Live betting is betting on a game while it is being played, at prices the sportsbook keeps changing as the score and the clock move. It is also called in-play or in-game betting, and the bet is settled at the price shown when the sportsbook accepts it, not the price before kickoff.
A pregame line is where the live line starts. Atlanta Falcons at Green Bay Packers kicks off at 8:15 p.m. ET on Thursday, September 24, 2026, with Green Bay -4.5 and a total of 42.5 at DraftKings, as listed on ESPN that morning; from the first snap, those numbers are rebuilt play by play.
How the price moves during a game
Eagles at Titans on September 20, 2026, shows how far a price can swing. Before kickoff, DraftKings had Philadelphia -7 and -325 on the moneyline, a price that implies a 76.47% chance of winning.
With 1:56 left, Joey Slye kicked a 33-yard field goal to put Tennessee up 20-17. ESPN’s win probability model had Tennessee at 78.39% at that moment, which left Philadelphia at 21.61%. Turned into a moneyline with no margin, 21.61% is about +363, so a $100 bet at that price would win $363.
Philadelphia won 24-20. Jalen Hurts threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Darius Cooper with nine seconds left.
The ESPN figure is a model, not a sportsbook’s price. A book adds its margin, so the live price on Philadelphia at that point would have paid less than +363, and nobody can tell you now what any book actually posted.
A second example from the same Sunday
Packers at Jets, also on September 20, opened as a normal favorite’s game: Green Bay -3.5 and -185 before kickoff. With 11:04 left in the fourth quarter, Jason Sanders made a 32-yard field goal and New York led 17-7.
ESPN’s model gave the Jets 88.04% at that point, which puts Green Bay at 11.96%, or about +736 as a no-margin price. Green Bay scored on a 3-yard Christian Watson catch with 7:58 left, tied it on a Trey Smack field goal with 2:59 left, and won 20-17 in overtime on Smack’s 26-yarder.
Philadelphia was at 21.61% with under two minutes left, and Green Bay at 11.96% with eleven minutes left. Both won. A live price describes the game so far, and the rest of the game can still undo it.
What you can bet on live
Live markets follow the pregame ones, with new numbers:
- Live moneyline: who wins from here, at the current price.
- Live spread: a new point spread set from the current score.
- Live total: points still to come, added to what has been scored.
- Next score and drive markets: who scores next, or how a drive ends.
The live total is easy to misread. If a game with a 42.5 pregame total is 14-10 at halftime, a live total of 44.5 needs 21 more points, not 44.5. That is a made-up illustration of the arithmetic, not a price anyone posted.
Delays, suspensions and cash out
The rules for live bets are in each sportsbook’s house rules, and they are worth reading. FanDuel’s Massachusetts house rules, approved by the state’s Gaming Commission on March 27, 2025, say it “aims to use its reasonable efforts to suspend in-play markets” at the start and end of an event, may suspend some or all selections in a live market at its discretion, and warns that “live” broadcasts “may actually be delayed or pre-recorded.”
Those rules also say bet requests made in-play “may take slightly longer to process.” The game keeps going during that wait.
Cash out lets you settle a bet before the game ends, at the amount the book shows. FanDuel’s rules say a cash out request “is not guaranteed to be accepted” and can fail “if the market suspends or the odds move,” and that in-play requests may take longer “because of the in-play bet delay.”
Bets accepted after they should not have been can be voided. William Hill’s UK terms, version 2024/1.3, list bets taken on a market that should have been suspended, including where the event “is in progress” or “has already finished,” among the errors it can cancel.
How to approach live betting
Start with a pregame number of your own. If you had Philadelphia at about 76% before kickoff, a price implying 21.61% with 1:56 left is a question you can answer: is Philadelphia’s chance from there higher or lower than that?
Watch the source of your information. A TV feed that runs even a few seconds behind the data a sportsbook uses puts you behind the price, which is what FanDuel’s rules warn about.
Set the stake before the game starts. ESPN’s win probability for Eagles at Titans was recalculated 179 times over the game, and a bettor who chases each change makes a lot of bets.
Where to go next
For the week’s pregame numbers, our NFL predictions hub covers the week’s games, and live prices start from those lines. For baseball, see our guide on how to bet on baseball.
New to the bet types themselves? Start with our guide for beginners and our moneyline explainer, then our page on sportsbook betting markets.