The Ultimate Live Betting Guide

There are many punters who have devised effective live betting strategies over the years. But with the bookmakers developing technology and algorithms to automate the odds levels and market availability, it is becoming increasingly harder to find value in such a clustered and confusing sub-section of sports betting. Our strategy is always a simple one. It forces you to stick to a proven system of betting within certain limits and utilising a points system to monitor and effectively choose your stakes for a given market at the live arena.

Betting in-play is becoming the most popular way to bet. Long gone are the days where you must plan out your bets well in advance to get the best price. Nowadays you can bide your time, use basic data analytics and statistics skills to correctly choose the bets that will give you the best chance of a profit. In-play betting is a beautiful thing, and we hope you will come away from this page feeling like you understand this industry a lot more clearly and have the confidence to hold back and place your bets after the first whistle is blown.

How Have We Compared the Best In-Play Betting Sites

Our assessment process for categorising in-play betting sites is somewhat scientific and partly based on our collective experience and contextual knowledge of the operators. As sportsbook enthusiasts, we understand the trials and tribulations of online betting. Finding a quality bookmaker to enjoy the live arena with is not such a hard process, many bookmakers offer a quality service, but the extra features and nuanced differences in welcome offers and policies can greatly affect the enjoyment of the experience. The sportsbooks that we have compiled in the table at the top of this page all succeeded in impressing us with their overall offer and performed highly in a variety of key performance areas that we will go into further detail below.

Comparison of Live Betting Odds

The familiarity with live betting odds levels and the instinct for spotting a truly good value market is something that comes with experience and an intense knowledge of the sport and teams/players involved. But purely considering the commission, or payout rate, of the sportsbook, is something easily calculated. The numbers below represent the pure payout you can receive when betting live across a variety of sports at our top in-play betting sites. This data set may differ for specific fixtures, but the mean values listed below should serve as a prediction for what you can expect when selecting a specific market within each of these sports.

Obviously, the gradual differences between the payout rates offered by these sportsbooks is merely a prediction. It is difficult to extrapolate these results to effectively decide which bookmaker will give you the best payout. But when you analyse these results and compare them to a large sample of fixtures, the trends demonstrated in the table above do hold firm. Another thing to consider is the amount you are staking. As the difference in returns will be negligible and not something that will be worthy of your consideration unless the bets being made are on the higher end of the spectrum.

The Mobile In-Play Experience

Betting on mobile is one of the great ways to enjoy the live arena. In fact, there are relatively few examples in the realms of mobile app technology where a certain pre-existing platform is so heavily improved and enhanced by the introduction of smartphone applications. The reason mobile and live betting go hand in hand so perfectly is due to the inherent nature of the two activities. Punters who love to bet on mobile also enjoy the aspect of freedom and flexibility with their bets. Pulling out your phone and having an immediate overview assessment of all the in-play fixtures, accompanied with endless amounts of stats and markets, and you have right there the dream of any sports betting fan. Take a look below at three of our top featured mobile live betting interfaces.

There are several ways to enjoy mobile betting. But one of the most undisputed and most enjoyable ways is certainly via the live arena. There are so many options these days at modern sportsbooks, that punters are literally spoiled for choice. Sometimes having too many options and variables is what gives the bookies the edge, in the following section we will look more closely at the market selection process, and how to cut through all the noise.

Market Availability: Pre-Match / In-Play

The availability of markets is something that punters are always having niggles with. The markets offered by one bookie often differ greatly from another. This confusion and disparity are further enhanced by the separation of pre and live markets. Often markets surrounding handicap betting will become unavailable as soon as the match begins. This is understandable, as the live betting arena is only compatible for bettors who are taking up new positions. It becomes statistically impossible for some markets to be offered once the match has begun, and for this reason, you can see the data below shows that live betting markets are always less than the amount offered before the event has begun.

Football live betting is undoubtedly the sport that is most wagered on collectively across all the live arenas available at the fingertips of UK punters. But if you’re looking for something a bit extra, and fancy delving into the less popular, and more specialised sports, the market availability trends are largely consistent to what you witness at the football arena. The other sports offer a strong selection of pre and live markets, and one should take particular notice of the horse racing statistics. Unless you are a serious punter who regularly studies the form and races of the leading horses across various distances then this probably won’t be of much use to you, the in-play wagering on horse racing is not something to be taken lightly as the time frames involved are incredibly tight with wagering decisions being made in a heartbeat.

