Live betting is one of the most exciting ways of gambling on next year’s upcoming Euro 2012 football tournament in Poland and Ukraine. With live betting, gamblers are presented with a variety of ways to make money, which further adds to its appeal. This type of football betting has in recent years become very popular at both betting exchanges and online bookmakers.
For all its popularity though, live betting is not offered by all Internet bookmakers. This is especially true in the case of the US, where so far only one reputable website features live betting, bodog.com. This is however quite different in Europe, where sport betting is widely accepted and legal, where betting sites are granted licenses by their respective governments. It is in this part of the world where live betting is by far the most popular form of gambling.
One example of a European bookmaker that runs a highly successful live betting operation is Bet365.com in the UK. This portal also offers live streaming of all Euro 2012 games, right there on their own site, allowing customers to watch games in real time. Both popular domestic and international football tournaments such as the UEFA European Championships, Portuguese Superliga, Italian Serie A, and Spanish Primera Liga are featured in Bet365 Live. They also offer other popular international sports such as volleyball, handball, darts, squash, snooker, tennis, and cricket. All sporting games shown in Bet365 Live come with an in-play betting menu. Though there are other bookmakers in Europe that offer similar features and services (Ladbrokes, William Hill, Unibet, and BWIN), Bet365 so far has the widest coverage and offers Euro 2012 betting in more languages and currencies than all of the others.
Betting Exchanges
Betting exchanges are online gambling platforms that are designed for peer-to-peer or team-to-team betting. The concept behind the betting exchange is quite straightforward – a player logs in to the game he or she wants to bet on, and then chooses the team that they want to back. In order for wagering to proceed, players have to ensure that another individual has a bet that runs counter to his, which fortunately happens in most cases.
One thing good about betting exchanges is that you can “sell” your position anytime during a game, to minimize your losses. For example, if a team you are supporting is winning in a particular game and its odds of becoming the winner at the final whistle are strong, you can bet against it not to win. By doing this, you may be able to guarantee yourself a profit whatever the outcome of the game may be. Another nice feature of this platform is that you only pay commission for your net winnings or profit and not for your entire wager amount. So for instance in a series of games in Euro Championship Football 2012 you lost on Spain’s team but won on the England match, giving you a net profit of 200 pounds, only this amount will be charged for commission fees.
Sport Spread Betting
Another form of live betting that doesn’t get that much attention is sports spread betting (whose concept is similar to its counterpart in the financial markets). From the name itself, the system is based on spreads. For example, in the Euro Championship Football 2012, Holland is favoured to win over Greece and the spread is 0.20-0.40 goals. At the end, Greece won 2-1.
Gamblers then who sold Netherlands will win by a margin on 1.20 goals. This is because if you place a sell bet against the favourite team, you will be placed on the lower end of the spread range which in this case is 0.20. So if you wagered 100 pounds, you will win 120 pounds. On the other hand, gamblers who bought Netherlands will lose by a margin of 1.40, as betting for the favourite team will place you on the upper end of the range. So if you placed a 100 pound bet on Netherlands, you would lose 140 pounds.
Though you may be able to realize handsome profits from this form of betting if you are winning, keep in mind too that the risk of you losing your money in sport spread betting is also quite high.
Live betting tips
One strategy that you can use to maximize your chance for winning is to look for situations where you feel gamblers will overreact or under-react. For example if you know that a particular football team has a pretty resilient line-up that is capable of turning things around yet the market overall doesn’t feel the same way, you can back up this team when the time is ripe. For instance in Euro Championship Football 2012, Poland scored a goal against Croatia, but you know that the Croatians are more than capable of equalizing and even beating the Polish (even if the market believes otherwise). What you have to do is wait for the time when people start throwing all of their bets in favour of Poland before you place your wager. By doing this, you will be able to maximize your profit potential. On the opposite end, if you think that a particular team is not that capable of rebounding but the market is not taking this much into account, wait until the opposing team scores before you place your bet.
Another strategy that you can use when live betting in the European Championship 2012 is to bet that there will not be a draw, which is called laying the draw. Moreover, once a goal is scored you can back up the draw for higher odds, to ensure profits. This is because in very competitive tournaments, a draw is rare and strong teams will likely score at least one or two goals against weaker opponents.
Keep in mind thought due to the nature and unpredictability of international football matches, there is no live betting strategy that guarantees 100 percent results. As with all forms of gambling, live betting involves risk and in the end it’s up to you predicting the games.
Some gamblers let their emotions get the better of them during matches, clouding their judgment, resulting in disappointing outcomes. So if you do decide to play at live betting during the upcoming Euro 2012 matches, keep in mind to create a sensible game plan that you can stick to, do not go beyond your bankroll limits and risk only what you can afford to lose when attempting to recover losses.
