Best PPH software for live betting

Who is moving the number

Before the game, a slow line costs you when a sharp player finds it. During the game, every line is slow for a few seconds, because the price has to catch up with what just happened on the field. The question is how few seconds, and who is watching.

Most live boards are driven by a model that takes the score, the clock and the pre-game line and produces a price (the live betting guide explains how a live line is made). That model may be the shop's own or a feed the shop buys. Either way, I'd ask the shop whether a person is watching the board during busy games, and what that person can do: take a market down, move it, or only watch. A feed with nobody behind it is a board that can't see an injury.

The delay and the suspensions

A live bet should wait a few seconds before it is accepted, and if something happens in those seconds the bet should be refused or repriced. That delay is your protection against the player who sees the play before your board does. Ask how long it is, whether you can lengthen it for one player, and whether it is the same in every sport.

Suspensions are the other half. A market should come down on a score, a turnover, a review or a player hurt, and come back at a new number. A board that suspends too rarely gets picked off. One that suspends all the time annoys your players, who will go and bet somewhere else. When you test a package, watch a busy game on the live board and count how often you'd have been exposed.

Limits for live, apart from the rest

I'd never let a player bet as much live as he does before the game, and the software should let you set the two separately. You want a maximum live bet per player, by sport, and the option to switch live off entirely for one account while leaving it on for the others. If the only control is a single limit for everything, I'd keep looking.

The price you deal

Live lines are usually dealt at a wider price than pre-game lines, and that is in your favor. At -110 on both sides, the theoretical hold on balanced action is 4.55 percent. At -120 on both sides it is 8.33 percent, nearly twice as much. Check whether the package lets you set the live juice yourself or deals one price for everyone. The extra hold is there because live betting is riskier for the book, so I'd think twice before giving it away to look generous.

How it is charged

Some shops include live betting in the head price. Others charge an extra fee for each player who bets live in a given week, or sell it as an add-on to the whole package. Get the rule in writing and work out what your own players would cost. Say you run 30 active players a week at a head price of $8, and 12 of them bet live at an extra $3 each: the week costs $240 plus $36, $276 in all.

Exposure moves faster

Live betting changes the shape of your weekly risk. A player who has lost the pre-game bet can chase it for the rest of the game, and a player who is winning can press. The open-bets report should show live tickets as they come in, by game, so that you can see what you have on a result before it finishes, not on Monday. Read the exposure page if that number isn't something you look at already.

Then keep a bankroll that covers your players' best night. Live betting gives them a lot more chances to have one.