting’ tab in the sportsbook lobby. Here you can filter markets by game or find a live schedule of all the day’s events. Remember, there won’t be live in-game betting at all times of the day, but weekends tend to be the busiest.
Next, select a game you want to bet on. Click on the bets you want to make, and they will be added to your bet slip. If the odds have changed before you’ve placed your bet, they will usually flash up on the slip. Then you’ll have the option of accepting the price or deleting it from your bet slip.
Once you’re happy with the live game odds, hit the ‘Place Bet’ button. You can now sit back and watch the game on television or via the match tracker.
You can place a bet on the winner of the game as the game progresses. But the best part of in-play betting is that you can win money long before the game has finished. For example, in a soccer game, you might find odds on the next team to score. You might win that bet with half the match still to go.
Popular In-Play Betting Markets
Soccer
- 1X2 (Home win/draw/away win)
- Team to score next goal
- Total goals
- Next corner
- Exact score
Basketball
- Moneyline
- Point spread
- Total points
- 1st-4th Quarter winners
- Race to 10/15/20 points
Football
- Moneyline
- Point spread
- Total points
- HT/FT score
- Next touchdown
- Rushing yards
- Passing yards
Hockey
- Moneyline
- Total goals – Regular time
- Next goalscorer
How Do You Win at Live Sports Betting?
Winning at in-game betting is all about paying attention to what’s going on in the game. You can either watch the game via live stream or on TV. Alternatively, the best betting sites use a graphic visualizer showing updated stats like shots on goal and possession.
Here’s a good example of how you can use live wagering betting strategies.
Imagine betting on a basketball game between San Antonio and Dallas. Before the game, the Over/Under on Total Points is 222 with the game odds at -110 for Over 222 and +110 for Under. That means if the final score is 120-110 to San Antonio, the Over 222 bet would win.
But you can also enjoy live Over Under betting after the game has started. Imagine this game starts slowly. By the end of the 1st Half, the score is only 15-6 to San Antonio.
The live betting odds for the Under 222 are now -150 but you have a lot more information to hand. You can see that the star players aren’t on their game and the second half is threatening to fizzle out.
This is where you can use in-game betting to your advantage. You can confidently make a live wagering play on Under 222 at the new odds.
Smart sports bettors can read game stats and make quick live bets in seconds. And because a lot of live betting odds are updated by a computer, you can exploit any glaring mistakes made by the bookmaker.