Tennis Live Betting Strategy

When live betting started getting popular around the early 2000s, sports betting fans quickly noticed that it worked pretty well with tennis. Tennis in-play betting can bring in steady profits if you know what you’re doing. So – how to live bet tennis? Keep reading to find out tennis live betting strategy and what professional punters do.

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 Tennis and Live Betting

Considering our previous statement, you must be wondering: why is tennis so good with live betting? Let’s consider a few points.

First of all, tennis is fairly slow-paced, in a way. We don’t mean that tennis matches are exciting or physically exerting – we mean that tennis matches can take a few hours where other sports go on for 60 – 90 minutes.

The main issue with live betting tennis is that you are often not given enough time to carefully consider the bet and if you should make it. That’s why bookmakers love it. A good bet is not placed on a whim or a gut feeling – smart bettors take the time to carefully research and weigh their options. As you may have guessed, this is not an option for live bets.

The length of tennis matches, combined with regular breaks between games and sets, allow for more breathing room. This, in turn, gives you more time to think about what you’re doing.

Secondly, the dynamic nature of the sport makes it easier to gauge the situation correctly. For instance, you only have one player whose form you need to consider (unless we’re dealing with doubles.) One player is much easier to keep track of then a whole team. With all of the above in mind, let’s take a look at some live tennis betting strategy and tennis betting tips.

tennis in play betting match prediction

Tennis Value Betting

This is not a specific in play tennis betting strategy per se, but it is a piece of live tennis betting tips that you should keep in mind at all times. Before hoping to profit with tennis betting, you need to be aware of the concept of value in wagering. Essentially, the idea is to place bets which have a good ration of returns (meaning odds) to the actual probability of an outcome taking place.

Spotting such opportunities takes experience and know-how, but we’ll give you some pointers now. The reason value in tennis live betting is easier to find than, say, football, is because bookmakers don’t give tennis as much attention as they do some more popular sports. This leaves more space for odds to be better than the actual chances of your bet winning – which is what value is all about. Click here if you want to know best crypto bookmakers in 2024 which have best odds and promotions.

live tennis betting strategy tips

But before you can spot them, you need to be able to gauge probabilities better than the bookie. This is not easy by any stretch of the imagination. However, tennis is played in circumstances where very little except the skill and form of the players affects the outcomes. Here are a few reasons why:

  • Only two competitors.
  • Video technology for referee calls.
  • Perfect weather/turf conditions at all times.
  • Crowds are quiet, meaning there’s no such thing as a home advantage in tennis.
  • The point system rewards consistent quality play, leaving less room for “flukes”.

All of this means tennis match prediction are much easier to make accurately than team-based games. Don’t get us wrong, shocks and upsets happen but live betting predictions on tennis seem to be more reliable than most other sports.

Set Outcome Live Betting

Now it’s time to get into in-play tennis betting specifically. Individual set outcomes are a great way of finding value, even for complete beginners. Bookmakers have a certain tendency to underprice favourites in tennis, especially as the match gets closer. There’s a simple trick to taking advantage of this fact.

If the favourite doesn’t immediately take lead, you can get much better odds for betting on them to win the set after just a few games. This way, you can get longer odds for making the same “safe” bet, only waiting for a short time for things to take off. The favourite is going to win anyway, and you just got bigger profits.

And if the favourite immediately takes a noticeable lead? Well, you haven’t put any money down yet. So you can just wait for the next opportunity!

live betting tennis

Second Set Handicap

As you may have gathered, the performance of a player in the early stages of the match can vastly impact the odds going forward. There are great ways of taking advantage of this.

For instance, look for a match where the underdog already lost he first match 6:0. Now, this very rarely happens – which is exactly why it’s so great for us. Tennis bookmakers, at that point, will start offering a positive handicap on the outcome of the second set, often as high as +5.5. This means that the underdog only has to win a single game for you to win the wager.

Statistically, this is almost sure to happen. To find such opportunities tennis betting in play, though, you must know which players to look for. Ideally, you want the favourite to be the kind of player who goes in “all guns blazing” – meaning that he tries to gain an early lead rather than conserve his strength.

in-play tennis betting

Conclusion

Which leads us nicely into our final, and probably most important tennis live betting tip: study the players. As we’ve previously discussed, the players are the only variable which matters for the outcome of a tennis match. Get to know them and how they play, and you’ll be well on your way to some serious returns.

With that in mind, while the tennis in-play betting strategies we discussed above may seem specific, they are not meant to be. These were made to illustrate our broader point about how you should be watching tennis matches if you’re looking to tennis bet in play. The interaction of players and their tactics, the rules and scoring tennis betting system, and how bookmakers interact with these is the key to success.

Read our tennis betting guide category, if you are interesting with more tennis strategy articles.

Dalius Mikalauskas

Sports Betting Expert

Dalius became interested in sports betting at the age of 16, although he could not place bets at that time (bets accepted from the age of 18). However, it was not forbidden to sell betting picks, which is what the author did actively on sports betting forums. Today, he has more than 18 years of experience in sports betting. In school, the auth ..
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