One of the most exciting ways to bet on esports is through in play, or live, betting. This means you are betting while the match is being played. An advantage of betting in play is that you can see how a team is performing before committing your bet. However, betting in play has its own unique challenges that you should be aware of before placing a bet.

Be aware that no stream is truly live - there is always some transmission latency between the venue and your screen. Some streams will have more latency than others. Sometimes latency can be reduced by watching though the game client. It is wise to find a source with as little latency as possible because this will give you the most information possible when you are deciding to place a bet. 

Knowing that there is latency in the information that we are seeing, it is a good idea to try to bet in periods of relative calm within the game. This is because if a big team fight is just around the corner, it could be that this is already incorporated into the odds, and we've yet to see the team fight due to the stream latency. 

Some esports like Counter-Strike have natural periods of calm between rounds - use this to your advantage when placing a bet. 

When there is a potential for a large movement in the odds, at times bookmakers have to suspend the betting market. You're likely to see this around big team fights in Dota 2 or League of Legends, or right as an engagement is beginning in Counter-Strike. Since the game state is changing rapidly, we need to suspend the market to recalculate what odds should be offered. Not to worry, new odds should be offered shortly. 

If you were attempting to place a bet in play and the market was suspended, then your bet will be rejected. You can try again when the market has been reopened. 

When betting in play we will often impose a short bet delay. This means that it may take around five seconds for your bet to be placed. This is a precaution on the bookmaker's end due to the latency issue noted above - the information that we are getting about the game state is also subject to latency. If a big team fight or otherwise odds changing event occurs during this bet delay, it is possible that your bet will be rejected. If so, you can try again when the market is open. 

Unfortunately, rejected bets are a reality of in play betting, but at Midnite we aim to design our sportsbook to make live betting as user friendly as possible. We hope to continue to improve our system to make in play betting easy from the bettor's perspective, and to reduce the frequency of suspended markets and rejected bets.