Popular Sports For Live Betting

In theory, live betting will work with any sport. The reality, however, is that some sports lend themselves to in game wagering more readily than others. In addition, certain sports resonate more with the general public and generate a higher level of live betting interest. This article will provide an overview of the most popular sports for live betting and what you can expect when you get involved: FOOTBALL/SOCCER: It’s not surprising that the most popular sport on the planet is also the most popular live betting option. Soccer has a long history of live betting (which will more typically be referred to as ‘in running’ wagering in Europe) and technology has opened up even more options for bookmakers and players alike. Soccer lends itself particularly well to live betting. It’s deliberate pace gives players a chance to ‘get down’ and bookmakers a chance to methodically adjust the line. The deep statistical framework facilitates proposition bets and the wide array of leagues means plenty of games for parlays. AMERICAN FOOTBALL: At North American facing sportsbooks gridiron action is king. Although live betting is offered on both college and pro football the NFL is by far the most popular. Since the NFL is the most popular betting sport overall at sportsbooks in that region it’s not surprising. Football offers plenty of time between plays for players and bookmakers to do their work. There’s a ton of statistical categories that lend themselves to proposition bets. On a busy NFL Sunday there’s a lot of games going on simultaneously and they’re all televised—perfect for parlays. TENNIS: While this might be a surprise to North American bettors tennis is an extremely popular wagering sport in the rest of the world. The pace and format of tennis makes it perfect for live betting. While tennis might not offer the variety of proposition bets that other sports do it’s otherwise excellent for live betting. There’s plenty of time to post updated odds and let players get down on them. There’s a decent number of individual games and sets on which to wager and a wealth of statistical information for handicapping. BASKETBALL: Basketball enjoys international popularity as both a spectator and betting sport. It also works well for live betting. The fast pace does make it more difficult to book and bet but the relatively high and frequent scores makes up for it. There’s plenty of statistics and games and leagues all over the world. HOCKEY: Offers many of the same live betting benefits as basketball. Fast moving and exciting sport engages fans and betting only enhances that. At the same time, it facilitates many of the same bets as soccer such as ‘next to score’ and other propositions. BASEBALL: Baseball is a seriously underrated betting sport and that includes the live wagering component. Slow pace allows for plenty of time for updating odds and placing bets. Extensive statistical information available making it easy to set prices and handicap bets. With nine innings of play there are new betting opportunities all of the time. Lends itself well to proposition bets such as ‘next team to score’, game/inning/team totals, and on game events such as ‘will there be extra innings This list just scratches the surface of the live betting options available online. Your best strategy is to check out the live betting interface at some of the better online sportsbooks and see what other sports and bet types are available. You might find you enjoy watching and betting a new sport like cricket or darts—both of which are easy to find on live betting boards.
Live Betting Up And Comers

There was a time when live betting options were limited even at the best sportsbooks. You’d be able to find limited live bets and only on nationally televised games in major sports like football or soccer. Thanks to technological innovation and 24/7 connectivity that is no longer the case. Extensive live wagering is available not only on major sports but lower profile sports as well. In this article we’ll discuss some of the live betting ‘up and comers’. These are sports that might not have widespread adoption yet but that are on the upswing in popularity. CRICKET: Cricket already has a fairly strong live betting presence and given its worldwide popularity that’s not a big surprise. In fact, cricket is the second most popular sport in the world behind soccer with somewhere between 2 billion and 3 billion fans. Betting has always been ubiquitous in cricket but the advent of live betting is something new. The sport might be unfamiliar to North American fans but it lends itself nicely to live betting with a fairly leisurely pace and a deep statistical set that facilitates plenty of proposition wagers. VOLLEYBALL: It can be played on a beach or in a gymnasium but in either venue volleyball has surprising international popularity. By most metrics it is the sixth most popular betting sport in the world and is now finding traction with live betting. Offers some of the same matchup advantages as tennis but also provides some easy to understand proposition wagers including handicap bets, totals and even/odd score bets. HORSE RACING: Horse racing is synonymous with betting and enjoys worldwide popularity. A recent trend is ‘in-running’ horse racing wagering. Live betting on horse racing primarily involves ‘to win’ wagers and allows bettors to get down after the race begins. Traditional pre-race odds are offered and after the race