On my sports betting site, they now have vast options for live betting. I can literally bet on Italian Women’s Volleyball Serie B league games live, meaning with the game in progress. Any sport with even the scarcest following has odds that takes into account the game situation.
At least with the sports I bet on, which are the American sports plus soccer and cricket, the live betting immediately shuts off the moment there is a potential significant event; e.g. major injury, possible red card, DRS review in cricket, etc… and then odds are immediately adjusted once there is a known resolution to the possible major event. Even if there isn’t a major event, the odds are constantly changing based on every game situation; e.g. time left, who has possession of the ball, an early wicket, a broken serve, etc. at each point in time. I assume this part is algorithmic, but how do they track the normal course and major events so quickly? I’m very curious how it all works.
As you said, algorithms. In other words, computers.
I’m sure there’s someone watching the game and enters information as it happens. A dream job the way I see it, watch games (I’m baseball guy), enter information as it occurs just like when I score a game myself or like the official scorer does and get paid for it. I suspect there’s a computer app for each sport and each of their intricacies. The game’s viewer doesn’t need to be at the game, it could be from anywhere in the world. In baseball’s case, one may not even need to see the game, just listen on radio. For each event, the algo figures out the new odds. Simple really.
Well, even assuming that there is a way to monitor every game in “real time”, there can literally be 1,000 games going on at the same time. On weekends, sometimes there over 500 soccer games going on at the same time. Even now, at this moment on a Wednesday, I have live lines available for 22 basketball games in 10 different leagues, 5 Swedish hockey league games, 23 tennis matches around world, 22 handball matches, 4 women’s volleyball matches in 3 countries. Are you saying that every sports betting site has thousands of employees monitoring every game? Yes, the computer algorithm part is easy. The real-time info and the ability to adjust the line when the star striker is injured for Vratimar, in the Czech Republic women’s volleyball league, is not.
10 or so years ago when my sons were playing HS basketball, you could sign up to enter live stats to some web-site. I don’t recall if you got paid (I think not), and I don’t know how many games actually got updated that way.
But, there are probably people are all of those games who would live-stat them given a user-friendly app for $20 or so (and you’d want at least two people so that someone isn’t messing with your odds).
Maybe not every betting site but the big players certainly would. Even the smaller ones are probably just affiliates of the bigger ones. Only makes sense to me. You could have data agreements with the major leagues. I don’t see a big problem in paying MLB to have real-time data, ditto NFL, NBA and NHL, would probably be cheaper. But for a Czech women’s volleyball league, just hire people who are fans of those leagues.
And make sure that you have the most up to date feed.
Punters in the UK are using drones to bet in running on horse races, because they have better, faster information than that provided by the live coverage.
Similarly courtsiding has long been a problem in tennis betting.
I watched the T20 World Cup final on Sunday night and some times the coverage on Cricinfo was ahead of the live TV stream.
That was one thing that inspired the question. I know that tv and internet feeds, depending on your provider, location, etc., can be significantly delayed.