May 11 Horse Racing Betting Tips & Predictions
5 August, 2024
53 Views
Welcome to the busiest day of the week for horse racing followers and we have…
Making the Most of In-Play Betting
Let’s look at In-Play betting. Sports betting is an industry in a hurry and as the number of wagers on major sports like football, horse racing and greyhounds continues to grow year-on-year, the race for your business becomes increasingly competitive between major bookmakers.
It’s a crowded market and, similar to the one you’ll find with the mobile phone contract business, customer is king, and you have the top suppliers falling over themselves, promising you the world just to gain your business.
Traditionally, we had the top bookmakers on the high-street and they were successful, regardless of what they did. If they had a prime location in town, near a sports arena or a popular pub, they would enjoy continued custom and the tills would ring while the safe filled seven days a week. The arrival and growth in popularity of online gambling and betting on your mobile app changed the game forever.
The ability to accept bets without the need for a licensed-premises opened the door for an avalanche of start-up online bookmakers to collapse into the market and the traditional big names, such as Bet365, Ladbrokes and William Hill, could no longer rely on reputation and loyalty to ensure they beat the competition. That’s because those arriving on the scene were eager to make an impression and they did so, snatching a share of the market, by offering over-the-top welcome offers to new customers.
Why bet on the same terms with your traditional bookie when you could move and take advantage of free bets, price boosts and enhanced place terms? What’s more, all you had to do to swap bookies was type a different name into your internet browser.
In-Play Changed the Way We Bet
The increased competition, as well as the possibilities opened by internet gambling, led to a flood of new and improved ways to bet. Some were seen as nothing more than fads, proving popular in the early days before dying out as punters moved onto the next craze, while others lasted the test of time and not only became part of how we bet, they changed the way we bet forever.
That’s certainly true of in-play betting which exploded onto the scene and grew in both strength and popularity from there. Before its arrival punters were forced to get their sports bets on in plenty of time for the start of a match and if you missed the beginning there was no chance of having a wager on the outcome. It was a case of act early or miss out. That never sat well with players, especially those who missed the kick-off of a football match by a matter of seconds.
Something had to change and with the invention of in-play betting it did, offering customers an increased number of betting opportunities in every match, close to double in many. The reason for that is in-play betting makes having a punt as exciting in the final few minutes of play as it is before the start.
Let’s take a closer look at just what it is and how it works, before investigating how we can make it work for us and, ultimately, provide punters with more of a profit.
In-play Betting Explained
In-play betting – sometimes referred to as live betting – is the process of continuing pre-match markets throughout the course of the fixture. So, you can bet on the match-winner before the start, or you can bet on the match-winner at any point of the play, even with 84 minutes on the clock. The reason for that is traders work on any single game throughout play, updating odds on the most popular betting opportunities to match the flow of play.
If the home side is an even-money favourite before kick-off and the scores are tied at 0-0 at half-time, you’ll often get a slightly better price as they now only have 45 minutes to get the victory and land your bet. If they are 1-0 down, the price will grow as they now have to get even before pushing themselves ahead and winning the match. In-play prices are determined by a number of factors in a sport like football, including performance, bookings, red cards, score, time left to play and even substitutions. That’s why it’s so exciting and that’s why punters can’t get enough of it.
It’s not just match-winner that’s available to bet in-play, however, there are literally hundreds of markets. Pre-match betting opportunities like both teams to score, handicap, first goalscorer, total goals and bookings are all there throughout play with the prices updated to match the flow of the game and the lines moved. For example, if you back a team -1 on the handicap and they have already scored to take the lead, the handicap may be moved to -2 for new bets, keeping things relevant and ensuring the prices are always competitive.
