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How the sportsbook works
A match goes through five stages. Knowing which stage a match is in explains almost every question about it.
Feed → Prices → Board → Bet → Settlement1. Feed
A data feed lists every match: who plays, when, and in play the score and the clock. It also carries bookmakers' prices, which the book uses as its starting point.
The same match can reach the book under two listings, for example from two sources or because a source listed it twice. The book matches them by sport, start time and team names. A clear match is joined automatically; a near miss goes to the Possible duplicates list for a trader to join or keep apart.
2. Prices
The book does not copy anyone's odds. It takes a few main prices for a match — the 1X2 and the goal line, say — removes the bookmaker's margin, and builds a model of the match from them. Every market is then priced from that one model, so the prices are consistent with each other. The house margin, set on the Margins tab, goes on last.
In play the same model is run again from the current score and the time left, every time the feed reports a change. See Markets and prices for how this works with numbers.
3. Board
A match's board is its list of markets and prices as players see them. A board is open when it takes bets and closed (suspended) when it does not. The book closes a live board by itself when:
| Why | For how long |
|---|---|
| The feed has not reported for a while | Until fresh data arrives |
| A key event just happened: a goal or red card, a set won (table tennis, volleyball, badminton), a new quarter (basketball) | A few seconds (15 for eSoccer and eBasketball) |
| Two sources disagree on the score | Until they agree |
| The market has closed its own main market (a dangerous attack, a penalty, a VAR check) | Until it reopens |
| Our price has moved far from the market's (the median of the bookmakers quoting the match right now) and the model cannot follow it | Until it is close again |
| The clock or score cannot be read | Until it can |
| The match is in its last stretch (eSoccer, eBasketball) | To the end |
| A map is being played (esports: priced between maps only) | Until the map ends |
| A trader suspended it | Until a trader releases it |
Before the start, a football board is also closed while its main market is far from a betting exchange's price (the fairest price there is, where the exchange is busy enough to read), until a fresh price brings the two together again.
In play, football and tennis boards follow the market rather than close when it moves away from them: every fifteen seconds the book reads the market's live winner price and adjusts its model of the rest of the match to it (in football the goal rates still to come, in tennis how strong each player is), so every market on the board moves with it. A board closes only when the model cannot reach the market's price, or the market itself is closed.
A closed board stays visible with its last prices. Closed boards are listed after open ones.
The match page
Besides its board, each match page has a Match Centre card under the tracker, with tabs for what the data has for that match:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Stats | Live statistics, with a chart of which side is pressing |
| Lineups | The starting elevens, about an hour before kick-off |
| Table | The league table |
| Form | Each side's recent results and their head to head |
For tennis, the card also shows each player's world ranking (ATP or WTA singles, with points), or "Unranked" outside the top 500.
A tab shows only when there is data for it, and the card is hidden when there is none: many small leagues have no table or lineups.
4. Bet
A bet is taken through the player's wallet: the stake is debited when the bet is accepted, and the payout credited when it settles.
- Live bets wait 5 seconds and are checked again before they are accepted. If the price moved or the board closed in those 5 seconds, the bet is refused, not taken at a stale price.
- Each bet records the price it was taken at, and that price is what it pays.
- Stake limits and the player's segment are applied at placement. See Risk and limits.
Bet types: singles, combos, system bets (for example every 3 out of 4 selections as one bet), and the bet builder (several selections on the same match, priced together).
5. Settlement
When a match ends, the feed reports the final result and each market is settled by its rule — see Settlement rules. Winning bets are paid at once.
If the result source corrects a score shortly afterwards, the bets are settled again automatically. Later or unusual changes wait for a trader on the Result changes waiting for a decision list.
What "waiting for a person" means
A match on the Waiting for a person to settle list has bets that are still open. Nothing happens to them until a trader settles or voids the match. That list should be checked every day.