Live Betting Like a Pro

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Live Betting 101

Live betting is an intergral aspect of any sharp bettor’s day-to-day. Whether sharps are betting live to capture high EV spots or hedge out of a negative EV position, live betting cannot be ignored.

Most recreational bettors may struggle to live bet effectively. Lines move quickly. Comparing prices from book to book is seemingly impossible. How do you even know if there is value?

While sharp bettors take advantage of live bets, a lot of novice bettors use live betting to capture a gut feeling or to double down on a bet with no edge, compounding a bad bet.

Please take a look at our best betting tools with live betting. Click here.

The obvious way to take advantage of a live bet is when there is a sudden injury, news, or even weather that impacts an event.

So, how does someone place these bets before they move? And, how do sharp bettors use live betting to their advantage?

Keep reading.

Live Betting 201

Let’s take the concept of live betting a step further. While some of the elementary reasons to live bet are indeed in a sharp bettor's arsenal, there are other ways sharps use live betting to maximize their profits.

Let’s take a basic example. Say you are using a sports betting tool or are originating your own numbers on an NFL game. You think the spread in Commanders at Cowboys should be Washington -2.75.

The actual spread is Washington -3. Three is a key number in the NFL (albeit, the value of the three is decreasing). Yes, you can turn around and bet Dallas +3, but you can also wait to bet…live.

If Dallas gets the ball first, moves up the field, and seems like they are driving, you could catch a Washington -2 on the first drive. Sure, they could then eventually be down three, six, seven, or eight points, but you are still capitalizing on the odds where pre-flop there was an edge.

That was a basic example, but that is one of the many principles sharp sports bettors look for in live betting. If you see an edge in a team at -110 before the game starts, and during the game, without much information changing, the odds go to +100, you are making a great bet.

Does this all sound familiar? If you’re a reader of the newsletter, it should. Sharp bettors are looking for expected value, and expected value does NOT need to be found before a game begins.

As a matter of fact, some of the highest EVs you could find can come from live betting.

Lastly, sharps can look to hedge out of positions in the live market. Sportsbooks offer the cash-out option to entice bettors to lock in a profit, but in almost all situations, the price they offer for the cash-out is -EV.

This means you are better off riding a loser, assuming it had EV in the first place, than clicking a cash out for a cash win, but an EV loss.

Knowing these principles can help you win more and make better decisions during games.

Let’s Get This Straight

Every week, we dissect a relevant sports betting topic to determine its validity.

Public Betting Splits

NFL season is here, so get ready for the massive influx of tweets quoting public betting splits.

People love these tweets. They give bettors the (false) feeling that they are on the right or wrong side of a game.

Here’s the reality:
Public betting splits, without any additional context, from recreational books, are meaningless.

Price rules everything in sports betting. Some sportsbooks are sharper than others. Without the context of price and sportsbook, this “data” is meaningless.

Figuring out what side the pros are on and what side the joes are on is not what is going to turn you into a profitable bettor. Tracking odds and limits at sharp books will.

These are engagement tweets with no value. Betting the Jets because “90% of the money is on the Bills”, will not help you bet smarter this NFL season.

Featured Tool Spotlight: Pick The Odds

Every week, we highlight one of our featured tools that helps our readers become better and more profitable sports bettors.

Pick The Odds is a world-class sports betting tool, and its arbitrage features are one of the best in the market. Its live betting is elite.

Read our full review of Pick The Odds.

What separates Pick the Odds from other live betting tools is its speed and the number of sportsbook options they have. Odds update as quickly as every 1.2 seconds, and Pick The Odds has 110+ sportsbooks on its platform.

The best part? It’s free to use. The free version of the tool comes with some limitations, but all features work as intended. You can find risk-free profit (capped at 2%) at 110+ sportsbooks.

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