Live Streaming Compatibility

One of the features that punters love universally is the ability to live stream events that they are planning to bet on. With the wide variety of streaming sources available to the modern-day punter, it is not such a deal-breaker in most cases, but bookies do offer fantastic quality streams, often with commentary on a variety of sports and high-profile fixtures. The biggest and best sports from around the world attract millions of betting customers, and sportsbooks are constantly battling each other for a piece of the market share. One of the proven most effective ways to do this is by offering additional features that turn you from a plain old sportsbook, to a central hub for sports gambling where all aspects of the customer experience can be partaken in and enjoyed.

Most Popular Sports at the In-Play Arena

The biggest sports that are compatible in the live arena are the ones you would most certainly expect to find on this list. Of course, football is the standout from this list, but you can also expect to find heavy investment and popularity in the other sub-sections of the sportsbook that we have detailed down below for you.

As you can see there are many differences in the in-play experience at each of these sports markets. With some being very compatible for the live market, and others not being so popular, bookmakers are constantly finding new and improved ways to optimise the in-play arena for each of these sports, and many more available at the top UK sports betting sites.

Pre-Match vs In-Play Betting

The strategies employed for making quick gains on the in-play arena are relatively simple. Preparation is essential, and although unforeseen in-game events can completely alter what bets you make in-play, it is always a good idea to predict a certain narrative in a fixture, and then when the conditions are right, take your shot just as the odds levels are peaking to their highest point. Below are some basic tips and best practices for deploying a successful in-play betting strategy.

Although professional gamblers do tend to stick to a very acute section of the live arena, opportunistic gamblers will glide and drift between these top sports, hunting for a mistake in the odds levels, or even just a slight overestimation that will allow them to deploy and take advantage of their knowledge to gain a quick profit. The main take away here for any aspiring live betting professional, always keep your ear to the ground, maintain a consummate knowledge of all the main protagonists in each sport, and learn to quickly interpret in-game statistics to deploy a profitable in-play bet.

History of Live Betting

The story of online betting was relatively short when live betting was first conceived. The brainchild of an ambitious entrepreneur from the UK, Denise Coates foresaw the great opportunity that offering punters the chance to bet in-play would bring. The major advancements in gambling technology have taken this industry from strength to strength, and with top sportsbooks handling bet wager throughput in the tens of billions of pounds, the importance of systems engineering, and security is quickly realised.

The story of sports betting is full of advancement and excitement. Live betting has genuinely taken over as the primary tool in a punters kit. Skilled gamblers and sports experts often find value after intensively scanning the world betting markets and looking for anomalies in the odds being offered. If you are willing to invest the time, and already have a great deal of expertise in a sport that is featured at one of our top live bookies, then you too should consider giving this a try. Who knows, you might just give the bookie a-run-for-their-money, or not, but surely worth a try!

Conclusion

The general consensus of UK punters is the in-play arena is going to be increasingly automated and more difficult to take advantage of. In the days before machine learning algorithms and neural networks, odds traders working for bookmakers would essentially set the prices based off the in-game statistics. The margin of error was huge, and punters were able to profit far easier than today. But the game is not completely lost, as we hope you understand now there are ways you can bet in-play and enjoy huge success.

With any high-profile football game these days, spectators are bombarded with advertisements and encouragement to take a shot and “BET IN-PLAY NOW!”. All this mantra is carefully selected, and the bets and odds being offered to you are certainly curated to give the bookie the biggest chance of profit, whilst offering the illusion of a good deal. The key to making it big in the online betting industry is not to follow the obvious and most popular bets, as the house will always win. Utilise and train your knowledge on sports and investigate the more obscure markets for value – it is here where the profit potential lies. Combined with a disciplined and effective strategy, you could become highly profitable in no time at all.

If you want to read more fantastic reviews and reports on the current state of UK sports betting, head on back to our main page for a broader overview and insight.