Live Betting

Live betting is one of the hottest trends in sports betting right now. With live betting, you are essentially making the same types of bets that you would make before a game, but they are made once the game has already begun. This adds an extra element of excitement to your sports viewing, and an extra way to create a profit through sports betting.

Are You Ready for Some Live Betting

A lot of sites offer live betting setups and Bovada is the place to start.

Live betting is a simple concept, but it can be incredibly complex. That’s why so many knowledgeable sports fans lose money when they bet. You don’t need to fall into this category. Sports betting is a beatable pursuit, and live betting can be a good way to supplement your earnings. There’s a lot to know if you want to be successful with this, and there’s far too much to discuss for just one web page. However, we’ve put together a short primer to get you started as you begin to integrate live betting into your overall sports betting approach.

Getting Started with Live Betting

There are a couple steps that need to be taken if you want to start live betting. If you already have a sports book, this will likely be very easy to do. You just need to ensure that your book offers this service on their site. Most of the major sports books currently do offer this. However, if your book doesn’t offer live betting, then you will need to find one that does.

If your book doesn’t offer this, or you don’t have a sports book yet, then you need to find one that offers live betting. We have a list of our top picks for sports books on this site, along with reviews of each of these. If you’re not sure where to start, these reviews can help point you in the right direction. There are a lot of good books out there, but ultimately it will be up to you to decide which book is going to be best for you overall. Live betting will certainly play a role in this, but it’s not the only factor that you need to be considering.

Pick the book that works best for you, make your first deposit, and you’re ready to start with live betting. However, making a bet is a lot different than making a good bet. Keep reading to learn more about how to use live betting effectively.

Live Betting is Growing Big Time

Live Betting Strategy

Ideally, any betting strategy needs to take a long term approach if you are going to be successful, and live betting is no different. There are always going to be wins and losses, and you might even go through extended losing streaks. If you take a long term view of what you’re doing, this will eventually be overcome and those losses will only be temporary.

With that in mind, live betting can be complex and you will often be at the mercy of the odds makers. Depending on the book that you use, there will be different variations and limitations on in-game betting. However, the vast majority of the time, you will find that the odds and payouts are dependent on the current score of the game and how much time is left to play. Within this framework, it is possible to find weaknesses on behalf of the sports book, and then to take advantage of them. A solid live betting strategy can act as a good hedge against a poorly judged pre-game bet, or it can be a good way to enhance your earnings on a game.

One of the main uses of live betting is to act as a hedge against a bad bet. We’ll go into this a little bit more in the “Benefits” section, but if you’ve made a bad bet, a small bet in the opposite direction once the game begins can act as a way to recoup some of the losses that you are likely to sustain.

Another useful strategy is a bit more conservative than this. Instead of trying to figure out whether or not you’ve made a bad decision, you place a minimum sized bet on the favorite when the odds move in your favor. This bet will pay off a majority of the time, and if you time the returned payout correctly, this can be a slightly positive expected value play and return a small profit over the long run.

A third strategy is a bit riskier. This involves more speculation on your part, but in some instances, the bigger return on these bets can be worthwhile. For this type of bet, you are looking at in-game events, such as the number of hits that a certain player will have or the number of yellow cards that will be issued against a team. Paying attention to early trends within a game can help you to enhance the returns that you get off of these types of bets, but they will still be harder to hit.

Regardless of the strategy that you use for live betting, you need to be paying attention to the odds and have a firm grasp on what the crowd psychology regarding the game is. A good prediction of an outcome can be ruined by poor odds offered from the book. Keep this in mind no matter what methods of strategizing you are using.

And no matter what, you should always practice strong bankroll management. No betting strategy, in-game or not, is going to guarantee a winner every single time. You will still lose bets, no matter how strong they seem at first—that’s just the nature of gambling. Proper bankroll management and the avoidance of negative expected value plays will help you to gain a bigger edge with your live betting.