starts the ‘to win’ prices are updated for each horse several times throughout the race. Turns horse racing bettors from passive viewers to active participants during the race. At this point, there’s not much variety in bet types but with a fanbase of experienced and enthusiastic bettors this could really catch on. GOLF: Golf is generally an underrated betting sport and that extends to live wagering. With a large field of players, multiple rounds and eighteen holes there’s plenty of opportunities for in-running bets. Live betting markets are offered for the winner of the tournament, leader at the end of the current round and the winner out of the group playing each hole. Additional prop bets are available for score over/unders, player matchups over the entire round and a group of three holes. Players can bet if any player in a group will be under or over par for an individual hole. RUGBY: Not surprising to find it on a betting board given its huge popularity in many countries and that includes live betting. For players at North American facing books live betting options will be minimal—in running odds on the winner and a final score over/under. In other parts of the world and particularly in Europe you’ll find a much more extensive selection of rugby betting odds. ESPORTS: Professional competitive video gaming is a booming spectator and betting sport. Live betting is the next frontier and quite a few online sportsbooks offer markets on games like League of Legends and Dota 2. You can bet on the overall winner of a game or tournament updated in real time and at some books you’ll find game specific props like ‘Total Map Wins’ and ‘Correct Score’ in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Tough for a newcomer to bet as there’s something of a learning curve in learning the intricacies of the game.
The Most Unusual Live Betting Sports

Most sportsbooks are conservative by their very nature and make it a priority to minimize their downside risk. For that reason, they’re hesitant to deviate from the traditional mix of betting sports. There are a few exceptions that have no problem trying new things even if they border on the bizarre. This article lists some of the most unusual live betting sports that bookmakers have posted. Every one of these has been on the board taking action at at least one sportsbook in the world within the past month. In most cases, they’re currently on the board at the time of this writing. PRO WRESTLING: Despite the fact that the matches are ‘worked’ and the outcomes predetermined there’s a surprising amount of pro wrestling betting at online sportsbook. A few have started to offer live betting during big events like Wrestlemania. Players can bet on updated odds to win the match as it progresses plus take a shot at props like ‘next wrestler to get a near fall (2 count)’ or ‘will either wrestler be thrown out of the ring before the end of the match’. Since a good deal of the in-ring action leading up to the finish is improvised, this one actually makes sense. LOTTERY: A few Eastern European sportsbooks allow players to bet on lottery games ‘in running’. Many jurisdictions offer keno-like games that are played several times per day. Players can wager on the specific numbers drawn and a laundry list of props related to these numbers. Wagers are available such as ‘Will any drawn number be divisible by 5?’ and ‘Will the difference between the highest number drawn and lowest number drawn be Over or Under 17.5?’ As strange as it sounds, it wouldn’t surprise me to see lottery live betting become much more widespread. You can’t handicap it so sportsbooks don’t have to deal with ‘sharp’ money and the general public remains fascinated with the lottery particularly when the jackpot hits the nine figure mark. CHESS: Most European sportsbooks take action on major chess events and a fair number of these take live betting on games as they are in progress. High level competitive chess is a perfect fit for live wagering due to having several minutes between moves. The ‘to win’ odds are adjusted throughout the match as are odds on the draw. Doubtful that chess will ever replace NFL football in the minds of the betting public but with a ton of statistical data to work with it’s actually a decent betting sport. VIDEO GAMES: Not to be confused with esports which are competitions among professional video game players. Several Eastern European sportsbooks offer live betting on random video games contested by unknown players and streamed to the world. Available games at the time of this writing are Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, Tekken and even Angry Birds. There’s also plenty of sports games including Rugby Fifteens, Madden NFL 18, EA Sports PGA Tour, Dirt Rally Racing, F1 2017, FBL Floorball, and even WWE 2K18 among many others. Betting on random games of Street Fighter might not be your cup of tea but the sports games are essentially the same experience as the increasingly popular ‘Virtual Sports’ offered at many sportsbooks. TWENTYONE: Better known to many as ‘Blackjack’. A couple of Eastern European sportsbooks offer live betting on computer simulated blackjack games. The amazing thing is that they come up with dozens of prop bets on a hand of blackjack. There’s ‘to win’ betting on the player and the dealer, player and dealer totals, prop bets odds on the player busting, getting specific suits or ranks and even a +1200 prop bet on each player getting a specific face card.
