Live Sports Betting - How To Bet Like A Pro

Nowadays, live sports betting is becoming more and more common in the US as new states continue to legalize online sports betting activity. With the right strategy, knowledge, and experience, live betting could be a very useful tool to generate extra revenue on a regular basis. Before starting to make money on live betting, there are important concepts and facts to know that are crucial to your future success.

Remember that there are multiple sport disciplines available for live betting and these concepts vary with each different sport. There are some ground rules that apply for live sports betting in general, but you cannot use the same streamlined strategy across all sports if you want to be successful. Each sport has unique features and concepts that cannot be translated to others.

Today, we will walk you through important live betting concepts & strategies along with detailed live betting guides for each available sport.

5 Concepts to Know Before You Start Live Sports Betting

Before we can deep dive into live betting guides for each sport, there are some general concepts you need to know. Without understanding these concepts, it is not possible to implement a successful live betting strategy.

1) Live Betting Starts Before the Game

The way you prepare for games and the amount of time you spend researching is an important component of live betting. This preparation usually comes in the form of checking stats, lineups, injury lists, pre-game odds, historical figures, head to head, current form and any other factor that could potentially influence the game’s outcome. The level of research required, and the importance of specific elements varies with different sports. A sport like baseball might require an in-depth statistical analysis, while a different sport like soccer could be much more straightforward.

2) Feeling the Momentum

Remember all the legendary comebacks you have witnessed in sports within your lifetime. All those incredible comebacks were re-ignited by a very important phenomenon, momentum. To be able to assess the direction of momentum, hands down is the most important trait you could have for live betting. Understanding which team or player has the momentum on their side close to the end of a contest could be as important as predicting the outcome itself.

 With that being said, it is important to keep in mind that sports events are very long in duration and have enough time for multiple momentum shifts. Feeling momentum on one side early in the game can be deceiving during a live event as teams and players can perform very differently in-between quarters, periods or sets. It is always better to bet closer to the end of a game where there is no more time for a momentum shift. Each specific sport has a different momentum window based on its length.

3) Probability and Risk

Throughout the duration of a game odds constantly change based on the current situation. To pursue the ultimate goal of finding the best value for a specific line, you need to understand how to read live odds and their implications.

Every numerical figure you see in the form of odds represents risk & probability. There is an inverse correlation between the two where one increases the other decreases. The higher the risk, the lower the probability of a particular event occurring. In live betting odds represent both the risk and the probability of your bet winning. When you take a higher risk and bet on a line with relatively higher odds the probability of your bet winning decreases.

Imagine that every single bet you make is an investment. In this scenario, your initial stake is your principle, and the odds represent the interest rate tied to your investment. When the interest rate or odds are higher your rates of return will be higher too.

Let’s demonstrate this with a numerical example. When 2 equally ranked tennis players face each other, usually the odds for either one to win are very close. For the sake of this exercise, assume that the odds for either player to win is exactly the same at 1.85 (-118) with an implied probability of 54%. When player A goes up by a set the probability of player B to win decreases and this is reflected on the odds as an increase to 3.5 (250), with a lower implied probability of 28%. When you live bet on this new odd, you are taking a higher risk, as the player you picked is in a more difficult position compared to the beginning of the game. However, the additional risk you are taking is compensated in higher returns. Therefore, if you wager $100 on player B when he’s down a set, you will win $350 in returns compared to the $185 you would have made if you have bet when the game was tied.

4) Live Sports Betting is a Volume Game

You can’t win it all…. Even the best among us cannot win all the time. You need to understand that predicting the outcome of a sports contest is an extremely complex task due to having many variables that we have no control over and no way of knowing when they may happen. Thus, technically, each bet you take could lose because you can always come across an outlier.

Accept the fact but don’t worry! Knowing that some of the bets you take might lose doesn’t mean you will lose in aggregate. You should think of live betting like a marathon and not a sprint. Losing one or two bets during a day is not the end of the world, what is important is that you win more than you lose on a daily basis. Even if you feel your daily margins are small, they will definitely feel more impactful at the end of the week or month.

The analogy is always the same for anything that has a risk factor, never put all your eggs in one basket… Instead, concentrate on the big picture and play a volume game. Let’s say you are making 10 bets a day, considering the accumulated probability of all 10 odds, the likelihood of all these bets to hit is pretty low. It’s basically equivalent to hitting a 10-game parlay every day. Instead, come up with a strategy where you can win at least 6 out of the 10 bets you make.

As we discussed above, odds indicate the probability of winning or the risk of losing. If you want to win more than you lose, you should bet on odds with a probability of 50% and higher. When the odd for a line is 2.0 (+100) the chance of your bet to win is exactly at 50%. If on a micro level, each of your single bet has a higher probability of winning than losing, this will reflect on your macro, which is the collective outcome of those 10 bets you take that day.

On another note, keep in mind that when the probability of winning increases the return decreases. Assuming that, on an average 6 or 7 of your 10 bets will win per day, make sure you don’t drop below a certain odd, where you are no more profitable.

5) Practice Makes it Perfect

Similar to anything new, there is a learning curve to Live Betting as well. The more games you watch and the larger your sample size grows, your ability to analyze and predict the outcome will increase. What may feel like an instinct at first is actually your brain going through the numerous games you have watched in the past and reminding you of the outcomes of the ones similar to what you are currently watching. After a while, you will realize there are repetitive scenarios and patterns in each sport, and betting against these scenarios would be a very reliable strategy.

For example, let’s say from your previous experiences, you have assessed those games in the Scottish Premier League rarely ends, 0-0. You could use this implication and turn it in to a scenario that you can rely on, knowing that your bet will hit more than it will lose.

Now that we have established the groundwork, let’s deep dive into live betting guides for each sport.