Live betting strategy – avoid betting late minutes of the game

Sports arbitrage trading in-play might be dangerous when betting late minutes of the game. Check out why live betting is dangerous.

Sports arbitrage in-play is by all means more demanding (though, profitable) compared to placing surebets pre-match. Unfortunately placing surebets near the end of the game might become problematic.

This is because most of the bookmakers will close their lines near the end of a given sport contest. Sometimes it will happen just three minutes before the end of the scheduled time of the game, sometimes 5, sometimes 8, there is no definite time point for that. This will vary between matches and scores.

You might go into the trouble when you successfully place one leg of your in-play surebet at bookie 1 and before placing the other leg at bookie 2 the market will be closed for good. You will be left alone with an unbalanced exposure at bookie 1 with the best option to cross your fingers for the right outcome of the match (and the second best would be to bet another leg at the bookie 1, thus losing the margin value).

That is why to avoid such issues we recommend you NOT to place arbitrage bets after the 86th minute when it goes to soccer games full-time markets or 40th minute for half-time bets respectively.

This rule applies also to other sports, mainly ice-hockey, basketball and handball.