The Future Of Live Betting

Sports betting is one of the few areas of the gambling business that has been experiencing any growth during the past decade. Casino gambling has fallen off dramatically due to a confluence of factors including poor management, a saturated market and an aging customer base. The casino industry is living on borrowed time since the the younger generations coming up don’t gamble as much as their predecessors nor do they enjoy the same types of gambling. The companies that successfully find a product mix that resonates with the so called ‘millennial’ generation and players slightly older will survive and prosper. Those that don’t have an uphill battle for long term survival. You can expect live betting to be a significant part of any successful product mix targeting players under the age of 40. Live betting has been a big growth area in sports betting in recent years and not only appeals to traditional sports bettors but the legion of fantasy sports enthusiasts. Esports betting should also continue its growth with the underlying sport not showing any signs of cooling off. Live betting on esports is already being offered at some sportsbooks and you can expect this to be expanded significantly going forward. FINDING THE RIGHT MIX On a macro level, the gambling industry isn’t completely clueless. They have some idea of what the younger generation of potential customers do like and understand the minutia of their consumer behavior. Sports betting in general should be a huge growth area but there’s one potential problem there as well—the ‘millennials’ don’t enjoy the traditional bigtime sports to the same degree as previous generations. This is one of the reasons that all of the professional sports leagues are rushing to embrace esports. The development of the gaming industry in the next decade will be interesting since they’ve got some strong cards to work with but nothing that’s a slam dunk. Sports betting should continue to grow and live betting will be a larger component of that. Here’s some things you can expect to see in live betting’s future: –TIGHTER INTEGRATION WITH FANTASY SPORTS: This is a no-brainer. Live betting and daily fantasy sports games go together like peanut butter and jelly. Look for live betting to introduce daily fantasy sports based bets that will give players the opportunity to change or hedge their position while the game is in progress. –EXPANDED ESPORTS COVERAGE: The esports boom hasn’t been lost on land based and online bookmakers. In Las Vegas, several esport arenas are under construction and they’ve received regulatory approval to take action on it. Online, you can expect expanded coverage of esports with sportsbooks adding more game titles and more bet types—including live betting. Expect an ‘arms race’ of sorts with the dedicated esports betting sites putting pressure on legacy sportsbooks to stay on the cutting edge. –MORE LIVE STREAMING, VISUALIZATION AND DATA: It’s very common for European sportsbooks to offer live streams of games. Expect that trend to reach North America as the professional leagues find ways to get a piece of the sports betting pie. The generation coming up is used to getting information online, not from television. For that reason live betting interfaces will need to include more game visualization and betting data to keep them engaged. –A MASSIVE CHALLENGE FROM DECENTRALIZED BLOCKCHAIN PLATFORMS: An in-depth analysis of this is well beyond the purview of this article but here’s the reality of the situation—blockchain based decentralized betting platforms could change everything. There’s plenty of amazing technology already at work with even more ‘in the pipeline’ in the blockchain space. This includes a sizable number of gambling related platforms looking to disrupt esports gambling, sports betting and casino gambling. There’s any number of industry incumbent that failed to adjust to a drastically changing market landscape and paid for it—Blockbuster, Circuit City, Radio Shack, Tower Records, etc. Don’t be surprised if this type of seismic change comes to the gambling industry.