Benefits of Live Betting

The first benefit of live betting is a pure enjoyment one. Live betting can be far more exciting than betting on a game before it starts. Once you’ve been sitting and watching a game for a while, you have a much greater interest in it than before it began. Live betting can help you to enhance how much fun you get out of watching your favorite teams play.

Another benefit of using live betting is to hedge potential losses. When you’ve made a bad bet, live betting can help you to minimize some of those losses. For example, let’s say you bet $100 on the Indianapolis Colts to cover the spread of +3.5 against the Buffalo Bills only to see Andrew Luck leave the game injured in the first quarter. Suddenly, your odds of the Colts covering go down significantly. Making a live bet on the Bills to beat the spread scan be a good play here, depending on the strength of the team. Of course, hedging is always a risky play and should only be used by those with extensive betting experience and only when it is mathematically profitable to do so.

Live betting can also help you to boost your earnings. Sometimes, we have a really good feeling or intuition about a game, and it seems like we can’t make a bad call about it. When that happens, riding out the streak can help you as a bettor to get the most out of your wagers. Now, there’s a risk to this because it is really easy to get cocky or overconfident. But, if you genuinely are making good calls, live betting can help you to make a small return turn into a large one. Be sure to follow all of the money management rules that you normally would here.

Reducing losses and maximizing profits are both really good reasons to use live betting! Just make sure that you are using it cautiously and not making reckless bets.

Which Sports Books Offer Live Betting?

Right now, the majority of big online sports books offer live betting. Bovada currently does, and there’s a strong chance that DraftKings will be offering this too. Live betting has proven to be extremely popular, and it would be foolish of these sites not to offer it. (As a side note, Betfair and Paddy Power— parent sites—currently offer live betting.) Some of the smaller sports books do not yet offer live betting, but this is likely to change in the coming months, so stay tuned!

Bovada: Bovada has been one of the leaders in European sports betting for years. They have some of the top security measures in place of any of the sports books currently offering live betting, and they are set to grow quickly thanks to the fact that U.S. sports betting has opened up. Their live betting platform has been one of the models for Euro-based sports books, and they will continue to be a leader in this area for the foreseeable future.

DraftKings: DraftKings is a bit newer to the DFS scene than other competitors, but they have already surpassed when it comes to total users. DraftKings has a wider variety of fantasy contests and sports to choose from, but it’s not clear how this will translate over into sports betting and live betting yet.

Is Live Betting Going to Be Profitable for Me?

Bluntly stated, it’s impossible to tell. Sports betting is not a one size fits all thing. Some people make very good money betting, while others have been known to lose their life savings. Live betting is likewise going to be very profitable to some, and detrimental to others. We obviously don’t want you to lose money betting, so it’s important that you keep an eye on your bets and betting habits so that you can make a decision for yourself whether live betting is going to be helpful for you or not. With the above stated information and other pieces of information that are available online, you should be able to craft a strong live betting strategy of your own over time, but there will be ups and downs in your profits and losses. This is an inevitable part of sports betting. A long term strategy for success should be your goal.

Live betting isn’t for everyone, and just like every other type of betting, there’s always a risk that you can lose money. Always practice strong money management techniques when you are betting, whether it’s live betting or not.

The Bottom Line

Live betting carries many benefits along with many risks. It can be a great way to supplement your winning and offset losses, but it can also be detrimental when it’s used incorrectly. If you’re interested in using live betting in your everyday betting strategy, it’s important that you know how to use this tool correctly before you start. Hopefully, our resources here can give you a good head start in this respect.

Also, it’s important to remember that live betting is just one of many tools that you have at your disposal as a bettor. The more tools that you carry with you, the greater your chances of success. Even if you don’t use live betting often, it is vital that you understand how to use it properly because there will be cases where live betting can be a huge help to you every once in a while. Spotting these opportunities will help you to be a better overall bettor.

Live betting is very popular right now, and it’s likely to stay that way for a while. It presents a lot of excitement and opportunity for bettors. Just remember to use any betting strategy cautiously and you will be far ahead of the rest of the pack when it comes to being a profitable bettor.