A number of online bookmakers including betting exchanges offer live betting on popular sporting events including football, horse racing and motorsport. What makes this type of betting different to traditional sports betting is the ability to bet in running and react to changes in the market.
Betting in running is especially popular in football where punters can bet on the outcome of the match throught play and by using betting exchanges it is also possible to lock in profit on a bet depending on market conditions by cancelling out an original bet or even reducing a loss on a losing bet by betting on one of the other outcomes.
With changes in the markets during events comes changes in odds as the markets adapt and react to the goings on in the particular event, live betting odds are adjusted by the bookmakers and betting exchanges every minute and should an important event happen for example a goal in a football match then the markets are suspended for a short period which the odds are restructured. This however does not happen with the such sports as horse racing where the odds just change according to the race as it happens.
The advantages of betting during live events are two fold. The first is that by waiting for an event to begin before placing the initial bet you can get a better grasp of the market and take into consideration any news or changes likely to effect the odds of the event right up to ana after the start. This can result in an advantage compared to placing the bet hours or days before the start of the event, much like placing an ante-post horse racing bet in some ways.
The second advantage is that you have the ability to change the outcome of a previously placed bet. For example take the following scenario:
Place a correct score bet on a football match between Arsenal and Chelsea for Arsenal to win 1-0.
Now say the result is 1-0 and the match is 70 minutes old, Chelsea are playing well and it looks likely the game will not finish 1-0, by betting in-running you can use a betting exchange and cancel out the bet by laying 1-0 Arsenal and as the odds would be greatly reduced it would be possible to make a profit regardless of the end result.
Either way betting on live sporting events can be a different approach to betting compared to standard betting prior to the start of an event. There are a number of bookmakers who participate in live betting including: