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What Is A Half Time Bet In Sports Betting and Wagering?

by Doc's Sports - 10/13/2014

janet jackson

If you’ve ever made a full-game bet that was completely toast by half time, I will assume you know all about the half time bet. If you are one of the lucky few who don’t know what that feeling is like, a half time bet allows you to wager on the outcome of the second half on any particular game – regardless of what happened in the first half. If you look hard enough and focus in on one or two games, you can often find a line that offers more value than you would normally find on a full game line because the line is soft. Typically, these bets are most common in football and basketball, but are still made available for any sport that is played in halves.

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How do Half Time Bets Work?

Linemakers establish an estimated half time line before the game even starts and then adjust that line based on what transpires in the first half. For example, if a favorite gets off to a great start and leads at half time, you may be able to get the favorite at a lower number for the second half -possibly even as an underdog- as they try to maintain their lead and see the game through for a victory. In some instances, you may feel like the half time odds made available to you by the linemakers are off by a point or two and that there could be tremendous value for you to take advantage of. If that’s the case, I would recommend trusting your instincts and making the wager, especially on the weekend cards.

Weekends are typically the trickiest for the linemakers to set half time lines. On a college football Saturday, a lot of games reach half time at nearly the same time, leaving linemakers vulnerable to posting soft lines because of the limited time they have to analyze first half data due to a large amount of games. Also, unlike full game lines and prop bet opportunities, linemakers don’t have the luxury of making their half time numbers competitive. This can benefit sharp bettors who are disciplined and have multiple books to reference in order to find the best available half time line.

Factors to Consider When Placing a Half Time Bet

Now that we’ve established the fact that linemakers are sometimes susceptible to half time bets, you need to know how to take advantage of it. When placing a half time bet, you need to be a psychologist more than a handicapper. You need to be able to analyze that first half in one of two ways. First you need to comb over the first half numbers and come to a conclusion on whether or not you believe the stats will be similar in second half. And secondly, you need to trust your eyes. What you saw in the first half is a very good indication of what to expect in the second half. Don’t get me wrong, teams do make halftime adjustments, but a team that sleepwalks through much of the first half, might not be able to flip the switch and perform exponentially better in the second half.

We all know the traditional way of betting games is to wager on the full game line, but if you remain patient and have the discipline to hold out until half time, you might find yourself on the winning end of a lot more bets. If you bet a game before a ball is kicked or a play is run, you are betting on your perceived notion of what you expect to happen in the game. You aren’t able to take into account foul trouble, injuries, altered game plans, or even bad/good luck until the first half comes to an end. All of those factors can be analyzed and utilized to make a solid half time bet. I like to believe that if a bettor remains unbiased when watching a game, his eyes will allow him to witness what’s actually happening and he will be able to trust his instinct on what to expect in the second half of any game.

Popular Sports That a Half Time Bet Can Be Placed On

Truth be told, you can make a half time bet on just about any sport that is split into two halves. However, the most popular sports to lay down a half time bet on are basketball and football – both at the pro and college level. Because these two sports are very reliant on X’s and O’s, the half time break is typically used for a team to make adjustments that should help them throughout the rest of the game. Let’s use football for an example – If a team gets out to a big first half lead, they are likely to change their game plan and become a run-first team thus milking the clock as much as possible. Two things can be taken away from that adjustment. The leading team may play more conservative by running the ball which means the second half total could be worth a look to stay “under” the posted number. The other side of the coin is that the team playing catch up needs to score as many points as possible which could allow them to cover the second-half spread but still lose the game outright.

The half time bet is a great option to explore because it allows the bettors to hit the reset button if needed. A bettor can watch the first half and come up with an educate guess on how the second half will play out. This allows a bettor to either double down on the original bet or get some money back on any original bet that isn’t faring to well.

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