There’s a massive difference between placing pre-game bets and in-play wagers. With the pre-game markets, you’re carefully analysing all the information you can get your hands on about injuries, the weather, the head-to-head record, and the venue.
Most of this goes out the window once the game begins, as live betting is about reacting to what’s in front of you as the odds constantly change. That’s part of the whole appeal of in-play betting. This article will look at ways to think outside the box with your live strategy.
Every Goal Resets the Board
One goal in football can make a massive difference to a game, changing the context of it. That’s why bookmakers will freeze the odds the moment a ball passes the line. Prices will disappear and become greyed out temporarily as they reset every market simultaneously.
Some, like the first goalscorer, settle instantly, while the rest reopen at significantly different numbers. That’s why it’s so important to stay up to date with live scores, as a single goal can swing a losing position to a winning one and vice versa.
Sharp in-play bettors will use the temporary pause in the odds to decide on their next course of action and quickly place their bets, possibly taking advantage of a reasonable price.
The Odds Don’t Reveal Everything
A priced market won’t automatically be a correct market. The odds will react to the scoreline, but you’re the one actually watching the match and knowing the information that the scoreline doesn’t reveal.
A football team could have been peppering the opposition goal for 30 minutes, getting corners and having a couple of close calls before the opposition snatch a goal against the run of play from a counterattack.
Some bettors will see that while the odds against the more dominant team have gotten longer, they’re still dominating the game, and the chances are that they’ll overcome the deficit. This is often where the value exists in live betting.
The Time Left
One of the factors that often gets overlooked with live football betting is how much time is left on the clock. A goal in the 13th minute versus the 89th minute is the same on a score sheet, but completely different in the context of betting markets.
Early goals can open things up and create fresh opportunities. There’s plenty of uncertainty, as there’s a lot of time left to still play. Late goals have the opposite effect, compressing everything, as the chances of a comeback are much less. This results in sharper odds movements.
The same logic applies in reverse when goals don’t happen. If a game is 0-0 after 70 minutes, the chances of over 3.5 goals being scored are looking slim, and the in-play odds extend significantly. Bettors need to consider both the events that happen and those events that are absent.
Tracking Live Scores
You need a fast and reliable score feed to properly bet in-play. Good live score services will tell you who scored the goal and the context behind it, such as how many shots on target there were before scoring, how it was scored, and so on. Tracking your betting on LiveGoals is one solid option.
The goal alert is a starting point for further investigation. The answer to the context of the goal completely changes what you should do with the next-goal market.
Do keep in mind that latency is real, so your television and the bookmaker feed might be a few seconds apart. The bookies tend to have the faster feeds. Following several games at one time and not understanding what’s happening in any of them is a worse position than properly following two of them.
Common Mistakes People Make
A few bad habits can cause a lot of damage to your live betting efforts. Betting reflexively after every goal is a bad idea, as this is when volatility is at its highest and your judgment will be at its weakest.
Ignoring tempo and fatigue is another, as teams that are tiring will often start leaking goals in the final 15 minutes, even if they’ve managed to keep things respectable up until that point. Blindly betting on more games than you can keep track of is more of a wild gamble.
Ultimately, live betting should add to the entertainment of the game you’re watching, but placing more than one or two in-play wagers usually isn’t advisable.
