Betting In Play (or Live Betting as it is sometimes called) with sites such as bet365 Sport is a massive part of its appeal. Punters love the opportunity to watch a sporting event live and to be able to bet on how they see the game unfolding.
However, while it can be fun and sometimes even see you land a winner, it can be tricky too. In Play betting requires a certain mindset, and several skills that perhaps not every punter realises.
As such, it can be easy to become overwhelmed when the odds change so quickly. Turning what looked like a great value bet, into one that isn’t such a good deal.
The flip side of this is that you can use your observational skills to pick a market offering great odds, then watch them shorten. Then hopefully win you your bet at those much better value odds.
Life imitates art and betting imitates life in many respects. With In Play betting, this is the kind of option for people who like fast decisions, faster responses, and quick-fire results.
With that in mind, and with many years of In Play betting experience, here’s 10 top tips. All of which are designed to enhance or improve or inform your play when live betting.
Ten Top Tips to Help You Master Betting In-Play
1.Fail to Prepare – Prepare to Fail
One of the appealing things about In-Play betting is that you don’t need to do too much preparation for it, right?
Wrong!
Sure, you can just load up a game, head to the Live betting section at bet365 and bet. Who knows, you may even win a few times.
That said, I still firmly believe that the more preparation you do for ANY type of bet, the better choices you will make. That is the same for Futures, Pre-Match and In-Play betting.
Even if it is just putting the In-Play event in a bit more context. Familiarising yourself with the teams or players competing. Looking at their recent statistics, historic record against each other. Anything such as this can give you a firm foundation of knowledge from which you can inform the decisions you take when betting In-Play.
That’s not to say In-Game events don’t matter. They do of course, but by having this background knowledge you do not view such events in isolation.
2. Prepare Your Environment and Yourself
When I prepare for an In Play betting session, I make sure that I have a couple of things ready. Here’s my checklist of what I do or have to hand: –
- Find somewhere quiet which allows me to focus on the game.
- Ensure I have a reliable platform to view the game. Either on Live TV or via Live-Streaming. Ideally, you want an option with the least amount of lag between the events happening in real life, and them appearing on your chosen device.
- Find a reliable source for in-game data for the fixture.
- Pre-load the betting account being used with enough funds for the session.
- Pay close attention to the team/player news, in particular for details about players who are playing that may not be 100% fit.
- Have a snack and drink available (and replenish at a break in the game if need be).
- It may sound silly, but go to the toilet before the match starts.
- Have ready a notebook and a pen – handy to jot down something you have noticed which you could easily forget.
- Have the In Play section and the fixture in question loaded up on the device ahead of kick off. Ideally, you want the In Play betting device to be separate from the one you watch the event on. I tend to watch events on my iPad or TV and use my phone to bet in play.
By setting yourself up, you are now ready to focus on the game at hand with as few distractions as possible.
3. Don’t Jump In With a Bet Immediately
It’s tempting when the game gets underway to throw a quick bet out there to test the water.
Personally, I don’t do that until I feel there is a discernible feeling of how the match is going. That can take anything from a couple of minutes, even right the way through to a break in the match or more.
What I do initially is rehearse with one bet. I don’t place the bet, I just note down a bet I’d have made and then see whether it plays out like I expected. If it does, this gives me confidence that my judgement is good. If not, then maybe I need to look at a different market.
4. View Your In-Play Betting on an Event As a Whole – Not a Series of Bets
As with all forms of betting, you will lose In Play bets. So, I never view In Play bets in isolation. Instead, I view my betting on an event as a whole.
So, if I have made 10 In Play bets on an event, won nine and lost one, but still made a loss as I placed a much larger wager on the bet I lost. That to me is a less successful session than one where I placed 10 bets, won one, lost nine, but still made a profit.
It is incredibly unlikely you will win every In Play bet, so focusing on the entire event makes more sense.
5. Focus More on the Game Not the Markets
For me, In Play betting is about watching a sports event, then betting on what I believe will transpire based on the research I’ve done and the evidence I have seen.
However, a number of people seem to spend more time watching the odds on markets, hoping they will reach a certain level before they place a bet. This is a mistake. You aren’t in-play betting here. You are hunting odds and then betting and hoping it will come in. By not watching the game, you are not providing any context for the bet.
I believe you watch the game, note something, check the odds for a bet pertaining to that and if it looks like a value bet, place it. Which brings me nicely onto the sixth point.
6. Watch Out for Momentum Changing Moments
The best opportunities during In Play betting can be found when you identify a change in momentum in a game or event. Sometimes, this can be a significant happening, but other times it may be a small, almost unnoticeable event that changes the atmosphere of a match.
When this happens, you can try and make hay on those markets that are longer odds. You see this more notably in sports games like football or American Football where one incident can change the mood of a game and see a team previously losing, come back, or a team winning start to see their lead being diminished.
7. Be Quick and Be Decisive
Arguably the key skill for any bettor when In Play betting is to bet quickly and decisively. If you dilly-dally over a bet, then before you know it, those odds you liked, will change.
So, if you see an event, find a market you think will come in and like the odds, select the odds and place the bet as quickly as you can. You don’t have time to mull things over like you do in pre-match or futures betting.
8. Have Realistic Expectations
I’ve touched on this a little earlier in the article. Be realistic with your expectations. On some events, you may make a profit. For a few, it may be a nice big profit. For others it may be a loss.
Betting is not an exact science and In Play betting is arguably the most volatile form of betting available today. So if you have realistic expectations of what your betting will likely produce, you can avoid bad habits and getting too overconfident or downbeat on yourself.
9. Pace Yourself – Don’t Try to Bet In Play Too Often
If you bet like I outline here, it can be somewhat mentally exhausting to bet for a lengthy period. Tiredness is never a great bedfellow for better betting. So, I tend to only have one In Play betting session per day. And I don’t have many in a week.
Aside from the financial implications, it is easy to overload yourself, or skip corners to bet in play more often. I’d rather be well-prepared, alert and fully focused on one In Play betting session per week, than do one a day and be poorly prepared, tired and not focused.
10. Always Bet Responsibly
Lastly and always most importantly, In Play betting is not an excuse to bet irresponsibly. You should bet as responsibly here as you do with any other bet you make.
This is important as you can get caught up in things when In Play betting due to how fast things can change. It is also to get quickly demoralised if you lose a few bets, or too confident if you land a few.
That is when stake values can creep higher and higher and before you know it, just one losing bet can turn a good session into a bad, unprofitable one.
So bet In Play responsibly always. That means knowing when not to bet, as well as knowing when to bet. Arguably, the former is even more important than the latter!
I hope these tips help you enjoy some fun and enjoyable In Play betting!
